In a discussion some time ago, we reviewed Louis Blom-Cooper's call for the
Press Complaints Commission to act on poor reporting of science. I do not
know of any case where the PCC has ruled on science stories, but there is
one case where the Broadcasting Standards Commission has indeed upheld the
"scientific" case. The article below is from yesterday's Independent.
Perhaps the PCC could be a two-edged sword for those who want a "proper"
view of science in the Media?

Andy
===
Horizon, the BBC flagship science programme, is to be criticised for the
first time by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for being unfair to two
authors who believe the world was once dominated by a "lost civilisation".
The BBC has been forced to re-edit the Horizon programme "Atlantis Reborn",
which questions the maverick theories of Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval,
authors of the bestsellers Fingerprints of the Gods and The Orion Mystery.
The two men have also challenged the BBC to broadcast a live debate in which
they can argue their case - but the corporation confirmed yesterday that no
debate was planned.
Mr Hancock and Mr Bauval believe that an advanced civilisation with
sophisticated technology once inhabited the earth but was destroyed by a
global cataclysm at the end of the ice age, around 10,500BC. Their theory
suggests that the "lost civilisation" was behind the building of the
pyramids - an argument that helped to sell more than four million books, and
which was questioned in the Horizon programme.
Dr Edwin Krupp, an astronomer, said the authors' assertion that the pyramids
at Giza represented the constellation of Orion "could be made to work only
by turning upside down either the image of Egypt or that of the sky".
The authors' essential rebuttal of the upside-down argument was left out.
They contest that Dr Krupp's evidence relies on the modern convention that
north is up, and that the ancient Egyptians would have modelled the pyramids
on Orion "as they saw it".
BBC insiders acknowledged yesterday that the programme was being edited "a
teeny bit" to include Mr Hancock and Mr Bauval's response - in time for a
rebroadcast due on 14 December - just over a year after the original. The
corporation is sticking by the programme's team, and points out that only
one of 10 complaints by the two authors was actually upheld by the watchdog.
The unsuccessful complaints included Mr Hancock's assertion that the
programme made him out to be an "intellectual fraud", and Mr Bauval's
argument that it made his Giza-Orion Correlation Theory - which also links
the Nile with the Milky Way and the Sphinx with the constellation of Leo -
seem to be a con.




%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%