Jan 06 2010
Bad Science Writing Dept: Anthropomorphizing for the Birds
Last I checked, birds had not been acknowledged as a psychic order of biological life. That is why this headline caught my critical eye:
Tropical Birds Waited for Land Crossing Between North and South America, Study Finds
Perhaps my eye is nit-picking in this case. You be the judge. Here’s the wording of the claim:
Despite their ability to fly, tropical birds waited until the formation of the land bridge between North and South America to move northward, according to a University of British Columbia study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Okay, good science writing ain’t easy. The number of words at our disposal is finite, after all. But the question remains, is wait the best word to describe what the birds did? Doesn’t wait imply a knowledge of the something being waited for? If so, how did the birds know a land bridge would form?
How would you word what the birds did? Keep in mind that you are writing about science.
