In the shadow of the speed of light.

Martin, Mike

Questionable acts of commission--fraud, plagiarism, and deliberate deception--have recently scandalized The New York Times and wrecked the journalism careers of Times reporter Jayson Blair and former New Republic writer Stephen Glass.

Journalistic omissions may be just as potent and deceiving. When reporters know the whole truth and only report select facts, they can mislead their readers, damage the reputations of their subjects, and hurt their own credibility.

In recent issues of Discover, Publisher's Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor, and other well-regarded magazines, some of the world's best science journalists misled readers by omitting important facts about research reported by scientists John Moffat, Joao Magueijo, and a best-selling book on the speed of light.

Faster than the speed of light

In 1992, Moffat--a now-retired University of Toronto astrophysicist--hypothesized that light may have traveled faster in the early universe, then slowed to its present speed.

This controversial idea might explain important mysteries of the cosmos, but it would also repeal a fundamental scientific law. In 1905, Albert Einstein decreed that light never traveled slower--or faster--than 299,792 kilometers per second. Decades of research agreed with Einstein--the speed of light was a constant of nature.

Moffat published his "variable speed of light" theory in two places--on the Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) online archive, Nov. 16, 1992, and in a 1993 edition of the obscure International Journal of Modern Physics D.

"Physicists secure credit and primacy by submitting their papers electronically to the Los Alamos National Laboratory archives," science writer Dawn Levy of the Stanford University News Service told SJR.

Six years later, Cambridge University cosmologist Joao Magueijo and Andreas Albrecht, the leading cosmologist at Imperial College, agreed with Moffat in a strikingly similar paper.

They published "A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles" on the same LANL archive November 2, 1998, and later in the prestigious journal Physical Review D.

In 2001, in a development that stunned the scientific community, University of New South Wales astronomers John Webb and Michael Murphy reported evidence from distant stars that supported the so-called VSL, or "variable speed of light" theory

In the shadows

Ahead in the race to overthrow Einstein, John Moffat has nonetheless faded in the glare of Joao Magueijo's rising media star and the publicity machine promoting his new bestseller about the VSL theory, Faster than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation (Perseus, 2003).

Recent press accounts fail to mention Moffat or sideline him with niceties.

In an April 2003 Discover article, that magazine's former news editor, Tim Folger, makes no mention of Moffat's seminal contributions.

Despite facts to the contrary, Folger attributed the VSL theory entirely to Magueijo and Albrecht.

"Tim Folger interviewed me for about two hours," Moffat told SJR. "I explained carefully to him how I published the first VSL theory in 1993, six years before publication of the paper by Albrecht and Magueijo. How can he have distorted the truth about the origins of this theory to such an extent?"

Moffat put that question to Folger.

"I phoned Tim Folger regarding his article about VSL and spoke of my displeasure with the lack of credit attributed to me," Moffat said. "He told me that he 'thought about including a few sentences about the real origin of the theory but didn't.' I find this incredible."

Folger, who has a degree in physics, laments the oversight.

"I believe you are justified in writing an article about how John Moffat's work has been ignored by the press," Tim Folger told SIR. "Moffat is perfectly correct in his assertion of primacy, and it was poor judgment on my part not to include more about him."

Moffat experienced the same post-interview oversight by Toronto-based journalist Mary Rogan, of New York City's Seed Magazine, whose cover touts getting "Beneath the Surface" of science and culture.

For her article on VSL theory, Rogan took "a scenic tour" of 35-year-old Joao Magueijo's "rebellious mind" and found it "impossible not to notice how ridiculously handsome he is" while noticing "a body that goes with his second-degree black belt."

Rogan did not mention Moffat at a]l, though she "came to my office at the University of Toronto and interviewed me for two hours," Moffat told SIR.

Peer primacy

Unlike the press, the scientific community widely recognizes Moffat's first-mover status.

"There is no question about who had the idea first," University of Montana physics professor Neil Cornish told SJR.

"John Moffat had the basic idea for it all," added Acadia University physics professor and one-time Moffat co-author Michael Clayton.

"John Moffat's theory is more general than Magueijo's, and better developed," author and astrophysicist Paul Davies told SIR. "I personally am well aware that Moffat was ahead in this field, and I'm glad this is now becoming more widely recognized."

Even Magueijo and Albrecht recognized Moffat in a 1998 paper widely available online.

"After this paper, as well as its sequel, was completed, J. Moffat brought to our attention two papers in which he proposes a similar idea," Magueijo and Albrecht wrote. "We regret that because we were unaware of this work we did not cite it in the first publicly distributed version of this paper."

Making a mystique

Peer recognition itself does not make a scientist's career, however.

"The legend of who discovers a bit of science or brilliant innovation is really the result of effective publicity," public relations executive Scott Hildula of San Francisco's Red Umbrella Group told SIR.

Few people understand effective publicity better than a good agent does and Magueijo landed one of the best--New York City-based Susan Rabiner, a former science editor. Rabiner, who described Magueijo as a "stud muffin" in a recent Publisher's Weekly article, landed a sixfigure deal with Perseus Press for Magueijo's book.

Fawning journalists have since been tripping over themselves to portray Magueijo as a scholarly stud, a hunk of hubris who walks alone, conceiving masterful ideas about the grand design while drunk, hung over or fuming about the arrogance of the academic establishment.

"At the heart of Einstein's elegant equation, E=[mc.sup.2], is the constant speed of light," writes the Christian Science Monitor. "'Whoa!' cries Joao Magueijo, a young theoretical physicist" at once "courageous," "audacious" and "iconoclastic."

"Magueijo's heretical idea--that light traveled faster in the early universe--came to the author during a bad hangover one damp morning in Cambridge, England," Publisher's Weekly explains.

Ideas rather than apples fall from a murky sky in Tim Folger's Dickensian description which also suggests scientific legend Isaac Newton.

Magueijo, Folger writes in Discover, "was tramping across a sodden soccer field, suffering from a hangover and mumbling to himself, when out of the gray a (sic) heretical idea brought him to a full stop: What if Einstein was wrong?"

Press or PRess?

"Journalists are so fond of 'Einstein is wrong' headlines, which are unfortunately encouraged by publicity-seeking physicists," Michael Duff, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, told SJR. "Their need for an eye-catching headline almost always outweighs the unpalatable truth."

Building a more palatable story--the legend of a brilliant idea conceived through the murk, for instance--is "a PR phenomenon related to Joao's book," Andreas Albrecht, now at the University of California, Davis, told SJR. "When this story is reported in a colorful but not particularly accurate way in the press, I think most scientists see it as a public relations spectacle rather than a great event in the history of science that requires careful reporting."

A more accurate assessment of "credit for a research discovery is bestowed by the scientific community" explained Lauren E.D. Ward, media relations director of the science college at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The ethical responsibility to correct media misconceptions and omissions may therefore fall to Joao Magueijo--a member of the scientific community.

"Joao should be saying that John came up with the idea first," Neil Cornish told SJR.

Magueijo agrees--to a point.

"I am not responsible for what the press has written," Magueijo told SIR, and he does credit Moffat in important places reporters may simply be ignoring.

"I cite Moffat's paper in all of mine," Magueijo explained. "I also devote a whole chapter [Chapter 11] to Moffat and these issues in my book"

Making Magueijo's mystique by making mistakes may be a fault of the press, but people in sensitive positions who need credit to further their careers should take note.

"Researchers need to be aware that coverage of scientific discoveries by the press is extensive these days, and on the rise," Lauren Ward told SIR. While fellow scientists may give credit where credit is due, "credit for work, as it's represented in the press, is another matter," Ward added.

Michael Martin is a science, technology, law and business writer for such publications as UPI and NewsFactor. He is a member of the National Press Club and maintains a site devoted to science news, www.sciencenewsweek.com.