Is science using images to cheat?

As the power of the image continues to grow in science, Russ Swan asks…are we abusing this power? 

We’re living a lie, and it needs to stop.  If science has a mission, it is the revealing of truth and the communication of that truth to the world. Along the way we might pause to cure the occasional disease or make the lives of billions of humans better in some small way, like electricity or aeroplanes or frozen pizza, but really it’s all about veracity. Authenticity. Legitimacy.

Why, then, do we so routinely offer mistruths, half-truths, guesses and suggestions as scientific fact? Discoveries are routinely communicated with no hint of qualification: research proves that what we once thought was right was actually wrong, but now we know that this is right instead. New fact discovered, all hail science.  It’s clear that some of these new facts may enjoy but a short existence before vaporising in the heat of the next discovery, and we would do well to bear that in mind when the temptation to get all fundamental makes itself felt. This year’s best guess, that’s all. As we look for better ways to communicate increasingly complex ideas and discoveries, many will naturally turn to imagery.

Now, I’m a big fan of illustration in scientific communication. At one time it was considered slightly undesirable to resort to pictures, especially anything that was aesthetically pleasing, to communicate facts. The power of words should be enough, and would be more rigorous, it was felt. Thankfully we now know better, and the use of still and (increasingly) moving images has helped move the story along a great deal. But there is a dark side to this movement. A creeping tendency to make the pretty picture just a little bit prettier – or even to pass off artistic invention as actual observation. And this bothers me.

A little gentle tidying-up has always been present, and something of a dark secret. Honestly, who hasn’t been at least tempted? In a data set, obvious outliers can be safely removed because they simply confuse the issue without adding anything – right? What works in number-crunching also works in image processing. A rogue speck on a micrograph provides no information other than hinting at a bit of bad luck (or maybe poor cleanliness) in the lab. Everybody is better off if it simply disappears. A half-century ago, the airbrush was the tool of choice. Images made with the best optics and most diligent adherence to protocols still came out fuzzy, but with a little gentle assistance could be made to communicate knowledge more effectively. Today we do it with Photoshop, and digital enhancement has become so commonplace that we seem to have forgotten that what we are doing is telling lies.

You and I may be able to interpret an electron micrograph, and recognise that the colours have been added in order to highlight some interesting detail, but not everybody appreciates this. Many must believe that the universe at nanoscale is actually coloured in vibrant pastel shades, because that’s what they see. Because that’s what the scientist told them. Even worse are the fantasy images that masquerade as photographs, which appear with distressing frequency. I was recently looking at some fascinating research on black holes and the accretion disks that seem to surround many of these, and came across a startling image of a toroidal cloud at the centre of a distant galaxy.

It looked too good to be true, which of course it was. The ‘photograph’ was pure invention, skilfully created by the artist under the direction of the scientist to convey the essence of a discovery. What bothers me is not so much that this happened, but that nowhere was the provenance of the image stated. The thing was presented, and no doubt widely accepted, as a photo. This certainly is not an isolated example, and although astronomers are probably the worst offenders they are not the only ones. Publications lap up these images, and few take the trouble to verify their true nature (the one you are reading does, the editor describing the process as “walking the image tightrope between accuracy and beauty”). But does it matter? As long as what is being conveyed is an accurate reflection of current truth, what harm is done?

In an age where all manner of innocent images are mislabelled and misrepresented for political or other purposes, where Photoshop is available to anybody and can be used to ‘prove’ just about anything imaginable, and where sensational images are shared globally within seconds, yes it does matter.  There remains a hard core of flat-Earthers who delight in exposing the fakery they perceive where none actually exists – the moon landings, and more recently the International Space Station (honestly! I’ve only just become aware that there are actual breathing humans who think all ISS images are CGI).

How can we scoff at the ignorance and naivety of those individuals, while serving them with exactly the sort of lies they are exposing? We cannot uninvent Photoshop, and we’ll never drag some people away from their paranoid fantasies, but we can make sure that the misinformation does not start with us.