The BBC distorts scientific issues such as climate change, GM crops and vaccine safety by insisting on a “bogus impartiality” that gives undue weight to dissident views, an inquiry for the BBC Trust has found.
A misinterpretation of impartiality guidelines often creates a “false balance” in which a settled scientific consensus is given equivalence with maverick opinions, according to a report into BBC science coverage by Professor Steve Jones.
Professor Jones, a geneticist and broadcaster, said that the problem was particularly acute in climate change, in which people who dispute human contributions to global warming are given airtime that far outweighs the scientific significance of their arguments.
“For at least three years, the climate change deniers have been marginal to the scientific debate but somehow