Michael Hanlon. How do you do it?

Michael Hanlon must have the most thankless job in Fleet Street. The mails science editor. I suppose that must sometimes feel like being the president of Al Quiedas LGBT society. Paul Dacre and science aren't exactly bedfellows. Scientists are only too often portrayed as sinister authoritarians who want to poison our kids (MMR scare), want to perform freak experiments on animals, or grotesque ambitions to change the face of humanity as we know it (any scare story on genetic engineering; cloning, or embryology.) A dangerous cabal of zealots who want to play god, you know the spiel. That great scene from the comedy, "The IT crowd" where they fool the women about "the elders of the Internet." is an apt parody of some sections of societies view of science (and computers) as a closeted Freemason like sect, unknowable and following its own secretive agenda. But I also noticed something else when I read Michael Hanlons new blog (it's very good as well.), as well as other articles he has done in the past. He is a very good popular science writer (and we need more of those), and he actually knows about science, rather than being a journalist who has to explain as best they can, science stories via secondary information. He should be perhaps better known; publication wise - to the public than he is. However it is striking reading his work - and now his blog as well; how much he can "get away with" in his articles. Stuff other columnists wouldn't.

The tales of Dacre's controlling nature in his editorial role are pretty infamous. He is obsessed with every sentence in the paper toeing his party line. Even something as innocuous as the film reviewer, Chris Tookey seems to be possibly being memoed to write shrill fire and brimstone "video nasty" reviews of films like "Kick Ass.", which aren't actually reviews at all, but "ban this filth" polemics. Suspicious Dacre soundbites appear in seemingly unrelated articles. He runs a tight ship, like some ultra controlling patriarch, dictating every aspect of his families lives to an obsessive degree. Hanlon however doesn't seem to be under as much scrutiny. He has produced sensible and well argued articles on climate change, easily shrugging off the deniers "claims". He has dismissed scare stories his own paper has pushed. He has only published about 5 blog articles so far. But is striking how much of it runs counter to the papers official "stance". His article about the vast clean up of the seas around Britain, highlight (supportively) the EU's role in bringing about legislation that allowed that to happen. Whilst simultaneously he damns the privatised utilities for putting profit ahead of public well being (isn't that what Dacre would call socialism?) He supports tax payers money funded manned space missions, and thinks it serves a more profound, emotional purpose to humanity, than just for military or commercial profit. He wonders why many scientists are left liberal, and astonishingly for a Mail writer; doesn't hold this against them. He is critical of the decay of scientific funding and prestige under Thatcher (ironically a PM with a science degree!), and the contempt the Bush government had for science. There's more! He defends Craig Venter, the biologist who created the "syntia" bacteria, by constructing its genome in a lab and transplanting it into a prokaryote. He doesn't denounce him as a monster who is building hideous new megabacteria to wipe out mankind, and puts what he achieved in context. That we aren't at a stage where a new life form can be built totally from scratch. This is bordering on heresy! I reckon by next week, we may have articles on the benefits to the scientific community of an experiment in which Paul Dacres mother is hit in the face with cricket bats; by two professors in lab coats, and that scientists have discovered that conservatives are more likely to have lower IQ's, smaller penises and uglier wives than liberals.

Is it possible that Dacre feels that science is such a fringe interestsw to his readership that he gives Michael Hanlon carte blanche to publish anything he likes? Does he even know who Michael Hanlon even is? Is Hanlon forced to work in a closet under the stairs. Has anyone in the Mails office even had contact with him in the past 5 years? Does he exist at all? Is he a Tyler Durden like figure existing only in Max Hastings mind? I have a feeling Michael Hanlon is so marginalised at Mail HQ, that he can be found at the papers Christmas party standing glumly on his own, sadly staring at the vol au vents, wondering when the alcohol will start to kick in and it doesn't matter that no guests wants to talk to him, and don't even know who he is. For that my friends is the status of science in our wonderful mass media. Bastards.