Comment by franciscop
5 days ago
A bit of a tangent but I've read this phrase almost verbatim in another article[1] today:
> "This study is really good," says Sunghwan Jung, a biophysicist at Cornell University who studies the mechanics of animal movements and was not involved with the research. It shows, he says, that the guts of these animals "are very special."
The other article [1] quote:
> It’s “an impressive step,” said Jack Szostak (opens a new tab), who studies the origins of life at the University of Chicago and was not involved in the research. “I don’t know of any other effort to put together an artificial cell from biological components that has progressed so far.”
Are these editorial guidelines to get an independent read? Just coincidence? I don't think they are LLM bits because I expect better from these magazines, but it's too eerily similar.
[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-first-time-a-cell-bui...
I had to read your comment several times, because the quotes seemed to have nothing in common, let alone be "almost verbatim". Then I realized you were probably commenting not about the quotes themselves, but about the formulaic construction "…said <person>, <description> <relation>". Yes it's a standard format common to all science journalism and journalism in general. Even searching for the specific phrase "and was not involved with the research" and looking for pre-2022 results (needs a bit of filtering as search engines are biased towards recent pages), we find for example:
> [2014-01] “Here you’re able to, in combination, use many, many selective antibodies and screen them in a very sensitive manner,” said Mark Rubin, who directs the Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital, and was not involved in the research. https://csb.mgh.harvard.edu/data/wiki_pages/26/thescientist....
> [2018-12] “I think it’s beautiful stuff; I’m really excited,” says Eric J. Schelter of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies lanthanide-dependent enzymes and was not involved in the research. https://axial.acs.org/biological-chemistry-and-chemical-biol...
> [2020-06] The study “adds to the growing appreciation of cells’ responses to bioelectric aspects of their environment,” said Michael Levin, who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University and was not involved in the research. https://partnerships.princeton.edu/news/researchers-use-elec...
> [2018-11] Linda Bauld is Professor of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the NCRI Cancer Conference Scientific Committee, and was not involved in the research. She said… https://ecancer.org/en/news/15060-doctors-and-nurses-relucta...
> [2019-03] The case provides “solid evidence for remission,”says Hans-Peter Kiem, a physician who studies cell and gene therapy at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and was not involved in the research. http://institute.wuhanvirology.org/Newsletter2016/201904/P02...
> [2021-08] ‘I would say there's a lot of potential … now that they have shown that these structures are feasible, they are stable, at least under these conditions,' said Professor Roman Fasel, who heads the nanotech@surfaces Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) and was not involved in the research. https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/hor...
> [2011-01] Dr. Kristine Scordo, who heads the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Wright State University-Miami Valley College of Nursing and Health in Dayton, Ohio, and was not involved in the research, said the results with rosuvastatin are consistent with what she sees in clinical practice. https://webapp2.wright.edu/web1/newsroom/2011/01/18/rosuvast...
> [2022-06] The findings could allow doctors to “focus on the patients we think would truly benefit from chemotherapy and avoid the side effects for patients for whom it’s likely unnecessary,” said Dr. Stacey Cohen of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who reviewed the colon cancer findings and was not involved in the research. https://nihfw.ac.in/Doc/Daily%20Health%20News%2020220608.pdf
> [2018-11] Robert Jones is Chair of the NCRI's Advanced Disease Prostate Cancer Clinical Studies Subgroup, Professor of Clinical Cancer Research at the University of Glasgow, and was not involved in the research. He said https://ecancer.org/en/news/15045-men-with-prostate-cancer-w...
> [2022-07] Professor Marielle Pijnenburg is head of the paediatric assembly of the European Respiratory Society and was not involved in the research. She says… https://publications.ersnet.org/press/2022-07-children-close...
> [2022-08] “Alcoholism is hard to treat, so any success is noteworthy,” Boris Heifets, who studies psychedelics at Stanford University and was not involved in the research, tells STAT News’ Olivia Goldhill. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/psychedelic-magic-...
It's really a common format, and gathering quotes from independent sources is pretty much what all journalism is about.
Isn't the more parsimonious explanation that science journalists and writers have scientist friends or advisors who they consult when something interesting happens? I imagine their correspondence going something like:
"Hi, Jack, came across this thing where they claim to have created artificial life. Is it real?"
"It's an impressive step..."
"Hey, Jack, there's this new thing called LK-99 that everyone is excited about. Why?"
"It's not real"
Some amount of `site:www.quantamagazine.org "Jack Szostak"` querying on Google seems to indicate this might be the case. Though I have to say it's probably not everyone who has a Nobel laureate on their rolodex for a quick "hi, is this real?"
Yes, good science writing almost always gets an opinion from someone not involved in the research for the article. I would guess varying definitions of "not involved" depending on the repute of the publication.
Yes I understand, it's just the feeling I get is a bit odd, like the thing you get at the end of the ad like "9/10 doctors recommend this".
I think this is just a way of breaking up the quote that adds attribution in the middle. Probably a common reporting phrasing more so than an LLM invention (Or maybe it's a real quote in both cases, but they used an LLM to write parts of the article, just making sure the quotes are correct in the end).