What was wrong with the genome story

© iStockphoto.com/Zmeel Photography

© iStockphoto.com/Zmeel Photography

John Timmer writes at Ars Technica that press reports of last week's ENCODE research update "painted an entirely fictitious history of biology's past, along with a misleading picture of its present. As a result, the public that relied on those press reports now has a completely mistaken view of our current state of knowledge." Timmer speads blame far and wide, assigning shares to reporters, press officers, journals, and even some of the project's scientists.