CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- "Tyrannosaurus rex scraped the meat from the ribs of its prey in much the same way a human might gnaw on a serving of barbecued ribs, a meeting of geologists was told on Tuesday.

Bite marks on fossil..." Well, you get the idea.

Now, this story made me smile. Apart from vegetarians, who doesn't love ribs? That's some fat, good livin'. But, the issue I'll take up here is about the popularization of science, or at least one strain of its current approach.

The popularization of science has been a major medium of scientific writing or popular journalism -- take your pick -- since the late 1700s. Even H.G. Wells, a former student of the famous biologist Huxley, did his share of it. And, I'm all for it. Again, as with ribs, who but a hard-core Creationist wouldn't be? But, I'm disgusted with the strain of popularization that is not only dumbing down the science, but also rendering it in terms near equivalent to WWF promotion.

This applies to marketed releases of "new" science such as the above (who didn't already believe a T. Rex would gnaw its prey down to the nubbiest bone on the body if it were hungry?). The wide publication of such releases -- picked up by media hungry for the least bit of scientific appeal -- concern me because they are taking the place of what ought to be real scientific reportage, which is much less sexy on the surface, but of far greater value in educating the public about the work being done, its implications, and its need for funding.

This also applies to popular science documentaries with unfortunately few exceptions -- especially those that purport to reveal "secrets" and "mysteries." These shows give the most superficial of introductions to their subjects, relying heavily on false suspense and drawn out visuals, portioning out the actual communication of information as if there were only five items of real news in the subject were known -- that is when hundreds of scientists are churning away at the stuff worldwide on a daily basis and publishing it regularly in disciplinary journals. Now it's true, I could just read a book -- and I might. But there's no question that such visual documentaries have a greater potential to inform the viewing public. They matter -- and right now, their state of development as a contemporary television genre (see any example on Discovery, TLC, etc.) is woeful indeed.