Recently in Communicating science Category

I've mentioned Randy Olson's book, Don't be such a scientist, repeatedly over the last several months,¹ and yesterday I received an e-mail from Island Press, Randy's publisher, with the following news:

In a webinar on November 19 at 1PM EST, Olson will draw on his own hilarious-and at times humiliating-evolution from science professor to Hollywood filmmaker and offer his perspective on communicating science at a time when information and facts are more important to the discussion than ever.

Here's a link to the page where you can sign up. It's a GoToMeeting sign up page, and signing up is free and easy.

A radio broadcast on probability told through a tale about a drifting balloon, a newspaper series on the impact of a devastating genetic disease on a family in rural Montana, and a group of gracefully written stories about genetics and evolution are among the winners of the 2009 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.

Read more at AAAS.org. I was especially pleased to see that Carl Zimmer was recognized "for a trio of articles he wrote for The New York Times on aspects of genetics and evolution."

AIBS Publishes Darwin Articles Open Access
 
To celebrate the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is publishing open access two peer-reviewed articles about Charles Darwin and his historic insights into evolution.

The two articles are by Kevin Padian of the University of California, Berkeley, and James T. Costa of Western Carolina University.  Padian's article, "Ten Myths About Charles Darwin," appeared in the October issue of the AIBS journal BioScience and can be read at http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.10.  Costa's article, "The Darwinian Revelation: Tracing the Origin and Evolution of an Idea" is published in the November issue of BioScience and can be read at http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2009.59.10.10.  Padian explores some common inaccuracies and untruths about Darwin and his life's work, painting in the process a clear portrait of the man and his struggles to develop a theory to explain the diversity of nature.  Costa draws on Darwin's letters and notebooks and other sources to trace the origins of Darwin's key insights, which came to him over many years. Costa suggests that biology teachers can use Darwin's reasoning as a superb example of creative scientific thinking.

A couple of months ago, I pointed out that Carmine Gallo told us how to give a really bad presentation. His plan, of course, was to share that advice so that we'd know what not to do. Knowing what to avoid is helpful, but knowing what to do is even better.

Well, Gallo now has some advice on what to do.

Steve Jobs does not sell computers; he sells an experience. The same holds true for his presentations that are meant to inform, educate, and entertain. An Apple presentation has all the elements of a great theatrical production.

And those elements are

1. A headline.
2. A villain.
3. A simple slide.
4. A demo.
5. A holy smokes moment.

It won't be easy to make a simple slide or a demo about Bayesian hierarchical modeling, but I can probably come up with a headline, a villain, and a "holy smokes", and three out of five would make me a hall of famer in baseball.

Scientists tend to view disagreements as matters of fact and theory that can be settled by data and logic. If the data are consistent with one view and inconsistent with another, that's the end of the story. We often complain when the public doesn't understand or doesn't get it. We figure that if we just explained ourselves more clearly, the facts would speak for themselves.¹

If you've been reading this blog for more than a couple of weeks, you know that I don't buy that view of the world.

The editors of Nature agree. From yesterday's issue:

The public reception of scientific ideas depends largely on two factors: people's ability to grasp factual information and the cultural lens through which that information is filtered.

And this:

The lesson for today's scientists and policy-makers is simple: they cannot assume that a public presented with 'the facts' will come to the same conclusion as themselves. They must take value systems, cultural backdrops and local knowledge gaps into account and frame their arguments accordingly. Such approaches will be crucial in facing current global challenges, from recessions to pandemics and climate change. These issues will be perceived and dealt with differently by different nations -- not because they misunderstand, but because their understanding is in part locally dependent. (emphasis added)

Newspapers are dying, and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University is suspending its program in environmental journalism. At a time when the greatest challenges facing us -- global climate change, loss of biodiversity, emerging infectious diseases, nanotechnology, energy -- are centered on science and technology, the science division of CNN shut down its science division late last year and the number of science journalists is decreasing. The task of covering issues with a large scientific/technological component increasingly falls to general beat reporters who don't have specialized training in science. They're often very smart, but they aren't experts, and they could use some help.

Which is where our friends north of the border are ahead of us (source).

The Science Media Centre of Canada will help journalists cover stories in which science plays an important part.

...

More than two dozen organizations from the private, public and corporate sectors have donated $5,000 to become Charter Members of the SMCC and are recognized on the Centre's website (www.sciencemediacentre.ca). This support is allowing us to push ahead aggressively in these areas:

• Governance models, location, start-up funding and long-term financing have all been examined by Halifax Global and that Business Plan is posted on the Centre's website.
• Formal application has been made to incorporate the SMCC federally as a non-profit corporation.
• A project manager will be engaged shortly to help the Steering Committee identify "Champions" of greater public engagement with science and to raise funds for the start-up and initial year of operations, estimated at $1 million.

Here's hoping that the Centre is successful and that it inspires a similar effort in the United States.¹ In the meantime, journalists in the U.S. may have to hope that

non-Canadian non-science reporters who suddenly have an assignment on, oh, the relative merits of biofuels made from krill or algae, or a giant comet aimed straight at our Moon, or a finding that tuna are fully sentient, can call up something called the Science Media Centre of Canada for a tip on what to do and what's this about anyway. (source)

DotEarth, Andy Revkin's blog at the New York Times, is two years old today. If you aren't familiar with DotEarth, shame on you. You should be. If you are familiar with it, I'm sure you'll agree with me that it's an extraordinarily valuable resource.

Please join me in wishing Andy a happy second birthday! Read him regularly. It's worth your time.

And you might make Rush Limbaugh's head explode in the meantime. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this entry from DotEarth in which Revkin responds to Limbaugh's suggestion that he, Revkin, commit suicide.

The paragraph below comes from this week's Nature. It's an excerpt from an interview with Robert Gifford, who co-authored a report from the American Psychological Association on psychology and global climate change.

What five elements make up an effective message?

First, it has to have some urgency. Second, it has to have as much certainty as can be mustered with integrity. Third, there can't be just one message: there must be messages targeted to different groups. Fourth, messages should be framed in positive terms. Evidence from a recent thesis I co-supervised shows that people are less willing to change their behaviour if you tell them they have to make sacrifices. If you tell them they can be in the vanguard, be a hero, be the one that helps -- that works. Fifth, you have to give people the sense that their vote counts and that their effort won't be in vain.

There you have it. The advice comes in the context of communicating about global climate change, but I'm going to paste that paragraph somewhere where I see it frequently, because the advice applies to communicating any message.

Houston, we have a problem. Jon Stewart thinks cap and trade is boring. And as if that weren't bad enough, a new survey out from the Pew Research Center for People & the Press tells us

There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem - 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.

As the graph at the left shows, the decline is independent of political affiliation. There's been a decline in the number of people who think there's good evidence for climate change among Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. In 2006, over 90% of Democrats agreed that there's good evidence for global warming. Now only 75% agree.

That decline occurred in the face of ever-mounting evidence that climate change is real and that humans are contributing to it. To quote from the letter to senators released a couple of days ago: "[C]limate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver."

Clearly we have a problem here, and the problem isn't lack of data or lack of evidence. It's lack of communication. I wish I knew how to solve the problem, but I don't. Suggestions welcome.

I've written before about the death of newspapers. And as Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum describe in their recent book, Unscientific America, science and environmental journalism seems to be suffering disproportionately. Here's more evidence that Chris and Sheril are right, from the Columbia Journalism Review:

For the first time since it was created fourteen years ago, Columbia University's highly regarded dual-degree graduate program in environmental journalism will not be accepting applications for next academic year.

In a letter to faculty at the Graduate School of Journalism, the Department of Environmental Sciences, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the program directors cited falling employment in the field, the rising costs of education, and a lack of financial aid for students as the reasons for their decision.

At a time when the environmental challenges we face are enormous and when the need for good environmental reporting is greater than ever, it is very sad to learn that environmental journalism will no longer be available as a specialty in one of our leading schools of journalism.