Category Archives: Communication

Reviewing a couple wee guides to critical thinking.

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One of the first things that happens when you get a faculty mailbox in a philosophy department is that unsolicited items start appearing in it. There are the late student papers, the book catalogs, the religious tracts — and occasionally, actual books that, it is hoped, you will like well enough that you will exhort all your students to buy them (perhaps by requiring them for your classes).

Today, I’m going to give you my review of two little books that appeared in my faculty mailbox, both from The Foundation for Critical Thinking. The first is The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, the second The Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies: The Art of Mental Trickery and Manipulation, both written by Richard Paul and Linda Elder.

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“I do not think that phrase means what you think it does.” (NYT on peer review)

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There’s an article in yesterday’s New York Times about doubts the public is having about the goodness of scientific publications as they learn more about what the peer-review system does, and does not, involve. It’s worth a read, if only to illuminate what non-scientists seem to have assumed went on in peer review, and to contrast that with what actually happens. This raises the obvious question: Ought peer review to be what ordinary people assume it to be? My short answer, about which more below the fold:Not unless you’re prepared to completely revamp the institutional structure in which science is practiced, and especially the system of rewards.

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Commenter calls for better terminology.

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A couple posts ago I posed these questions:

What do you want lay people to have as part of their store of scientific knowledge? What piece of scientific knowledge have you found especially useful, or would you like to have if you don’t already?

Among other things, my query prompted this response from commenter tbell1:

I’m usually just a lurker here on science blogs, but I have a pet peeve about the use of the terms ‘lay’ or ‘lay people’ in reference to nonprofessionals in science. Doesn’t it just stink of religion? Am I the only one who hates the term? Can we generate an alternative? ‘non-professional’ is a mouthful, but can’t we just say ‘people’ or ‘the public’ or educated citizens or something?

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Authorship, guests, and irony.

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My favorite T-shirt says “I [heart] irony. It’s a great shirt, because no one can be absolutely sure that I love irony. Maybe I’m ambivalent about irony and I’m wearing the shirt … ironically. Despite what the Ethan Hawke character in Reality Bites may have said, irony is not as straightforward as meaning the opposite of the literal meaning of the words you are uttering. Rather, it’s meaning something that is some distance from what those words mean — a distance that some in your audience may be able to decipher, but that others may miss altogether.

What, you may be asking yourself, does this have to do with the issue of authorship of scientific papers?

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“And I mean that in a good way” (or, the uses and misuses of labels)

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Last week Kevin Vranes wrote an interesting post about “skeptics”. One of the things he brought out is that, depending on the context, “skeptic” can be an approving label (here’s someone who won’t be fooled by flim-flam) or a term of abuse (there’s someone who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts of the matter). As well, Kevin notes that, especially when scientists are dealing with folks from outside the scientific community (e.g., journalists or politicians), terms like “skeptics” and “the mainstream” can be used to designate something like tribal memberships: here are the people that are worth listening to, and there are the people whose opinions can be dismissed.
I think the issue of labels is an important one, not only in scientist-lay person interactions, but also in scientist-on-scientist contexts. While I agree with Kevin that some labeling sets us on the path to intellectual laziness, there are instances where labels can actually be useful. The trick, as always, is to figure out just how much weight a label can carry for us and then not pile on any more than that.

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The challenges of getting the story straight

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I have noted before that communicating science to non-scientists can be, to put it technically, wicked hard. Some of this has to do with the current state of science journalism — journalists who don’t really understand scientific methodology or rules for engagement in disagreements between scientists get obsessed with “balance” rather than finding the center of gravity of the scientific community’s understanding of a given phenomenon. I’m optimisitic that science journalism can be improved, but it probably won’t be fixed by tomorrow.
You might think, though, that there are some good bets for getting a scientific point across to non-scientists. Say you’re given the opportunity to explain — at length — a scientific finding to a writer, and that writer works with you to make sure the story gets it right. Say you have a lay audience, but it’s a lay audience genuinely interested in the kind of scientific work you’re trying to communicate (because they work at the center where such work is done). You’ve worked out an explanation of the work that’s sufficiently non-technical for your audience (as confirmed by the writer who is working on the story). You are involved up until the story hits the research center newsletter. You’ve got it made in the shade, right?
Maybe not. Ask JoAnne Hewett.

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