One of the big things philosopher-types like to do with their students is work on extracting arguments from a piece of text and reconstructing them. This can be useful in locating sources of disagreement, whether they be specific premises or inferences.
But some chunks of text that seem like they ought to have arguments that can be extracted and reconstructed end up being … opaque.
For example, this question and answer between Katie Couric and Sarah Palin (transcript by way of Shakesville):
Category Archives: Communication
Retired congresscritter offers communication tips to scientists.
The congresscritter in question being Sherwood Boehlert, who represented New York’s 24th Congressional district (1983-2007), and chaired the House Science Committee (2001-2007). Boehlert offers this advice in a video called “Speaking for Science: Bringing Your Message to Policymakers,” available for download from the American Chemical Society website.*
The video presents two scenarios in which a group of scientists meets with their Congressional representative (who happens to be a member of the House Science Committee, played by Boehlert). As you might guess, the idea is to contrast the effective meeting with the disastrous one.
The Hellinga retractions (part 2): trust, accountability, collaborations, and training relationships.
Back in June, I wrote a post examining the Hellinga retractions. That post, which drew upon the Chemical & Engineering News article by Celia Henry Arnaud (May 5, 2008) [1], focused on the ways scientists engage with each other’s work in the published literature, and how they engage with each other more directly in trying to build on this published work. This kind of engagement is where you’re most likely to see one group of scientists reproduce the results of another — or to see their attempts to reproduce these results fail. Given that reproducibilty of results is part of what supposedly underwrites the goodness of scientific knowledge, the ways scientists deal with failed attempts to reproduce results have great significance for the credibility of science.
Speaking of credibility, in that post I promised you all (and especially Abi) that there would be a part 2, drawing on the Nature news feature by Erika Check Hayden (May 15, 2008) [2]. Here it is.
In this post, I shift the focus to scientists’ relationships within a research group (rather than across research groups and through the scientific literature). In research groups in academic settings, questions of trust and accountability are complicated by differentials in experience and power (especially between graduate students and principal investigators). Academic researchers are not just in the business of producing scientific results, but also new scientists. Within training relationship, who is making the crucial scientific decisions, and on the basis of what information?
The central relationship in this story is that between Homme W. Hellinga, professor of biochemistry at Duke University, and graduate student Mary Dwyer.
Data paparazzi.
In a comment on another post, Blatnoi asks for my take on a recent news item in Nature:
An Italian-led research group’s closely held data have been outed by paparazzi physicists, who photographed conference slides and then used the data in their own publications.
For weeks, the physics community has been buzzing with the latest results on ‘dark matter’ from a European satellite mission known as PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics). Team members have talked about their latest results at several recent conferences … but beyond a quick flash of a slide, the collaboration has not shared the data. Many high-profile journals, including Nature, have strict rules about authors publicizing data before publication.
It now seems that some physicists have taken matters into their own hands. At least two papers recently appeared on the preprint server arXiv.org showing representations of PAMELA’s latest findings (M. Cirelli et al. http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3867; 2008, and L. Bergstrom et al. http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3725; 2008). Both have recreated data from photos taken of a PAMELA presentation on 20 August at the Identification of Dark Matter conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
I’d say this is a situation that bears closer examination.
Peer review and science.
Chad Orzel takes a commenter to task for fetishizing peer review:
Saying that only peer-reviewed articles (or peer-reviewable articles) count as science only reinforces the already pervasive notion that science is something beyond the reach of “normal” people. In essence, it’s saying that only scientists can do science, and that science is the exclusive province of geeks and nerds.
That attitude is, I think, actively harmful to our society. It’s part of why we have a hard time getting students to study math and science, and finding people to teach math and science. We shouldn’t be restricting science to refereed journals, we should be trying to spread it as widely as possible.
Peer review and refereed journals are a good check on science, but they do not define the essence of science. Science is, at its core, a matter of attitude and procedure. The essence of science is looking at the world and saying “Huh. I wonder why that happens?” And then taking a systematic approach to figuring it out.
I see what Chad is saying — and to the extent that science can be said to have an “essence” think he’s hit on a nice way to describe it. But I’m going to speak up for peer review here.
When the tactics become the message.
Once again, researchers who use animals in their research have been the targets of violence at the hands of animal rights activists.
As reported by the Santa Cruz Sentinel:
Appropriate use of sources.
The other day, Chad asked about the appropriate use of someone else’s published data:
There’s a classic paper on the Quantum Zeno Effect that I discuss in Chapter 5 of the book. The paper does two tests of the effect, and presents the results in two bar graphs. They also provide the data in tabular form. …
If I copy the data from the table, and make my own version of the graph, am I obliged to contact them and ask permission to duplicate their results in my book?
Chad’s commenters were of the view (substantiated with credible linked sources) that data itself cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law. Therefore, Chad could use the data (citing its source, of course) to make his own graph without having to get permission from the authors. While not required, letting the original authors know he was using their data would be polite, and making a graph with some value-added (rather than one that looked exactly like the graph the original authors made from their data) would also be a plus.
It was a really interesting discussion that somehow reminded me of a related kind of question raised by a friend of mine earlier this week:
What are the boundaries between appropriate use of a press release and plagiarism of that press release?
Minor epiphany about framing.
In the aftermath of Sizzle Tuesday, Orac wrote a post posing a challenge to the science communicators:
How would you deal with antivaccinationism? What “frames” would you use to combat the likes of Jenny McCarthy?
In the comments on Orac’s post, Matthew C. Nisbet turned up:
The anti-vaccine movement is a perfect issue to examine how framing has shaped communication dynamics and public opinion; and how various groups have brought framing strategies to bear in the policy debate.
I personally haven’t had time to do research on the topic. …
To understand and to make recommendations about the anti-vaccine movement, you would need to conduct polling, focus groups, and do an analysis of media coverage.
That’s the point I’ve made about framing from the beginning. It involves taking a scientific and research-based approach to science communication. Do the research, combine it with an understanding of past studies on science communication, and then plot a strategy.
Unfortunately too many bloggers think framing is something you whip up on the back of an envelope, and in the process they have little concept of what a frame might be, or understand the research in the area.
And finally, I think, I came to understand a crucial way in which the pro-framing camp and the “framing skeptics” have been talking past each other.
They will know we’re people of reason by our …
I have misgivings about wading into Crackergate — indeed, even about dipping my toe into the edge of the pool (which is all I’m promising here) — but here goes.
First, let me commend the thoughtful posts by Mark Chu-Carroll and John Wilkins on the issue. If you haven’t read them yet, read them now. (If you’ve already read them, read them again.)
Next, let me set forth the disclaimers that I’d hope would be obvious:
Movie Review: Sizzle.
Randy Olson’s newest film, Sizzle, bears the subtitle, “a global warming comedy”. To my mind, it delivered neither the laughs nor the engagement with the issue of global warming that it promised. Maybe this is just a sign that I fall outside the bounds of Olson’s intended audience, but perhaps the biggest question this movie left me with was who precisely Olson is trying to reach with Sizzle.