Pencils ready? Here’s a quick quiz; circle all that apply*:
1. You’re a scientist and you’ve just published some research in a peer reviewed journal. You want:
a. Scientists in your field to read and discuss your work.
b. Interested non-scientists to get the important bits of what you found and why it matters, whether by powering through the article themselves or by getting a clear explanation of the article from a scientist.
c. No discussion of your article at all — once it’s on the page in the journal, there’s nothing else to say about it.
d. All discussions of your findings to be based on press releases rather than the details in your journal article.
Category Archives: Scientist/layperson relations
Scientists and non-scientists need to talk.
In a guest-post at Asymptotia, Sabine Hossenfelder suggests some really good reasons for scientists to communicate with non-scientists — and not just to say, “Give us more research funding and we’ll give you an even smaller iPod.” She really gets to the heart of what’s at stake:
Keeping score in academe: blogging as ‘professional activity’ (or not).
During the discussion after my talk at the Science Blogging Conference, the question came up (and was reported here) of whether and when tenure and promotion committees at universities will come to view the blogging activities of their faculty members with anything more positive than suspicion.
SteveG and helmut both offer some interesting thoughts on the issue.
Is ‘what is this good for?’ a question to be discouraged?
Larry Moran posts a response to my response to his earlier post on the advisability of putting ethical discussions into science classes. Careful fellow that he is, he’s decided to stick to a single issue per posting, so he starts with “the relationship between science and technology and where ‘ethics’ fits in”. Larry opines:
Part of what we need to do as science teachers is to make sure our students understand the difference between science and technology — between the uses of science and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. …
The goal, as far as I am concerned, is to convince students that knowledge for its own sake is a valuable commodity regardless of whether or not the knowledge can be applied to the betterment (or destruction) of Homo sapiens.
Two NYT stories worth a look.
Some readers have called to my attention a pair of recent stories from the New York Times that you may find interesting.
First, Audrey noted another dispatch on the eternal struggle over how math ought to be taught:
What’s your legislative agenda for the first hundred days?
The 110th Congress has been elected. Whether it’s the crowd you voted for or not, there’s quite a lot of talk now about a new direction, a new civility, possibly even a new pony (but I might not have heard that last part right).
So, given that the Congresspersons will be looking for our votes again in another two years (along with a third of the Senators), this seems like a good time for the people (i.e., you all) to put together an agenda for these elected representatives of ours. To streamline things a bit, and in keeping with the overarching themes of this weblog, let’s restrict the wish-list, at least for the moment, to issues to do with science, education, and matters of ethics — broadly construed. It would be good if you could provide a brief description of why your agenda item should be a priority, and whose needs or wants it will serve. If you’ve got a clever plan for funding it, so much the better.
If we can hammer out some good science/education/ethics goals for the legislative branch, I’m prepared to launch a letter-writing campaign to communicate them to the legislators, and a Congress-watch to keep track of how well they do at achieving these goals.
Seems to me that they ought to care what we want even after they’ve gotten our votes. Let’s make sure they know what that is — and that we’ll be watching!
My (unhinged) plan for improving science journalism and the market for it.
I’m blaming the folks at Three Bulls! for the post that incited this one. Indeed, I started my descent into what is clearly a delusional plan in a comment there.
The short version: Pinko Punko was disturbed at how very little actual communication of content was involved in a presumably science-centered media frenzy. The “journalists” in question neither sought actual informative content from scientists (let alone striving to understand that content), nor passed on anything like it to their viewers. To those of us who expect journalism to communicate actual content (or at least try to), this is disturbing.
Hoping that perhaps, from this brush with media frenzy, Pinko Punko could offer a more precise diagnosis of the problem, I asked:
Is it a supply-side problem — primarily, one of incompetent science journalists, or of journalists who think they understand more science than they actually do? If so, could this be the answer to our oversupply of science Ph.D.s (i.e., send them to the press conferences and the newsrooms)?
Is it a demand-side problem — with the public unable to get the least bit interested about science (at least when there’s a good Congressional sex scandal or a celebrity behaving badly), or interested but without the requisite understanding of the most basic details of science to really “get” the scientific findings they might be interested in?
Do the people on the supply end misjudge the interest or intelligence of the people on the demand end?
Can we lay this all at the feet of people who use print, audio, and video news to sell ads?
The diagnosis? Probably all of these are at work. That means it’s time for a cunning plan (which in its present form involves no turnips but possibly a little mind control). Here is a slight elaboration on the manifesto I posted at Three Bulls!
I want a spinach salad.
I can’t remember a time I have had a more severe jones for a spinach salad than the last few days. The perfect balance of crisp and earthy and creamy, whose eating would be not merely a mechanical refueling of my body, but a transcendant experience — is that too much to ask?
Well, during a spinach-borne outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 it is. But, while I dream of spinach (and grade papers), I’m thinking of how information (or lack of information) about our foods plays a role in our ability to make choices about what to eat.
I’m hating their tactics, but I feel some lingering unease.
I am, as usual, late to the party reacting to the news that UCLA neurobiologist Dario Ringach has given up research on primates owing to “pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project”. As reported by Inside Higher Ed:
Ringach’s name and home phone number are posted on the Primate Freedom Project’s Web site, and colleagues and UCLA officials said that Ringach was harassed by phone — his office phone number is no longer active — and e-mail, as well as through demonstrations in front of his home.
In an e-mail this month to several anti-animal research groups, Ringach wrote that “you win,” and asked that the groups “please don’t bother my family anymore.”
The North American Animal Liberation Press Office, a resource for the media on “animal liberation actions,” according to the group’s Web site, posted a news release from the Animal Liberation Front, a separate group that sometimes engages in illegal activities, about Ringach’s decision. The press release describes Ringach’s research as torturous and “a far cry from life saving research.” UCLA officials said that groups like ALF often misconstrue information, and that, in the interest of researchers’ safety, the university is not releasing detailed information about projects being attacked by such groups.
Colleagues suggested that Ringach, who did not return e-mails seeking comment, was spooked by an attack on a colleague. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of Lynn Fairbanks, another UCLA researcher who does experimentation on animals. The explosive was accidentally placed on the doorstep of Fairbanks’s elderly neighbor’s house, and did not detonate.
Academia, capitalism, and conscience.
Regular commenter and tireless gadfly Bill Hooker asks what my take is on the movement afoot to get academics to put pressure on (and perhaps completely boycott) scientific/technical/medical publisher and information portal Reed-Elsevier.
What’s wrong with Reed-Elsevier? Among other things, they host “arms fairs” — like book fairs, but with munitions and torture equipment (which means it’s unlikely Scholastic will be hosting an arms fair at the local primary school).
But hey, are we expecting a company to be able to stay afloat on revenues from academic and technical publishing alone?