tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15982028251171147702024-03-05T17:47:07.224-08:00Public Understanding of SciencePublic Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-78598548249749327512015-12-02T19:00:00.001-08:002015-12-02T19:13:31.262-08:00Feeling the heat<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While leaders of more than 190 nations
are currently deliberating on climate action at the COP 21 summit of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, millions of ordinary
citizens have taken to the streets in cities and towns around the world to make
sure their voices are heard. These citizens fully understand the implications
of the science of climate change and they don’t want political leaders to drag
their feet on taking urgent action to arrest and reverse the devastating impacts
of climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The effects of climate change are
there for the world to see. The Indian Prime Minister and his entourage were in
Paris this week when the southern city of Chennai (formerly Madras) in his
country was deluged by the worst rains in over a hundred years, killing nearly
200 people, submerging homes, and cutting off power and transport links. The havoc caused was so unusual that even the
city’s venerable newspaper, <i><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/">The Hindu</a></i>, couldn’t cover the disaster as it
couldn’t bring its edition out for the first time since its inception in 1878.
This calamity, exacerbated if not entirely caused by poor urban planning, ties
in with the alternating bouts of heavy rainfall and drought in different parts
of the world, stifling heat in temperate zones, and a spate of cyclones,
tornadoes, and typhoons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In an earlier <a href="http://pus-journal.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/making-sense-of-global-through-local.html">blog</a>, we had highlighted
recent studies published in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a></i> that show the importance of emphasising
local contexts and framing information that people can relate to in conceivable
terms to get people to act on climate change. The increasing regularity of what
are seen as unusual climate events have made it easier for people to
acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus on human-induced climate
change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As social scientists and science
communicators with a special interest in climate action, we (along with John Foran and Kum-Kum Bhavnani of the University of California, Santa Barbara) recently organised
an international symposium on ‘<a href="https://sites.google.com/a/waikato.ac.nz/climate-futures/">ClimateFutures</a>’ at the Rockefeller Foundation’s <a href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/bellagio-center/">Bellagio Center</a> in July this year to
brainstorm innovative ideas to combat climate change. The 19 of us, from 17 countries across six
continents, had a range of perspectives to share but we were all united in
centring the idea of justice in action that the world takes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following
the symposium, John, Kum-Kum-Kum, and the two of us, along with most of the symposium participants, sent an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kumkumbhavnani/climate-justice-at-cop-21_b_8684554.html">open letter</a> to the executive secretary of UNFCCC,
Christiana Figueres, and the President of COP21, Laurent Fabius, urging them to
make sure the delegates “focus more sharply on the plight of those most
vulnerable, e.g. who live in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, Kiribati in the
Pacific, the Philippines in Asia, and Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa,
and who face the risk of being drowned or losing their freshwater resources as
sea levels rise.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We
make the case for “an ambitious and legally binding treaty, one that is both
effective and equitable” and call for a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions so that global temperatures rise no more than 1.5° Celsius,” and for
developed nations to take greater responsibilities in mitigating climate change
by way of setting aside substantial new funds for climate action as well as
free technology transfer to poorer nations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We also press the need to keep
corporate lobbyists out of the frame of the COP process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">We hope international governments can demonstrate as much understanding
of the science of climate change as the young people who are marching on the
streets to protect the planet for the future.</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-86672990857829394812015-10-20T02:59:00.001-07:002015-10-20T02:59:14.509-07:00Making sense of the global through the local<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Way back in 1972, the meteorologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Norton_Lorenz">Edward Lorenz</a> used an
attractive rhetorical question to talk about unpredictability: “Does the flap
of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? Lorenz’s exploration of the link between the
aerial pyrotechnics of a tiny butterfly in the southern hemisphere and a
violent vortex of powerful winds in the north may have been metaphorical. But what he was getting at was that the
atmosphere is sensitive enough for a disturbance in one part of the earth to
have a cascading effect on the other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Climate change is a case in point. Since the advent of
industrialization, copious amounts of greenhouse gases emitted by the most
industrially developed parts of the world (read rich nations) have had a
devastating impact on the earth’s atmosphere but the consequences of these
actions are being borne by the least developed
territories (read poor nations).
In other words, poor farmers in Bangladesh or Maldives or in one of the
Pacific Islands are watching their fertile lands slip away into the saline depths
of rising oceans because of decades of affluent, carbon-intensive lifestyles of
those on another side of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet, many people on this “right” side of the world are
barely aware of the plight of their fellow earthlings, even less so about their
own contributions to the sorry state of affairs. For them, it is a problem they
have no part in. But what if the images from far-flung island nations are
replaced by those of some of the most iconic American cities – New York or
Boston or Miami? Well, these images don’t need to be computer-generated – it may
well be a reality in our own lifetimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A study just published in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/07/1511186112.full.pdf?sid=c130a888-5ce7-41b9-8f83-b55718b34a12">Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences</a> warns that the “cultural legacy” of some of the best-known
cities in the US is under threat of being submerged under rising sea levels.
And these include New York City, Boston, New Orleans, and Miami. Indeed, the
landmarks of these historic places could well become part of an underwater
museum that no one will ever get to visit. But, as one of the study’s principal
authors, Benjamin Strauss, told the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-cities-sea-level-threats_561d338fe4b0c5a1ce60a45c">Huffington Post</a>, <span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;">many of these
“cities can be saved if people take swift action against carbon
emissions.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is some hope that more people will pay heed to the
long-ringing warning bells now that the threat is much more “local” than ever
before. The influence of local events in changing perceptions cannot be
underestimated. And this is, by no
means, limited to the affluent world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/24/8/928.abstract">article</a> in the latest issue of <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><i>PUS</i></a>, Alex Lo of Griffith University,
Australia, and C.Y. Jim of the University of Hong Kong, emphasise the
importance of ‘localising’ climate change information for people to act
pro-actively in climate mitigation actions. Their study found that
“concerns about climate change increase with expectations about adverse weather
events” in their own region. As “knowledge and/or experience of local weather
events could enable people to readily comprehend the problem of climate
change,” they say that “making the causal linkage explicit is crucial.” Clearly,
climate action messages “tailored” for local contexts are important because “ordinary
people tend to see global climate change as a distant probability or
uncertainty that is geographically and/or temporally detached from their
everyday life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The same issue of <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><i>PUS</i></a> also has an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/24/8/1007.abstract">article</a> by Adeniyi P.
Asiyanbi on a Nigeria-based study which shows that “social situatedness, more
than scientific facts, is the most important definer of overall engagement with
climate change.” In fact, in echoing the findings of the Hong Kong-based study
of Lo and Jim, Asiyanbi’s article makes a case for framing information about
climate change which the targeted audience can relate to in concrete and easily
conceivable terms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The two studies are important not only for their practical
recommendations for enhancing public understanding of climate science but also
for empirical research in specific local contexts of Hong Kong and
Nigeria. As the journal's editor notes, the latest issue
of <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><i>PUS</i></a> is particularly distinctive because it is the first issue in which all
the articles featured are from outside the usual catchment areas of the US and
Europe. The issue also features research
from China, India, Japan, Taiwan, and sub-Saharan Africa.</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-40717760409978887242015-09-05T03:01:00.000-07:002015-09-05T03:02:26.310-07:00Knowledge, ignorance, and the spaces in-between<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the 18<sup>th</sup>-century English poet Thomas <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gray">Gray</a> said
“where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise,” he wasn’t, as urban myths
often assume, suggesting that being ignorant bestows people with a sense of
pleasure and contentment. He was merely reflecting back to his joyous time of
learning at Eton College where he was once a student. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Regardless of Gray’s much-quoted and misrepresented lines, ignorance
tends to be characterised as an antonym of knowledge. </span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The relationship between
the two, however, is much more complex. Neither knowledge nor ignorance is
absolute. After all, people with knowledge in certain areas may be ignorant in
other areas. Knowledge is not synonymous with wisdom either as is evident in the
many acts of folly committed by those with years of meticulous knowledge
accumulation in centres of higher education. How else do we explain the endless
spirals of mindless wars, environmental degradation, and corporate greed in the
world? And what about the likes of religious fanatics, misogynists, and climate
sceptics? Wouldn’t the label of ‘ignorant’ be much too benign for such
politically regressive groups?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, it is politics that navigates the space between knowledge
and ignorance. The politics of power drives scientific research on “defence”
and the politics of business works on the commercialisation of ideas and
knowledge generation. Both thrive on a discourse of ignorance to exploit a
constructed climate of uncertainty about issues around security, health, and
well-being. And then there is the ambiguous area of ideology as well. For
example, are parents who refuse to vaccinate their children “ignorant” or just
proponents of a particular ideology? For many, taking a ‘natural’ path to
healthcare, which includes rejecting vaccinations, is an ideological position
that assumes nature and the ‘natural’ stand in opposition to science.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;">The knowledge-ignorance dichotomy is particularly strong in
the discourses of science and technology. The early 20<sup>th</sup> century
philosopher of science Karl <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper">Popper</a> believed that scientific knowledge was
evolutionary. As he argued in <i>All Life is Problem Solving</i>, the advance
of scientific knowledge stopped ignorance in its tracks. But he didn’t contend
with the explicit politicization of science and technology which leads to
people making judgements on science based on their own political affiliations. A
recent <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/content/658/1.toc">special issue</a> of </span></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> on “The Politics of Science: Political Values
and the Production, Communication, and Reception of Scientific Knowledge”
explores this interplay between science and politics in considerable depth. The
special issue editors, Elizabeth Suhay and James Druckman, point out that
debates over issues of science such as evolution, stem cell research, use of
nuclear power, and fracking, are intensely political. As they point out in
their <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/658/1/6.extract">introduction</a> to the special issue, “A range of human<span style="background: white;"> </span>values, including political and religious ones, influence the
process of scientific<span style="background: white;"> </span>discovery as well
as the dissemination and public reception of scientific findings.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;">In an <a href="http://ann.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/658/1/223.abstract">article</a> in this same special issue, </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Mathew Nisbet and Declan Fahy have called upon
journalists in particular to draw on “expert knowledge” and “facilitate
discussion” to not only bridge ideological divisions but also to get people to
look more broadly at the interplay between technologies and policy options.
Such a call is part of a <span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;">growing campaign to foster stronger, structured, and
succinct science communication to spread scientific knowledge to the masses. </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nisbet and Fahy’s piece is in fact the
starting point for a thought-provoking <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/26/0963662515600967.abstract">commentary</a> in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">Public Understanding of Science</a></i> by Kristian H.
Nielsen and Mads P. Sørensen (now available online ahead of print). These two
scholars from Aarhus University of Denmark endorse Nisbet and Fahy’s call but
go a step beyond to make a bold statement of their own. They say that alongside
knowledge, science communicators need to pay a lot more attention to the idea
of ignorance too. Arguing that ignorance
or “non-knowledge” is here to stay and is not something that will eventually go
away, they “assert that different forms of ignorance not only are fundamental
to processes of scientific knowledge production but also are virtuous to
democratic deliberation”. They argue that focusing on how ignorance works in
different settings can help “develop even more diverse and socially responsible
practices within science communication.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">In discussing ignorance or
non-knowledge in its many facets, Nielsen and Sorensen’s commentary makes
critical distinctions among “known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and
unknown unknowns.” Getting a closer understanding of the contexts in which
these four domains of knowledge/non-knowledge function is a nuanced way of
seeing how society interacts with science and technology. In some ways, this
quest runs parallel to the voyage of self-discovery depicted in the four
quadrants of Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram’s self-awareness formulation, the
Johari Window – the open self, the blind self, the hidden self, and the unknown
self. </span>Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-4632769308242128792015-07-30T02:00:00.002-07:002015-07-30T02:49:06.450-07:00Changing the communication on climate change<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aren’t the
red flags around freak floods, unprecedented heat waves, long spells of severe
drought, and increasing frequency of unseasonal, high-intensity typhoons,
cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes enough to warn us of the perils of climate
change? What about the slow and steady rise of sea levels that are threatening
the sheer existence of nations around the world ranging from the Maldives in
the Indian Ocean, Cape Verde in the Atlantic, and Kiribati in the Pacific?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Climate
Change is real and scientists are near unanimous not only about its devastating
effects on the planet we inhabit but also about its potential to create social
and economic havoc with disastrous consequences for humanity. Yet, as we also
know, nation states, especially the large and influential but fossil
fuel-guzzling and polluting ones most responsible for anthropogenic climate
change, are reluctant to take bold political steps to stem the tide. Year after
year, the grand ritual of the United Nations-mandated Conference of the Parties
(COP) yields very little in terms of tangible political change by the nations
with the most clout.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The two of us
were among 18 scholars and activists at an international symposium on <b><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/waikato.ac.nz/climate-futures/links">Climate Futures: Re-imagining climate justice</a></b> at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio,
Italy, this month to try and find alternative pathways to move forward and do
something to push the agenda for a just climate action that brought together
issues of environmental and social justice. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the deliberations touched
upon a number of issues, including on how to approach the COPs, there were some
interesting discussions along the side-lines as well. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of these
discussions revolved around the need to champion people with a strong
environmental and social conscience and a willingness to lead, who can be
actively involved at the COPs and other meetings of nation states. In
democracies, as many of the influential countries indeed are, the only
pragmatic way would be to get such people elected to the highest public
offices. On paper, the solution seems simple – mobilise people to vote for
people with such a conscience. In other words, get the people most concerned
about climate change to go out and vote for candidates who reflect this concern,
and target and inform those who seem less concerned with focused communication
interventions. In practice, of course, the challenges to such actions are many.
Yet, they are nevertheless important to include in the array of measures
advocated by climate justice activists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Social
science researchers working in the area of science and technology already have a
conceptual map that can be the foundation for such a communication
intervention. In 2009, <a href="http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/anthony-leiserowitz-on-global-warmings-six-americas"><b>Anthony Leiserowitz</b></a> and his colleagues outlined what
they called “Global Warming’s Six Americas” in which they classified the US
into six distinctly identifiable groups based on their attitudes towards
climate change: the Alarmed, the Concerned, the Cautious, the Disengaged, the
Doubtful, and the Dismissive. Studies involving such demographic
categorisations on attitudes to climate change have subsequently been extended
to India and Australia as well. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, there
is a study, published in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><b>Public Understanding of Science</b></a></i>, by <b>Julia
Metag, Tobias Füchslin and Mike S. Schäfer</b> of the University of Zurich on ‘<b><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/02/0963662515592558.abstract">Globalwarming’s five Germanys: A typology of Germans’ views on climate change andpatterns of media use and information</a></b>’ which adds to the scholarship in this
area. This study is currently published online ahead of print. Metag, Füchslin
and Schäfer note that Germany too has this demographic divide but, unlike, in
the US, there is no category of the “dismissive”. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is
particularly interesting about the studies by Leiserowitz et al and Metag et al
is that they identify a direct correlation between the characteristics of each
of the categories and their use of communication channels such as the mass
media and the internet. By and large, those most alarmed by climate change used
the media most and sought for information across a variety of media channels
while those in the other categories had a markedly lower use of the media with
the last couple of categories relying mainly on family and friends for sources
of information.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Metag et
al point out, these “results are relevant not only for the scientific study of
attitudes toward climate change” but also “for communication campaigns to raise
people’s awareness of and actions toward climate change”. For example, since
the ‘Doubtful’ “do not look for information about climate change intentionally
but come across it during their everyday, routine media use”, this group could
be “confronted with information about climate change unexpectedly on
television, as ‘by-catch’ while watching something else”. Similarly, the
‘Disengaged’ who “do not engage much in environmentally friendly behavior,
perhaps due to their lower social status, especially their low income” could
be addressed with entertaining information
that “stress inexpensive methods for changing behavior” through tabloids, their
preferred media. See the <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/02/0963662515592558.abstract">article</a> by Metag et al for further details.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Targeted
communication campaigns on changing attitudes could work hand-in-hand with
political initiatives to get political figures most likely to work on climate
action elected to decision-making bodies and with other initiatives, such as
grassroots community-level work, to create a momentum towards transformative
change for climate justice.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-49553924227893549192015-05-01T02:10:00.002-07:002015-05-01T17:57:20.578-07:00Science and sexism<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It’s 25 years since the field of feminist
science and technology studies (FSTS) was launched with the publication of <i>The
Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution</i> by
environmental historian and philosopher of science <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Merchant">Carolyn Merchant</a>.<i> </i>It’s
also the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary of feminist scientist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Fox_Keller">Evelyn Fox-Keller’s</a> path-breaking
<i>Reflections on Gender and Science</i>. Merchant, Keller and numerous other
scholars including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway">Donna Haraway</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Harding">Sandra Harding</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Fausto-Sterling">Anne Fausto-Sterling</a>, and Nancy Tuana (to name just a few)
illuminated not only why gender and feminism were central to understanding the
social construction of science, but also the inherent sexism in the practice
and study of science. The critiques they offered ripped apart the cloak of
objectivity that was wrapped around the pursuit of science, and laid bare the
consequences of the value-laden gender divides for not only women scientists
but also the academic realm of science itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We would have thought that the contributions
of the burgeoning and exciting field of FSTS would have had some impact in
changing the ways in which science researchers and practitioners looked at
issues of gender and science. Yet, the challenge of eradicating sexism in
science is as formidable as ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Our current blog has been sparked by the
shocking news of an utterly sexist review received by two women researchers on
a manuscript they submitted to a scientific journal. Believe it or not, the two women co-authors,
one a UK-based evolutionary geneticist and the other an Australia-based
evolutionary biologist, were asked to “find one or two male biologists to work
with” to make sure they didn’t drift “too far away from empirical evidence into
ideologically-biased assumptions” (see <i><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/04/sexist-peer-review-elicits-furious-twitter-response">Science</a></i> magazine for a report on
the incident). Wow! Is ‘objectivity’ the exclusive domain of men? Aren’t men
ideologically-driven? In fact, doesn’t the review perfectly demonstrate just
how ideological and profoundly sexist so-called “peer review” can be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">While social media as well as mainstream
media are agog with the news, sexism continues to cast a shadow on the world of
science. The ideological biases of a male-centric domain make it particularly
difficult for women scientists to thrive and survive. A recent compilation of
the discursive (and other) assaults on women in the world of science (See
article in the <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/women-in-science-comments-part-2_n_5922208.html">Huffington Post</a></i>) reveals how women face extraordinary
psychological pressures of demeaning and belittling sexist statements such as
“You are not smart enough to be a biologist” or “You are too pretty to be a
physicist”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The systematic exclusion of women from the “boys’ networks” in the
sciences and the derailment of careers and opportunities for women demonstrate
how far we yet have to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-48467060326906961542015-03-31T01:15:00.001-07:002015-05-01T17:57:56.668-07:00Giving some ideas a decent burial<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One of us was talking to our colleague
David McKie today about re-designing a course we teach and he said that one way
of taking the course into the future was to facilitate the extinction of some ideas
that we feel obliged to work with and generate fresh ways of thinking and
communicating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It’s during this conversation that David
referred us to John Brockman’s just-released anthology <i><a href="http://edge.org/conversation/john_brockman-this-idea-must-die">This Idea Must Die:Scientific Theories that are Blocking Progress</a></i> (New York: Harper Perennial).
The volume is a collection of answers provided by well-known as well as
not-so-well-known scientists, writers, and thinkers to Brockman’s question
“What scientific idea is ready for retirement” on his popular digital discussion
platform <i><a href="http://edge.org/">Edge</a></i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We haven’t read this new book yet but
going by the reviews, it looks like it is engaging and thought-provoking. Writing
about the volume in a recent issue of <i><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530111.000-this-idea-must-die-which-science-ideas-should-retire.html">New Scientist</a></i>, Simon Ings says
that “<span style="background: white;">Some ideas cited in the book
are so annoying that we would be better off without them, even though they are
true. Take "brain plasticity". This was a real thing once upon a
time, but the phrase spread promiscuously into so many corners of neuroscience
that no one really knows what it means anymore.” </span>Ings’s favourite response
in the volume is from the “paleontologist Julia Clarke” who would like people “to
stop asking her where feathered dinosaurs leave off and birds begin” because
making sense of animal behaviour based on fossil data is far too complex than
linear projections.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Last year, the </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Edge</i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> posted its annual <a href="http://edge.org/annual-question/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement">question</a>:</span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Science advances by discovering
new things and developing new ideas. Few truly new ideas are developed without
abandoning old ones first. As theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947)
noted, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
In other words, science advances by a series of funerals. Why wait that long?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS
READY FOR RETIREMENT?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 17.1pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ideas
change, and the times we live in change. Perhaps the biggest change today is
the rate of change. What established scientific idea is ready to be moved
aside so that science can advance? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A total of 175 responses came in and each
of them is fascinating in its own right. Maria Popova’s review of the book on
the <i><a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/23/this-idea-must-die-john-brockman-edge-question/">Brain Pickings</a></i> site goes over what </span>she describes<i> as </i>“<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #151515;">a catalog of broken theories that hold us back
from the conquest of Truth” and these range from IQ to the left brain vs. right
brain divide; from human nature to romantic love. Popova chronicles in detail
many of the responses that capture the interplay between philosophy and science
and shows how public understanding of science is also inherently philosophical.</span><em><span style="background: white; color: #151515; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">While on public understanding of science and a
word we started this blog with – extinction, an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2015/02/21/0963662515571489.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a> focuses
on whether extinction refers to a point of no return or whether scientists and
the lay public alike cause confusion by misusing the term to mean different
things in different contexts. For example, can there be such a thing as “local
extinction”? Or, for that matter, can species declared extinct be resurrected? </span><em><span style="background: white; color: #151515; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #151515; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2015/02/21/0963662515571489.abstract"> article</a> by </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Brenda D. Smith-Patten, Eli S. Bridge, Priscilla H. C. Crawford,
Daniel J. Hough, Jeffrey F. Kelly and Michael A. Patten of the University of
Oklahoma, USA, argues that frequent misuse of the term has major consequences
for systematic conservation action. A loose expression of ‘extinction’ such as
conflating it with extirpation (disappearance of a species in a particular
geographical area despite being in existence elsewhere), they say, “will result
in the term failing to spark the sense of urgency needed for grass roots
conservation action and policy change.” Also, there is a tendency to “trumpet
rediscoveries or reversals of extinction” which are equally misplaced as they
often refer to the sighting of species that had not been seen since being
declared extinct. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clearly, for the authors, extinction is
irreversible. It is part of the biological processes of evolution. Living
species do have a life span which depends to a large extent on physical and environmental
contexts. But work in biology keeps progressing. Surely, ideas have a life span
too and it should be fine for some to die out when they are no longer relevant.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-76676035694188375412015-02-26T15:18:00.000-08:002015-05-01T17:58:24.087-07:00Is Science fun or funny?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The hugely popular sitcom <i><a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/">Big BangTheory</a></i> is now in its eighth season. In so many ways, it’s like other hit
television sitcoms – the joys and sorrows of human relationships, the art and
science of human communication, the kindness and meanness of human behaviour,
and the rationality and emotionality of human actions. Like <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends">Friends</a></i>,
another legendary sitcom, <i><a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/">Big Bang Theory</a></i> revolves<i> </i>around the
lives and times of a group of friends and acquaintances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The difference, however, is that the main
characters of this show are scientifically inclined, including two physicists,
an astrophysicist, a neuroscientist, a microbiologist, and an aerospace
engineer. Their conversations among themselves as well as those with lay people
are both thought-provoking and funny. But
inevitably, the conversations have science either in the foreground or in the
background. Take a recent episode, for example, when two of the characters
seeking to lead a dark matter research expedition in a salt mine are questioned
by their friends who don’t believe they have the necessary attributes to
withstand the difficult conditions. The characters go about proving their
mettle by sweating it out in the extremely hot and narrow confines of a steam
tunnel at their University. No matter how funny the dialogues or the settings
are, the science in the sitcom is always accurate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In an earlier blog, we talked about science and humour and how science comedy is indeed a current rage. So are humour and entertainment effective
vehicles for science communication? Do they help broaden public understanding
of science? Given that science has typically been perceived as a world of
complex equations and theorems and abstract theories – in other words, an
exclusive domain for nerds, the use of humour does help break down perceptual
barriers. Teachers often use jokes and fun experiments to attract the attention
of students to understand concepts. But they also run the risk of
over-simplification and stereotyping of science and scientists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2014/08/14/0963662514546299.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a> </i>(also referred to in an earlier blog)<i>,</i> Hauke
Riesch of Brunel University undertakes a critical review of the literature on
humour and science communication. The article is aptly titled “<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2014/08/14/0963662514546299.abstract">Why did the proton cross the road?</a>” The author draws on insights from the sociology of
humour to take a deep look at the effects of humour on “the science-public
relationship” and notes that these effects may not always be benign or helpful
to the cause of public engagement”. Some obvious benefits notwithstanding,
there are some pitfalls of using humour injudiciously. These pitfalls, Riesch
says, include “fostering ingroup cohesion through insider jokes and the
construction of reverse-dialogue re-appropriations of the geek stereotype or by
excluding imagined outgroups through negative stereotyping”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There has, of course, always been a fine line between making science fun and making fun of it in the context of public understanding of science. Now is the time for a meaningful conversation on whether science should be portrayed as 'fun' or 'funny' and whether losing sight of the line between fun and funny has an impact on public understanding of science.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<br />Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-8836589604492941462014-11-25T00:31:00.001-08:002015-05-01T17:59:15.113-07:00The science of blogging<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Scientists are usually ahead of the curve
in new ways of thinking and doing. Yet they don’t often ride the wave of
communication technologies to engage the lay public with their ideas. This is where science blogs are beginning to fill
the breach. Run by people interested in science, these blogs are a platform for
keeping pace with, understanding, and communicatively bonding with the world of
science and its rapid and futuristic developments as well as its hopes,
anxieties, joys, and controversies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">With the growing ubiquitousness of the
internet and the global embrace of social media, science blogs have a potential
to take science to the people. Bloggers can cut though the iron walls of jargon
and verbosity of research papers, complex equations, caveats and variables, and
sheer mystery, to get the core ideas across with brevity, simplicity, and
pictorial as well as audio-visual props.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There are several exciting and
informative blogs out there in cyberspace. <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/">ScienceBlogs</a>, for example, is a
wonderful repository of a very wide range of blogs across domains such as the
Life Sciences, the Physical Sciences, the Environment, Medicine, Technology,
and many more. Within each of these domains are scores of blogs with a variety
of styles, content, and focal points.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">However, as <b>Mathieu Ranger</b> and <b>Karen
Bultitude</b> point out, despite their accessibility and ease of use, science blogs
“constitute only a tiny proportion of science information sources”. In an
<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/11/17/0963662514555054.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a></i>, they make the case that “there is still significant
room for development before science blogging becomes a truly ‘pluralistic,
participatory and social’ element” in science communication. Ranger and
Bultitude’s study on the motivations and characteristics of popular science
blogs, including an analysis of interviews with seven prominent bloggers as
well as blog posts, shows that science blogging is still a “niche” area and
most bloggers take to blogging because of their own passion for science rather
than to foster public engagement. Science blogs, the authors add, also don’t
make as much use of design elements as general blogs and tend to be updated
less frequently than popular general blogs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For those of us following science blogs,
there are trends that suggest engagement with science is on the way up. There
are several blogs that have caught the fancy of those with a thirst for the
wonders (and despairs) of science. The <a href="http://www.realclearscience.com/lists/top_10_science_bloggers/top_10_science_bloggers.html">Real Clear Science</a> website recently
listed Ethan Siegel’s <i><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/">Starts with a bang</a></i>; Carl Zimmer’s <i><a href="http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/blog/the-loom/">The Loom</a></i>;
and Deborah Blum’s <i><a href="http://www.wired.com/category/elemental/">Elemental </a></i>as their top three science blogs. While
Siegel translates complex topics for curious minds, Zimmer uses his writing
skills to attract and retain the attention of readers interested in the life
sciences. Blum is an expert on toxic substances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Although there aren’t that many
scientists writing blogs themselves, people in the scientific community are
surely and steadily taking to social media platforms. A recent <a href="http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.15711!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/512126a.pdf">article</a> in <i>Nature, </i>Richard van Noorden
suggests that academic social networks are burgeoning with scientists
increasingly joining social networking
sites such as <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/">ResearchGate</a> to share ideas and papers, and foster
collaborations. The next step would be to seek out wider audiences and blogs are
one such avenue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A few years ago, scientist-turned-film
maker <a href="http://www.dontbesuchascientist.com/HTML/SYNOPSIS.html">Randy Olsen</a> had come up with four main “admonitions” for scientists
looking to communicate with the lay public: “Don’t be so cerebral; don’t be so
literal minded; don’t be such a poor story teller; don’t be so
unlikeable”. Taking to writing blogs
will take care of these perceptual barriers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-40667086801604208902014-09-29T13:53:00.003-07:002014-09-29T13:53:45.169-07:00Science, scientists, and pandemics<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The deadly Ebola virus is spreading
relentlessly in West Africa even as scientists work around the clock to find an
effective way to contain it. In the midst of the race against time to find a
solution to contain the pandemic, several frontline science and health workers
are paying with their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">As many as five co-authors of a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1369.abstract">study</a>
entitled ‘Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission
during the 2014 outbreak’ published recently in the journal <i>Science </i>have
died after being infected with Ebola during the course of their work. Biographies
of the Sierra Leone-based doctor, </span><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Sheik
Humarr Khan,</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">an expert on Ebola and a
medical director of a programme run by Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and
Sanitation, and his four colleagues are sketched in a recent <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/ebolas-heavy-toll-study-authors">article</a> in <i>Science
Insider</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Ebola is a real threat to humankind. The
world outside Africa, complacent as it is about the reach of this disease, is
largely unaware of the risks the scientific and medical community at the
grassroots are dealing with while they work selflessly to not only treat those
affected by the disease but also to isolate and neutralise the virus. With over
2,900 people already dead from the Ebola virus, the World Health Organization
(WHO) has warned that the epidemic is spreading rapidly across Liberia, Sierra
Leone, and Guinea and called for urgent assistance from world governments. The
range of responses include the widely welcomed offer of Cuba to send over 400
doctors and nurses to the affected countries, financial aid from the World Bank
and a promise by the United States to deploy 3000 military troops in Liberia. The
step-up in terms of a global response comes even as the UN Secretary General
Ban Ki Moon <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48852#.VCkWXqwgvYQ">called</a> for a global corps of medical professionals, “backed by the
expertise of WHO and the logistical capacity of the United Nations. Just as our
troops in blue helmets help keep people safe, a corps in white coats could help
keep people healthy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If the threat is not yet tangible for
many, the world of fiction has a cautionary tale or two. One of us just watched
Brad Pitt’s <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/">World War Z</a></i>, a visually dramatic movie about the spread of a
zombie pandemic. The story (see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk">trailer</a>) is that of a vicious virus with
rabies-like symptoms that turns people into zombies. These zombies then reach
out to healthy people and infect them in droves. While city after city is
overtaken by armies of zombies, it is up to a former United Nations
investigator and a team of WHO scientists to take on the marauding forces.
Observing that the zombies don’t touch the sick or the infirm, the team figures
out that the only way to stop the zombies was to vaccinate people with strains
of a curable disease. These diseases served as a ‘mask’ to protect the people
from the advances of the zombies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Science and fiction, of course, have an
ongoing relationship as we have shown in many of our earlier blog posts. An
<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/6/646.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in <i>PUS</i> also talks about this relationship. The
article by Van Gorp, Rommes, and Emons outlines the representation of
scientists in “fiction and non-fiction media aimed at Dutch children and
teenagers”. The authors identify seven prototypes of the scientists depicted –
“the genius, the nerd, the puzzler, the adventurer, the mad scientist, the
wizard, and the misunderstood genius”. They also raise the possibility of what
they call a “rare prototype” of “the doubter”, representing “scientific
progress as more capricious and challenging”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-21730103373065493442014-08-31T16:35:00.000-07:002015-02-26T15:26:10.472-08:00Science and humour<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why did the chicken cross the road?
Going by an exhaustive <a href="http://jcdverha.home.xs4all.nl/scijokes/chicken.html">compilation</a> of humorous responses, the scientific
possibilities are endless. Ask an evolutionary biologist and he would say: “It
was the logical next step after coming down from the trees”. A physicist on the
other hand would begin by trying to find out if the chicken crossed the road or
if the road moved beneath the chicken.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 13.35pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Humour is increasingly being used to communicate the complexities of science to lay people. Indeed, as Paige Brown Jarreau says in her recent blog "<a href="http://www.scilogs.com/from_the_lab_bench/making-people-laugh-about-science-its-a-good-thing/">Making people laugh about science: It's a good thing</a>" in <a href="http://www.scilogs.com/">SciLogs</a>, "science comedy is a hot thing". Brown especially highlights the role of humour in engaging the attention of children to science in the classroom by decreasing their "anxiety over 'hard' complex topics". </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In her blog, Brown also interviews <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/dean-burnett">DeanBurnett</a>, scientist, comedian and the writer of the hugely popular <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping">BrainFlapping</a> blog on the Guardian web site. As Burnett says, <span style="background: white;">“if
people can laugh with/about science, then they won't be as intimidated by it,
and will perceive that science is a very human endeavour, not some monolithic
process hiding behind the walls of academia and curated by emotionless
intellectuals.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brown’s blog also cites the work of Bruno
Pinto, David Marcal, and Sofia Vaz in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">Public Understanding of Science</a></i>
who found in a Portugal-based <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/05/0963662513511175.abstract">study</a> that “stand up-comedy has potential for
science communication because of its ability to get people talking about issues
they don’t usually comprehend easily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This potential, however, comes with a
caveat. In an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2014/08/14/0963662514546299.abstract">article</a> published online last week in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a></i>, Hauke Riesch says that
“humour in public portrayals of science can have effects on the science–public
relationship that may not always be benign or helpful to the cause of public
engagement.” The article “Why did the proton cross the road? Humour and science
communication” cautions that the use of humour can sometimes perpetuate
discourses of superiority, draw lines between insiders and outsiders, and
ridicule scientific ways of theorising and writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately, however, humour needs to be
used in balance. After all, the chicken needs to look left and right, front and
back, and cross the road carefully. The crossing is as much a voyage of
discovery as the excitement of encountering a new world on the other side. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-40209932843148132502014-07-31T16:20:00.002-07:002014-07-31T16:22:26.368-07:00Reflections on science and the public<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sue Howard</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">In balmy, beautiful, complicated Salvador,
the 13<sup>th</sup> conference of the Public Communication of Science and
Technology Network got underway recently with speakers from Nigeria, Brazil,
Columbia and South Africa (along with jazz trumpet to lift the soul). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Luisa Massarani introduced the conference
noting the relationship between science communication and development, and it
seemed to me that here in Salvador, Brazil, there was a sense of optimism about
the relationship between science and the public(s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From the get go, the theme of social
inclusion was paramount, with questions raised about changing the 'white male
face of science'. Efforts along these lines continued throughout. I saw Luz
Lazos Ramirez and colleagues from the Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de
Mexico present their work on sharing tailored technology with the indigenous
peoples of Mexico – the 'recipients' of knowledge and technology have become
the designers of technology to suit their own needs and desires. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Andrea Berardi (Open University, UK) and
colleagues also take a 'from the ground up' approach to explore communities'
own adaptations to climate change, using visual modes to communicate with
indigenous peoples in the Guiana Shield. The audience acknowledged that here he
was, pale and male, introducing this research, but appreciated the effort to
honour the knowledge, resourcefulness and responsibilities of a local Guianan
community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There were several presentations looking at
the fractious relationships between science, policy and the media. I found
interesting the efforts of Jenny Bjorkman (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Sweden)
and Melanie Smallman (UCL, UK) to get policy makers to pay attention to social
scientists – it seems they need an interpreter, their languages and cultures
are so different. This explains a lot about governance not using the
information available to them, even when they themselves commission the
research. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The subject of science and the media seems to
bring up the old concerns about one blaming the other for an uneasy
relationship. Looking at this relationship, Sharon Dunwoody (University of
Wisconsin-Madison, US) pointed to the incredible slowness of cultural change,
while Simon Lock's (UCL, UK) neuro engagement research demonstrated the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Meanwhile, science journalists continue to
suffer censorship, directly from governments or indirectly via scientists self
censoring because of fear of repercussions. Science journalists Mohammed Yahia
and Ochien Ogodo were able to tell us about the Egyptian and Kenyan contexts.
The gravity of this topic is utmost: the highest stakes are potential loss of
life, as discussed by a representative of <a href="http://www.article19.org/">Article 19</a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the conference culture, that the deficit
model is to be avoided, was almost a given, at least it seemed so to me. Thus,
Steve Miller and Susanna Priest, at a plenary, provoking the question about
whether it's not so bad to acknowledge different levels of informedness, and to
concern ourselves with levelling the playing field, met with a rather frosty
response. All these considerations and more prompted Martin Bauer, Editor in
Chief of <i>Public Understanding of Scie</i>nce, to create an essay competition
for the <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">journal</a>, asking contributors to answer "In Science Communication,
why does the idea of a public deficit always return?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And finally, science communication blogs are
a good thing. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Are they? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Sometimes social media efforts offered by
organisations seem like big old adverts, or not so far from the much disparaged
deficit model efforts of old, disseminating information with the hope of
fostering positive attitudes; maybe that's not such a great use of social
media.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Plus, Massimiano Bucchi asked the plenary
panel of Dominique Brossard and Mohammed Yahia to comment on a highly charged
issue: for all of the effort of blogging, tweeting, engaging and good science
communication citizenship on the net, done with good will, for free, are we quietly
contributing to the vast incomes of underlying structures? Are these 'big
society' efforts unwittingly giving faceless money making machines 'big
profits'? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-49213053862180248612014-06-26T22:17:00.000-07:002014-07-31T23:58:17.973-07:00A bad case of measles<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">There’s been a major <a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/hamilton-measles-surge-highlights-need-immunisation-6011225">outbreak of measles</a>
in the city we live in. Scores of children are in hospital; hundreds are in
quarantine; at least two large high schools have been closed for brief periods;
and several school sports teams have been asked to stay away from playing
fields.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The rapid
spread of the infectious disease that attacks the respiratory and immune
systems has predictably re-ignited the debate on immunization of children.
Nearly all the children affected are those who were not immunized at all and
some who had only a single dose of the required two doses of the triple vaccine
to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). That the Waikato region of New
Zealand has been affected is no surprise either as this region has the lowest
immunization rates in the entire country, according to the <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/10160945/Measles-show-area-vulnerable">Ministry of Health</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Resistance to
immunization in some pockets of the population is fairly common in various
parts of the world and has to do with differing public understandings of the
science of immunization. The media often has a major role to play in how public
understanding is shaped and framed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/4/366.abstract">article</a> in
a recent issue of <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a></i> looks at the media coverage of measles vaccination in the
UK and China and shows how the approaches in the two countries are so
different. The <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/4/366.abstract">study</a> by Jie Ren of the University of Science and Technology of
China and Hans Peters, Joachim Allgaier, and Yin-Yueh Lo of the Research Center
Julich of Germany shows that “the government-supported ‘mainstream position’
dominates the Chinese coverage while the British media frequently refer to
criticism and controversy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As the
authors point out, there is a dilemma “between the media functions of informing
the media audience about relational risk behaviour, and providing an arena for
public deliberation about risk”. The challenge is to balance two important
needs – one to ensure the health outcomes for the community and the other to
provide the space for people to make an informed choice about the options they
have. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And yet, as
Stacy Mintzer Herlihy comments in her <a href="http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/ursula-k-leguin-anti-vaxxer-or-omela-argument-fails/">blog</a>, the problem with thinking about
vaccinations as a matter of personal choice is that </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“that people are not just making a choice for themselves when they
choose whether or not to vaccinate They are also choosing for other people as
well. A significant subset of the population cannot get many vaccines. This
includes small babies who do not produce an adequate immune response as well as
those undergoing treatment for diseases such as cancer that may compromise
their immune systems.” </span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Measles vaccinations
became controversial after the publication of a research paper co-authored by
Andrew Wakefield in a reputed medical journal in 1998 that suggested a link
between the MMR vaccine and colitis and autism spectrum disorders. Although the
mass media gave wide coverage to the findings of this paper, subsequent studies
have refuted and discredited the claims of the paper, with Wakefield being
struck off as a doctor in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/may/24/andrew-wakefield-struck-off-gmc">2010</a>. The paper itself was withdrawn by the journal a
few years ago but the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy">controversy</a> lingers on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-53389048607466953312014-05-31T16:07:00.000-07:002014-07-31T23:59:06.797-07:00Science and paradox<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Science is about testable knowledge, a
way of explaining, through observation and experimentation, the ways in which
physical matter and natural beings exist and function. A primary function of
the processes of public engagement with science, therefore, is to explain
things that might seem miraculous to an untrained eye. Inevitably, most school children
figure out that earthquakes, lightning, and volcanic eruptions are not the work
of wizards and witches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Yet, some mysteries of life around us continue
to mesmerise people, especially because they seem paradoxical and commonsense reasoning does not help decipher these mysteries. But, as physicist and scholar
of public engagement of science <a href="http://www.jimal-khalili.com/">Jim Al-Khalili</a> says, systematic science
education can show that what looks like a paradox is not one at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Al-Khalili was a star speaker at the
<a href="http://writersfestival.co.nz/">Auckland Writers festival </a>and we went along to hear him speak on ‘Science
and the Big Questions’. His talk was largely based around his new book <i>Paradox:
The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics</i> and he went on to show how some of the
simplest solutions to paradoxical issues can actually be counter-intuitive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In a relaxed and entertaining style, he
went through some simple mathematical steps to show how the Monty Hall problem
and the conundrum of the probability of choosing the prize behind one of three
doors in a game show is not a paradox at all. Among the other paradoxes,
Al-Khalili sets out to de-mystify in his book are those of Schrödinger's cat
which appears to be dead and alive at the same time and the Grandfather Paradox
which exercises the brain with the twisted conundrum of time travel – you could
travel back in time and kill your grandfather but then you would not have been
born and would not therefore have killed your grandfather. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Al-Khalili is a humanist and does not see
the place of religion in a world of scientific inquiry. Indeed, he begins his
interview with <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20140426">Radio New Zealand</a> on his role as the president of the British
Humanist society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Interestingly, however, science and religion shared the
spotlight at the Auckland Writers Festival. Another major draw at
the festival was <a href="http://rezaaslan.com/">Reza Aslan</a>, author of <i>Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus
of Nazareth </i>and <i>No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of
Islam,</i> which focus on the historical figures of Jesus of Nazareth and Prophet
Mohammed. Speaking about <i>Zealot,</i> <span style="background: white; color: #111111;">Aslan said that he had to differentiate between theological<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em>truth</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> and
historical<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em>fact
</em><em><span style="font-style: normal;">in his wri</span></em>ting—a concern not dissimilar from the
focus of science on establishing a truth based on empirical facts.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-57599828106352902412014-04-30T17:23:00.000-07:002014-08-01T00:00:51.073-07:00It's a matter of faith!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Faith has often been seen as a point of
divide between religion and science. While those with religious affiliations or
affinities are guided by their faith in a spiritual being or beings to resolve
social, cultural, economic, and even political issues, those on the side of
science insist on proofs rather than mere conviction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">What then about faith in science and
technology to solve every conceivable problem? Dubbed ‘<i>the arrogance of
humanism</i>’ by Rutgers University professor of ecology <a href="http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~deenr/dehrenfeld.html">David Ehrenfeld</a> in an
influential book by that title, such a humanistic faith in science, technology
and reason is seen to underpin the ecological crisis the planet faces today. Humanism,
according to Ehrenfeld, is “our irrational faith in the limitless power of
human reason – its ability to confront and solve the many problems that humans
face, its ability to rearrange both the world of Nature and the affairs of men
and women so that human life will prosper.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Transhumanism takes that faith to a new
level. Indeed, it is the extreme faith in technological solutions and the
ability of science to lead the planet to eternal bliss that defines
transhumanism. Inspired no doubt by science fiction, transhumanists have long
espoused the need to technologically deal with the challenges of life such as death, decay, and disease. They
stand steadfastly in their faith in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial
intelligence, or any new technology capable of facilitating human enhancement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Yet, the faith transhumanists subscribe
to is not the only kind of faith in science. In a forthcoming <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/06/0963662514523712.abstract">article</a> in <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PublicUnderstanding of Science</a></i>, John H. Evans of the University of California,
San Diego, identifies at least three kinds of faith in science that people hold
and goes on to discuss the implications of these types of faith on
transhumanism. The data for Evans’ research comes from public opinion surveys
conducted in 12 countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The three levels of faith Evans talks
about are the faith in science to “provide meaning for society”; to
“effectively solve any problem”; and “to solve problems in the physical world
with technology”. These levels of faith differ across a number of variables
such as age, education, financial status, education, and religious affiliation.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The exploration of the complex
relationship between religion and transhumanism is an interesting feature of
this article. At one level, religious people and transhumanists can be seen as
living at two ends of a pole. But what unifies them somewhat is their faith.
What Evans’ research shows is that religious people are least likely to adopt
transhumanist beliefs but that “is primarily true if [transhumanism] is based
upon a faith in science producing meaning”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">However, if transhumanism were to
become “a concrete solution to a consensual physical problem like human
health”, its beliefs could attract the support of the religious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A lot of the debate on the
religion-science debate hinges on whether the belief system they represent are
defined “doctrinally or empirically”, says <a href="http://www.metanexus.net/essay/compatibility-religious-and-transhumanist-views-metaphysics-suffering-virtue-and-transcendence">James Hughes</a> in his Metanexus blog. Hughes
argues that transhumanism can be “compatible” with most world religions, and in
fact, “the religious landscape of the future will range from the current
prevailing bioconservative resistance to an enthusiastic embrace of transhuman
possibilities.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A religious transhumanism then although seemingly a
contradiction in terms is perhaps not surprising bringing together as it does a
human capacity for faith—in religion, science or both. <span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-77281548870746391482014-03-30T00:58:00.000-07:002014-07-31T23:59:35.396-07:00My word!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Communication lies at the heart of
public understanding of science,” we said in our last blog. But sometimes this
communication manifests itself in the form of buzzwords that attempt to capture
the public’s imagination on new and emerging technologies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The politics of buzzwords, as indeed the
economics of buzzwords, are the focus of a thought-provoking <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/3/238.abstract">article</a> by
Bernadette Bensaude <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Bensaude-Vincent">Vincent</a> in the latest issue of <i><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">Public Understanding ofScience</a></i>. What purpose do “fashionable stereotyped phrases such as ‘public
engagement in science’, ‘responsible innovation’, ‘green technology’, or
‘personalised medicine’” serve in discussions on science and technology,
Vincent asks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Buzzwords, according to Vincent, go
beyond the merely scientific issues around a technology; they create a
linguistic laboratory where an alchemic understanding is created that almost
magically blends science with politics, business and economics. In the process, they serve to smoothen out
controversies, contradictions and challenges, acting as “pacifiers” that
subvert the possibilities for change by overcoming dissent and avoiding “clashes
of values.” Such words don’t have philological roots nor do they convey any
depth of meaning. But they serve a pragmatic purpose in creating what Vincent
calls a “‘trading zone’ that allows different stakeholders to communicate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Pragmatic is an operative word here.
Words are not neutral units of language. They are political domains that are
contested. Let’s take the example of the term ‘genetic engineering’ which has
evoked polarised reactions from those who are for it and those that are
against. Given the massive protests against genetic engineering of food in
different parts of the world, this term has slowly gone behind the shadows
although research and practice of this technology continues as ever before.
Instead, we hear more of the term ‘synthetic biology’ which is not as
politically loaded as ‘genetic engineering’ is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But is ‘synthetic biology’ much different
from ‘genetic engineering’? In linguistic terms, they are pretty close but the
connotations are nowhere near as similar. People don’t know as much about
synthetic biology and, as a result, research in the field is much less
controversial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Talking of synthetic biology, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26768445">BBCreported</a> this week <span style="background: white;">the “creation of the first
synthetic chromosome for yeast in a landmark for biological engineering.” The
BBC quoted the research team leader, </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dr Jef Boeke of the Langone Medical
Centre at New York University, as describing the achievement as "moving
the needle in synthetic biology from theory to reality."</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This, according to an <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/eureka-scientists-unveil-giant-leap-towards-synthetic-life-9219644.html">article </a>in the <i>Independent</i>,
is a “<span style="background: white;">milestone development in synthetic
biology, which promises to revolutionise medical and industrial biotechnology
in the coming century.” </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="background: white;">Note the bracketing of medical and industrial –
science, medicine, business, and industry are no longer separate domains.
Buzzwords work in making this nexus easier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-7303936962341218582014-02-20T18:04:00.000-08:002014-08-01T00:00:22.285-07:00Cross-fertilization of ideas<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b><br />
<br />
Have you noticed what happens when a physicist sits at the
same table with a psychologist; a biologist with an artist; a technocrat with
an environmental activist; a bureaucrat with a bioethicist; a nanotechnologist
with a social scientist; a West-trained theorist with an indigenous scholar; or
a policy practitioner with an academic? The language of communication changes
as each person moves away from the loaded jargon of one field to reach out to
the other. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Communication lies at the heart of public understanding of
science. The <b style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825">two of us</a></b> saw communication blossoming when we brought together
natural and physical scientists, social scientists, indigenous scholars,
artists, poets, activists, and policy practitioners at an <b style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.waikato.ac.nz/fass/conference/sustcitconf/">international symposium on transforming public engagement on controversial science and technology</a></b> at the <b style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.waikato.ac.nz/">University of Waikato</a></b> this week.<span style="background-color: black;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
All the participants had something to say on new and
emerging technologies ranging from nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and
genetic engineering to gene mapping and assisted reproductive technologies.
But, confronted as they were with a wide variety of other points of view, they
had an opportunity to reflect on their own positions and engage in unique forms
of deliberation. They each made an attempt to listen to and understand the
other and re-formulate their own articulations.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
One of the keynote speakers at the symposium, Professor <b><a href="https://www.physics.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-staff/professor-shaun-hendy.html">Shaun Hendy</a></b>, an award-winning scientist and science communicator, emphasised
that the “value of scientific knowledge depends on the context – the better
scientists are at providing the context, the better public understanding of
science will be.” A more detailed account of Professor Hendy’s talk can be
found in Peter Griffin’s <b><a href="http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2014/02/20/naked-science-why-scientists-need-to-communicate/">Science Media Centre blog</a></b> while a summary of the
policy engagement session on science communication is available in Dr Alison
Campbell’s <b><a href="http://sciblogs.co.nz/bioblog/2014/02/17/thoughts-from-a-conference-scientists-and-science-communication/">BioBlog</a>. </b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Indeed, the highlight of the symposium were the six policy
engagement sessions which followed panel presentations on the themes of
‘citizenship and deliberative democracy’; ‘science communication’; ‘new
technologies and ethics’; ‘indigenous science’; ‘science-society interface’;
and ‘designing public engagement’. It is at these engagement sessions that
people from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds with a shared interest in
potentially controversial new technologies deliberated and worked on
establishing a common ground among what initially seemed like polarised views.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
The tone of the symposium was set by Professor <b><a href="http://socpol.anu.edu.au/people/academic-staff/john-dryzek">John Dryzek</a></b>
of the Australian National University who made the point that “deliberative
democracy rests on the idea that democratic legitimacy depends on the right,
opportunity, and capacity of those subject to a collective decision to participate
in consequential deliberation about its content”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
In another keynote address, indigenous scholar Associate
Professor <b><a href="https://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/anthropology/faculty/kmt2293">Kim TallBear</a></b> of the University of Texas at Austin presented a
powerful critique of the “unethical technoscientific research done on
indigenous people by scientists whose assumptions and goals are shaped by a
colonial mindset”. This keynote was followed by a stimulating session on
“critical indigenous views on biocolonialism and the impact of new
technologies” led by Associate Professor <b><a href="http://www.waikato.ac.nz/rangahau/en/about/research-directorate">Leonie Pihama of the Te Kotahi Research Institute</a></b>. The symposium had a strong Maori participation. In
thought-provoking engagement sessions led by <b><a href="http://www.waikato.ac.nz/smpd/about/staff/samorr">Sandy Morrison</a></b> and <b style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.waikato.ac.nz/research/ro/staff/Maui%20Hudson.shtml">Maui Hudson</a></b> of
the University of Waikato, participants suggested that the very process of
decision making on scientific funding should be flipped so as to be driven by
community needs and social justice commitments rather than narrowly defined
economic gain. The symposium also featured a <i>kapa haka</i> performance by
students of the <b style="color: red;"><a href="http://taiwananga.co.nz/">Tai Wananga</a></b>, a school dedicated to the teaching of science and
innovation with a strong Maori perspective. The performance was coached and
choreographed by their teacher, Talei Morrison, who herself recently completed
Masters research on ‘Maori perspectives on new and emerging technologies’. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
The final keynote was by Professor <b style="color: red;"><a href="http://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=QhZQC_AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Lyn Kathlene</a></b> of the Spark
Policy Institute, USA, who talked about the need for “contextual creativity” to
shape public engagement. “Flexibility, out-of-the-box thinking, and a
willingness to venture into unknown territory are necessary ingredients to
designing a process that works for both policy planners and citizens”, she
said. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Indeed, nurturing contextual creativity was the goal of the
symposium. If the cross-disciplinary conversations are an indication,
participants would have made several steps towards this goal.</div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-36537698825105981442014-02-13T15:30:00.000-08:002014-08-01T00:01:27.688-07:00A rose by any other name?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b><br />
<br />
It’s Valentine’s Day and quite a bit of the discussion
around the most romantic day of the Western calendar in recent times has been
on the future of Love in a technological age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Can human love survive when more and more people seem to be so
infatuated with their technological gadgets that they have little time to think
about the finer points of long-term relationships?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
The <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/entertainment/sunday">Sunday</a> magazine of New Zealand’s <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/"><i>Sunday Star-Times</i></a>,
in its most recent issue, features the views of a neuroethicist, a futurist,
and a philosopher on what it might be to be ‘in love’ in the years ahead. In piecing
together their views in an article called “The Love Equation”, Rose Hoare talks
about a wide range of possibilities ranging from chemical sprays to keep
wavering couples monogamous to “nano-neural interfacing” that allows people “to
share thoughts and memories”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
While traditional characteristics of what it is
to be human are rapidly disappearing amidst the onslaught of technology, new
characteristics are emerging that are blurring the lines between human and
artificial intelligence. Regardless of where we are headed, love will still
have a place in some form or the other. Hoare cites the French philosopher Alan
Badiou as describing love as something that allows an individual to see beyond
oneself. And self-fulfilment comes only when one can see oneself reflected in
another being. A ‘selfie’ on a flash new smartphone can never be a substitute.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Yet, the question raised by the new Hollywood science
fiction mov<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: PMingLiU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">i</span>e <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_%28film%29"><i>Her</i></a> is whether self-fulfilment can be achieved through
a relationship with another being that is not necessarily biologically human
but a computer operating system much like the Siri of <i>iphones</i>. The male
character of the movie is emotionally and psychologically drawn to the voice of
‘Her’ – she not only keeps pace with the man’s emotions but in many ways
gallops ahead of him. Can that be love?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
At the dawn of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, another science
fiction movie, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence"><i>AI</i></a>, had a memorable scene where a woman asks a professor:
“It occurs to me with all this animus existing against Mechas [robots] today it
isn't just a question of creating a robot that can love. Isn't the real
conundrum, can you get a human to love them back?” <i>Her</i> suggests that
humans can indeed “love” software-generated beings back but can the
human-machine love <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: PMingLiU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">continue to </span>be <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: PMingLiU; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">based on 20<sup>th</sup> century notions of love
based on integrity, respect, even monogamy? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Science fiction of our times can sometimes be a crystal ball one can gaze into and prepare for the future. With limited avenues for the public to engage with decision-making on new technologies, science fiction is, for better or for worse, a resource to stimulate thinking about science and the future of society. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-74490446494979606842014-01-28T19:25:00.001-08:002014-08-01T00:02:07.227-07:00A 3D look at public understanding of science<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The three
Ds of deficit, dialogue, and deliberation have dominated discussions on public
understanding of science for quite a while. As a result there has been a flood
of studies on processes of public engagement that have gone beyond filling in
perceived gaps of knowledge between scientists and lay persons to intense and
informed dialogues and, ultimately, to an architecture of deliberation among a
variety of stakeholders. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But, as the
current special issue of <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">PUS</a> on “<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/current">Public engagement of science</a>” suggests, there
hasn’t been enough of a reflection on these engagement processes nor is there a
sufficiently deep exploration of the social and political contexts of such
processes. Despite a widely acknowledged move from ‘deficit to dialogue’, there
is a sense that “dialogue continues to reflect deficit-like assumptions,” say
the issue’s co-editors, <b>Jack Stilgoe, Simon Lock,</b> and <b>James Wilsdon</b>, in their
<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/1/4.abstract">introductory piece</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The
invited articles in the special issue are indeed deeply reflective. <b>Patrick
Sturgis</b> of the University of Southampton raises fundamental questions around
ensuring all relevant perspectives are represented and heard in any
participatory exercise and whether in fact the public supports<i> </i>direct
participatory approaches science governance, as proponents of public engagement
have long assumed. When participatory practices occur, he points out in his
<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/1/38.full.pdf+html">piece</a>, it is important to look at <i>who </i>tends to be involved. Most
participants in current processes, he says, are “disproportionately drawn from
groups with higher socio-economic status, greater interest in the topic area,
and more strongly-held views”. Moreover, these processes tend to generate
outcomes that are at least unconsciously influenced by institutions or
individuals organizing them, he adds. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For
<b>Michael Burgess</b> of the University of British Columbia, processes of
deliberation are not always “sufficient to ensure that deliberations have
effects on policy or practice”. His <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/1/48.abstract">article</a> voices concern about “consultations”
conferring “legitimacy without having influence”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><b><a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/sheila-jasanoff">SheilaJasanoff</a></b> of Harvard University calls for a “more robust conception of publics”,
arguing that publics are neither ignorant nor simple demographic clusters but
are groups “dynamically constituted by changes in social contexts”. In her <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/1/21.abstract">thought piece</a>, “A mirror for science”, she says that “these issue-oriented publics
enter the political arena and participate in imagining scientific and
technological futures as knowledgeable actors”. </span>In further problematizing the idea of
publics, <b><a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/profiles/brian-wynne">Brian Wynne</a></b> of Lancaster University, makes the <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/23/1/60.abstract">point</a> that we can never
make sense of publics responding to science unless “we examine what it is that
those publics experience”.<br />
<br />
This special issue forces us to think
through each aspect of public understanding of science. The public is not a
monolithic entity nor is science. And understanding is not a one-way knowledge
transfer; it is a deeper engagement of varying facets of science and technology
with publics in their different social and political contexts.</div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-40833966935606718292013-12-08T20:45:00.003-08:002014-08-01T00:02:38.341-07:00Science and Sensibility<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b><br />
<br />
One of the challenges of fostering a public understanding of science is to demystify science and help the wider public to view science neither as a miracle nor as a purveyor of doom but as a process of how and why things happen. The long-held deficit model of science is based on a gap in the knowledge about science between scientists and lay persons. Yet, it is not so much about knowledge but how it is communicated that leads to ‘understanding’ science. This communication has, at best, been uneven as scientific research is not always presented in ways that lay persons can comprehend in relation to their everyday experiences of life.<br />
<br />
This is a challenge that young online educators have taken on with great gusto. For example, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy">Khan Academy</a>’s famous You Tube tutorials on science have a huge following already. As a recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/apr/23/sal-khan-academy-tutored-educational-website">article</a> in <i>The Guardian</i> says, the Academy’s mission is simple: “a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan">Marshall McLuhan</a> had pointed out way back in 1964 that the medium is as much the message as the content. Clearly, new media tools allow people to “experience” things in more ways than ever before. It is the experience that aids the understanding of phenomena that might otherwise seem abstract. Yet, perceptions of human experience and scientific concepts are often seen to be counter to each other and significant effort is made to dispel these entrenched perceptions.<br />
<br />
There is, in fact, a dearth of research that explores how the general public comes to understand principles of science that often run counter to common-sensical understandings of how the natural world works. And on how unscientific views on natural phenomena sustain themselves long after they have been proven wrong. Exploring this “learning paradox”, Wolff-Michael Roth and Norm Friesen in an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/28/0963662513512441.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in the <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/">Public Understanding of Science</a>, explain the process by which a YouTube science video on the heart and the circulatory system offer learning opportunities for viewers. The video, which presents the heart as a pump, is able to tap into viewers’ knowledge of the world around where “pumps, plumbing and other machine systems are part of the everyday world that constitutes common sense and, therefore, the background against which we constitute the sense of every new experience”.<br />
<br />
It is this which allows the transition from “common sense to scientific sense”.
With this in mind, Roth and Friesen ask, what if we “design science education in a way that allows people of all walks of life to hang on to their familiar discourses” instead of eradicating “prior (mis) conceptions”? As they point out, “First, all science is grounded in our everyday experiences; and these have not essentially changed in the course of history: We continue to see the sun rise in the morning and to see it set in the evening; and we continue to feel the cold come into the door rather than heat being lost to the outside”. And this “initial worldview” does not change despite scientific explanations about the earth’s orbit around the sun or the laws of heat exchange.
Quite simply, it is not so much about taking people to science but making science understood by people on their own terms.
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-19603678724160476852013-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:002014-08-01T00:03:01.345-07:00State of the climate<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Priya Kurian & Debashish Munshi</b><br />
<br />
Climate change continues to make news with a report last week showing that 2012 was among the ten warmest years on record. The latest <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2012.php">State of the Climate</a> in 2012 report, released by the American Meteorological Society on 6 August, presents a picture of a rapidly warming planet with record greenhouse gas emissions, melting Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels. The 23rd annual report shows that concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases reached a global average of 392.7 parts per million; the Arctic warmed at twice the rate of the rest of the world; and the melting icing led to global sea level rise. These alarming developments herald a “new normal” for the climate, and the release of the report received extensive media coverage globally as seen in the LA Times, the Guardian, Indian Express, and the New Zealand Herald, among others.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbcrkw9D1ZJ1UigiOdqNxhEYjLN7hpeMbczCaLCVUXe1BKgbIstafBvaM2BOmbR7zv0f1VdXZYSfchT98azkUiZGtxaUh2pv-BdJZKo1S5bPavdKDfMuOJOXlw6KFX6cOfj6ZnH_d2HU/s1600/state+of+climate.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbcrkw9D1ZJ1UigiOdqNxhEYjLN7hpeMbczCaLCVUXe1BKgbIstafBvaM2BOmbR7zv0f1VdXZYSfchT98azkUiZGtxaUh2pv-BdJZKo1S5bPavdKDfMuOJOXlw6KFX6cOfj6ZnH_d2HU/s200/state+of+climate.jpg" /></a>
This has not stopped climate change contrarians to argue in recent times that global warming is slowing or reversing. Yet few deniers seem to have the desire to follow scientist Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkley. A self-described climate sceptic, he examined in 2012 the scientific data on climate change and emerged from the process convinced that anthropogenic climate change is <a href="http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/former-global-warming-skeptic-changes-views-517432067">in fact real</a>.
Another issue in establishing public perception of climate change has been the significant impact of the wording of statements in eliciting responses from people. Australian researchers Murni Greenhill, Zoe Leviston, Rosemary Leonard, and Iain Walker, in an <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2013/04/01/0963662513480117.abstract">article</a> forthcoming in PUS, assessed “the consistency of people’s responses across questions and the relationship of different climate beliefs on a range of criterion variables” (p. 14). They found that when people were not given the option of attributing climate change to a mix of natural and anthropogenic causes, a majority were split down the middle between the two causes. Climate change beliefs appear to be multi-dimensional and hence can rarely be captured by a single survey item.
Despite concerns that climate scientists are losing the public relations battle to climate sceptics, an in-depth <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2012/12/10/0963662512467732.full.pdf+html">study</a> of media coverage of climate issues in the USA, UK, Germany and France by Reiner Grundmann and Mike Scott, forthcoming in an issue of PUS, shows that the dominant voice on climate change in these countries is that of climate advocates, not sceptics. The USA is different in terms of what gets highlighted, the researchers point out: “The USA gives most prominence to entertainment aspects within the discourse. This is evident if we look at the most visible sceptic, the late novelist Michael Crichton and the movie An Inconvenient Truth. The USA also shows weak connotations of central terms (climate change, global warming) with alarm, action or moral frames.”
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-59178252834875225762013-05-31T22:11:00.001-07:002013-05-31T22:11:40.233-07:00Climate Watch
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">News
about the weather is no longer confined to a nattily-dressed television
presenter waving a wand at a blue screen dotted with maps, place names,
temperature data, and icons of the sun, moon, the stars, and droplets of rain
representing the state of the day just passed and the ones to come. It is now,
more frequently than ever before, one of the main stories of the day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The media
is full of Images of hurricanes and tornadoes in the U.S with more punch than
the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima, a freezing Easter in the UK that left a
different kind of icing on the cake, an unimaginable heat wave in Brazil, the
coldest winter in China’s living memory, persistent droughts in the watering
holes of Africa, and the blazing bushfires in Australia, not to speak of the
spate of floods, and the rollercoaster rides of the mercury across the globe.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But how
well does the media report on one of the pressing global issues of our time –
climate change? “Weird weather, global climate change, and the media” is the
theme of the </span><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://wcsj2013.org/weird-weather-global-climate-change-media/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: blue;">8<sup>th</sup> World Conference of
Science Journalists</span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> to be held in Helsinki, Finland, from 24-28 June this year. The
conference aims to provide an opportunity to </span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt;">science, environment and health journalists and
writers “to improve public understanding of extreme weather and climate
change”. </span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The
issue, of course, is not as much about journalists as it is about the
institutions they represent. The media is not one entity and media institutions
often have strong ideological or political leanings which determine the
positions they take on issues and this has an impact on their news coverage as
well. For example, liberal media organizations are more likely to give more weight
to the human hand in climate change than conservative ones which tend to deny anthropogenic
climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Findings
of a U.S-based </span><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2013/04/01/0963662513480091.abstract"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: blue;">study</span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> forthcoming in the </span><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: blue;">Public
Understanding of Science</span></span></i></b></a></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">now show that
following conservative media reduces people’s trust in scientists while using
non-conservative media increases trust in scientists. The study, by </span><b><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Gill Sans Std";">Jay D. Hmielowski</span></b><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Gill Sans Std";">, <b>Lauren Feldman</b>,
<b>Teresa A. Myers</b>, <b>Anthony Leiserowitz, and Edward Maibach, </b></span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">shows that a
decreased trust in scientists leads to a sceptical view of climate change while
an increased trust in scientists allows people to be certain about climate
change and its impacts. There is, therefore, a correlation between the ideology
of certain media institutions and the climate change beliefs of people who
follow them. Although earlier research seemed to treat </span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">“media use and trust as independent factors”,
the authors say that “considering the interplay between these variables” and
how they “uniquely influence attitudes may provide a more comprehensive
understanding of why people hold particular beliefs about climate change.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Measuring people’s beliefs on climate change is not easy but, in
another </span><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/content/early/2013/04/01/0963662513480117.abstract"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: blue;">article</span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">
forthcoming in </span><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="color: blue;">PUS</span></span></i></a></span><span lang="EN-NZ" style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">, Australian researchers, </span><b><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Murni Greenhill, Zoe Leviston, Rosemary
Leonard, and Iain Walker, </span></b><span lang="EN-NZ" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">suggest that differences in the wording on survey statements can
elicit different responses. More about that in the next blog.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-4141060939852716172013-04-02T16:09:00.000-07:002014-08-01T00:03:34.061-07:00Dateline Today<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The plot
of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Cook_%28American_novelist%29"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Robin Cook</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">’s new thriller on medical nanotechnology
is unfolding now – April 2013. Unlike several other science-fiction narratives
on the tinier than microscopic realm of nanotechnology, this page-turner is not
set in some distant future. The dateline is today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The
prolific novelist’s latest offering </span><b><a href="http://robincook.com/book-display.php?isbn13=9780399160820"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Nano</span></i></a></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> emphasises the here and now of a
technology that a lot of people still imagine to be futuristic. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The plot
of course has many of the ingredients of a popular thriller – an attractive and
headstrong woman scientist determined to bring to light the unethical practices
of a billionaire playboy businessman who heads a secretive nanotech
corporation; international business deals; gangsters; spies; security devices;
and the usual rollercoaster twists and turns of the storylines. But it’s not so
much the story that hooks the reader but the possibilities of nanotechnology in
curing medical conditions – Alzheimer’s, for one. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">That the
author dedicates the novel “both to the promise nanotechnology brings to
medicine and to the hope that any downside will be minimal”, points to the
potential of the new and emerging technology. The disclaimer about the dodgy
ethics of human experiments notwithstanding, this novel is more upbeat about
the ability of tiny nano-robots to destroy bacteria, viruses, and other
disease-inducing organisms. This is in sharp contrast to the work of another
bestselling science fiction novelist </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Michael Crichton</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> who presents a far more dystopic view of nanotechnology in his
novels </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_%28novel%29"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Prey</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_%28novel%29"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Micro</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">. The more recent </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_%28novel%29"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Micro</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> not only outlines the possibilities of
nanobots annihilating the vital organs of a person without leaving a trace of
the causes of death but also talks of bio-prospecting of natural resources at
levels unseen by the human eye.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">As we
said in an earlier </span><b><a href="http://pus-journal.blogspot.co.nz/2012_06_01_archive.html"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">blog</span></a></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">, regardless of its utopic or dystopic potential, nanotechnology is
now entrenched in the present and nanoparticles are ubiquitous in several
products of everyday use. Even tiny robots are already in use in medical
surgeries. Yet, public understanding of this new technology is still extremely
limited and this is something that science communicators and researchers alike
have to take up. </span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-19295655257879375892013-02-27T16:53:00.000-08:002014-08-01T00:04:07.573-07:00Neuroscience and personhood<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">The
eternal Nature Vs Nurture debate keeps re-surfacing in many different ways. Is
social behaviour determined by our biological architecture or is it a result of
the social, cultural, and political environment we are exposed to? Is the human
brain pre-programmed with genetic circuitry or can it be trained to adapt to
social influences?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
escalating interest in neuroscience in the last decade has put the spotlight on
the brain, its intricate pathways and its sophisticated signalling systems that
control physical and emotional responses. Graphic full-colour images of the
brain are now ubiquitous in the media. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But is
the proliferating coverage of neuroscience in the popular media radically
changing the way people think of notions of Self or personhood? In other words,
is the public engagement with neuroscience making significant changes in the
way people think about the brain and its influence on the complexities of human
agency? This is a topic that Cliodhna O’Connor and Helene Joffe grapple with in
their forthcoming article on “<a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/02/18/0963662513476812.abstract">How has neuroscience affected lay
understandings of personhood?</a>” in <a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/"><i>Public Understanding of Science</i></a>. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In a
thorough review, O’Connor and Joffe conclude that the propagation of radical<span style="color: black;">
neuroscientific explorations has come through “in ways that <i>perpetuate</i>
rather than <i>challenge</i> existing modes of understanding self, others and
society”. This is because “</span><span style="color: black;">people
selectively attend to and interpret science in ways that cohere with their
pre-existing values, identities and beliefs.” </span></span></div>
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<div class="Pa9" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">In
the course of their review, the authors touch upon what they call the
“philosophical battle” between conceptions of every human being as a “free
agent” and conceptions of a human whose character, behaviour and life-course
are pre-patterned by their biological constitution”. The latter conceptions,
the authors say, paint “</span>neuroscience research as the definitive refutation of the notion of
free will, which is cast – in Nobel Laureate Francis Crick’s words – as ‘no
more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules’.”</span></div>
<div class="Pa9" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Talking of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick">Francis Crick</a>, news has just come in of the decision of his
family to sell his Nobel medal and give the proceeds to research institutions –
see <a href="http://www.livescience.com/27398-nobel-dna-discovery-for-sale.html">LiveScience</a>. Crick, of
course, was not only credited, with his colleagues, of mapping the structure of
the DNA but also for his discovery of the molecular structure of nucleic acids
and the role this structure played in the transfer of information in human
beings. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Commenting on
the news of the sale, blogger Grant Jacobs, in the blog <a href="http://sciblogs.co.nz/code-for-life/2013/02/26/nobel-prize-for-dna-structure-for-sale/">Code for Life</a>, draws
attention to one other item for sale – a letter written by the Nobel Laureate
to his 12-year-old son to explain the Double Helix structure of the DNA. “It’d
be interesting to see his efforts at science communication from the time of
suggesting the model for the structure of DNA”, Jacobs says. It would indeed. As
James Borrell says in his blog on <a href="http://www.jamesborrell.co.uk/2013/01/16/how-to-communicate-science/?goback=.gde_3765856_member_212628851">How to
communicate science and not be boring</a>: “There’s a saying that if you can’t explain your research to a
child, then you don’t understand it well enough yourself.”</span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-30216748835436876202012-11-15T15:29:00.000-08:002014-08-01T00:04:39.997-07:00Bitter pill to swallow<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Debashish Munshi & Priya Kurian</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bestselling author of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29"><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bad Science</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and physician-turned-writer </span><a href="http://www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ben Goldacre</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> has taken the gloss off the sugar-coated world of pharmaceutical research with his latest tome </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma"><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bad Pharma</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. Goldacre’s sensational expose of the suppression of negative data from drug trials hit the news when a chapter from his new book was published in </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in September this year. Since then, the mediasphere and the blogosphere have been agog with commentaries on and reviews of the book, including in </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9617550/Bad-Pharma-by-Ben-Goldacre-review.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Telegraph</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2012/10/lies-damn-lies-and-drug-trials?quicktabs_most_read=0"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">New Statesman</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what are the key charges Goldacre levels at pharmaceutical companies? According to him, they publish and publicise only positive results from trials; cover up results they don’t like; carry out tests on relatively small samples of what he calls “unrepresentative patients”, analyse data with flawed techniques statistical analysis, and “exaggerate the benefits of treatments”. What is perhaps worse is that, as Goldacre alleges, such practices have gone unchallenged by regulatory bodies and academic journals, leaving frontline physicians none the wiser. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/sci-tech/2012/10/ben-goldacre-v-association-british-pharmaceutical-industry"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">letter</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> to the New Statesman, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, on its part, denies that negative trial data are deliberately hidden and insists that 90 per cent of medicines now in use have been developed by the pharmaceutical industry through “incremental innovation”. The industry does acknowledge though that there is “still work to be done in ensuring the publication of negative trial data within journals, and in ensuring greater transparency all round within the industry”.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The ongoing controversy has of course put question marks around the integrity of drug trials and the vulnerability of physicians and patients alike to risks associated with real or perceived distortions of trial data. But it has also raised some red flags on the culpability of academic journals in the dissemination of such data. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Goldacre takes academia to task in the chapter excerpted in </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>saying: “Finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies”. This charge echoes the charges made in the award-winning documentary </span><a href="http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/inside_job_2010/"><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Inside Job</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> against some business school academics, economists, and state officials who knowingly or otherwise condoned the practices that led to the catastrophic financial crisis in the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Connected to this issue of appropriate communication of research results, a recent </span><a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001308"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">study</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in France published in <i>PLOS Medicine</i> found that around half the press releases on randomized controlled trials contained “spin” that inaccurately represented the findings of the actual trials, and were subsequently reproduced in media coverage. A significant finding of this study was that such spin in the press releases and media coverage, which distorted the actual findings of the research, reflected the spin in the published journal articles, namely in the abstract conclusions. The study called for journal editors and reviewers to take greater responsibility to ensure that research findings were accurately presented in article abstracts and press releases. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems clear that without open access to raw data, and given the continued conflict of interest between some researchers and those sponsoring the drug trials, it will be difficult for journalists to ask hard questions of the press releases that come their way.<o:p></o:p></span>Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1598202825117114770.post-3590650042264173792012-11-04T18:08:00.001-08:002012-11-04T18:09:45.104-08:00Science rumblings<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The conviction of six scientists and a government official in Italy for failing to warn the public about an impending earthquake has sent tremors down the scientific community in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">According to reports published in the international </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/22/us-italy-earthquake-court-idUSBRE89L13V20121022"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">media</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">, the scientists were given a six-year prison sentence for manslaughter for their negligence in keeping people informed about the risks of the earthquake which killed over 300 people in the Italian town of L’Aquila in 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">The conviction has, predictably, generated a huge controversy with a </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Guardian</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"> headline “</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-universe/2012/oct/24/galileo-laquila-earthquake-italian-science-trial"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">From Galileo to the L'Aquila earthquake: Italian science on trial</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">” comparing the recent trial of the six seismologists to the infamous trial of the legendary astronomer Galileo nearly 400 years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">For readers of the <i>Public Understanding of Science</i>, the key issue is that the trial of the seismologists is more about communicating science than about science per se. As the </span><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22416-italian-earthquake-case-is-no-antiscience-witchhunt.html"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">New Scientist</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> reports: “The prosecution made it crystal clear all along that their case was about poor risk communication; it was built on an accusation of giving out "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The issue of communication itself is rather murky. A more recent </span><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22439-bugged-phone-deepens-controversy-over-italian-quake.html"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">New Scientist</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> article reports on the discovery of taped conversations at a risk assessment meeting in which a senior civil protection official “ordered one of the defendants to issue a reassuring statement.” This is another example of the power tussles among politicians, bureaucrats, and scientists given the diversity of their respective constituencies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Predicting an earthquake is obviously not an exact science and many scientific bodies have rightly taken exception to the perception that the seismologists may have failed in their scientific endeavours. Two senior scientists in Italy, including the physicists in charge of the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">National Commission for the Prediction and Prevention of Major Risk</span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">s, have also </span><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-quake-scientists-guilty/index.html"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">resigned</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> in protest against the convictions. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But </span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">as many commentators have pointed out, the convictions were not about the failure to predict the tremors but the failure in communicating the risks in a timely manner. So the challenge that the case throws up relates to the pitfalls of not communicating science appropriately. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Should scientists get media training to communicate their findings of public interest directly to the media? Are there ways in which science, policy, and media can work together to make sure scientific data and findings are understood clearly by people at large? One such initiative to give scientists training to be </span><a href="http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2012/10/31/getting-savvy-media-skills-for-scientists/"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">media savvy</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> has recently taken off in New Zealand. Learning to communicate in an accessible and jargon-free language is of course important for scientists. But having institutional mechanisms to resist political bullying is perhaps even more important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Public Understanding of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14805954128262999825noreply@blogger.com0