…and this is a 
Mooney and Kirshenbaum continue their campaign with an op-ed in the Boston Globe, which, as we all know, has rigorous standards. Their explanation for scientific illiteracy in America is simple: it's the scientists' fault for being so aloof and distant. Their solution is also simple: philanthropists and universities need to give more money to employ media-savvy scientists. How…nice.
I will say one good thing about their op-ed, though. It contains the full content of their entire book. Read the essay, now you don't need to buy the book, since it covers it fully, including all the non-existent details for how to actually implement their solution.
I must offer a significant criticism, however. They start out by pointing out that most scientists accept the evidence for global warming, while only about half the general public does. Right away, the comments start coming in complaining that AGW is wrong. Don't M&K know they aren't supposed to feed the conflict or stir up controversy or throw out ideas the public will find disagreeable? Where's the civility?
Comments
Posted by: rickflick | July 26, 2009 12:53 PM
Where's the civility indeed! They must be campaigning for something.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 26, 2009 12:59 PM
Mooney and Kirshenbaum continue their campaign with an op-ed in the Boston Globe, which, as we all know, has rigorous standards.
Shit, you didn't need to cite that DI nonsense, You've could have just linked to Jeff Jacoby or Cathy Young. Standards are NOT high at the Glob.
And even though the Glob may have low standards, it's nowhere near the Herald, from where the Globe took Jacoby, and who still employs Howie Carr and Joe Fitzgerald. We got some of the best cracker columnists you could ask with those two!
Posted by: Gingerbaker | July 26, 2009 1:00 PM
Oh, the civility!
Posted by: Sven DIMilo | July 26, 2009 1:02 PM
You can leave comments for the Twins over here. For all the good it does.
Posted by: C.E. Petit | July 26, 2009 1:03 PM
Perhaps — just perhaps — if the education system put as much emphasis on "writing to communicate" (instead of grant writing) on the scientists' end, and "reading for comprehension" (instead of for immediate need) on the nonscientists' end, this might not be so obvious.
But who am I kidding? Since we don't require education in scientific method, or the philosophy and history of science, the general public (including, sadly, the majority of those with university educations) wouldn't understand the content even if it were communicated clearly — because they don't have the basic context to do so. And, as Professor Myers implies in his piece, that specifically includes the two yahoos who wrote that piece in the Glob...
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl
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July 26, 2009 1:04 PM
Damn - and I'm fresh out of sympathy, too. Maybe they'll get something from this experience, like how the reason the American public remains largely uneducated is by their choice and that scientists can no more help the situation by being "nice" than can a man on the moon? (Wait - a man on the moon might actually help in this instance...)
Wait, no. The hallmark of the fanatic is repeated insistence in the face of all evidence to the contrary. I think they have proven themselves to be fanatics for their message by now.
Posted by: Chayanov | July 26, 2009 1:14 PM
Mooney and Kirshenbaum should be more accommodating of those who deny AGW, and be respectful of the differing opinion. How could they possibly expect to gain over the AGW deniers by telling them they're wrong in what they believe?
Posted by: AdamK | July 26, 2009 1:15 PM
Another NASA hoax!
Posted by: JD | July 26, 2009 1:25 PM
PZ wrote,
I was going to wait for the sequel anyway: "Shrill and Looney make a porno".
Posted by: Screechy Monkey | July 26, 2009 1:32 PM
There are plenty of AGW deniers who are competent scientists in their own (non-climate-related) fields. Therefore, by Faitheist logic, there is no conflict between AGW denial and science.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | July 26, 2009 1:35 PM
It's interesting that they don't really do what they preach. Mooney has written some fairly hard-hitting books, so he is obviously willing to criticize others - I guess they make a difference when it comes to religion (where they are only willing to take on people who criticize religious people).
Completely unrelated, I see that John A. Davison has now started commenting there as well. What is it, the pharyngula reject catalog? (I am not saying that everyone who posts there are banned from Pharyngula, but I am not impressed by the quality of the regulars there - and this has nothing to do with ideological differences, there are many people I disagree with, who I still will read)
Posted by: Brian D | July 26, 2009 1:39 PM
See also The Moon: A Propaganda Hoax.
No, not just the moon landings. The entire Moon. ;)
Posted by: David Wiener
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July 26, 2009 1:40 PM
The comments on their article refute K&M's main argument, that all we have to do is reach out to people and then they'll understand. Obviously, there are people who are simply rejecting any science that does not fit their pre-conceived notions. PZ's take on K&M is dead right. You cannot have a rational dialog with the irrational.
Until people become rational, or *at least* learn to compartmentalize more effectively, K&M will just be farting in the wind.
Also - Scientists are busy. Educators (we have those, don't we?) should be doing the educating. Perhaps the problem is the fact that we underfund K12 education and have poor standards?
Posted by: cthellis
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July 26, 2009 1:45 PM
I don't think men on the moon are good for much of anything, Ryan.
http://www.twistedmojo.com/la.html
Posted by: Lynna | July 26, 2009 1:51 PM
I have come to conclusion that M&K live in a protected environment. They think everyone will respond to their version of education because most of the people around them do respond that way. They need to get out more. Their picture of the world is skewed. I hope they join you on the excursion to the Creation Museum.
Better yet, they should live for a year in Saudi Arabia, northern Idaho, or Provo, Utah.
Posted by: AdamK | July 26, 2009 2:01 PM
On the moon.
Posted by: shrimplate | July 26, 2009 2:01 PM
Right-wing radio talkshow host Michael Medved was spouting the old "you can breed dogs to look different but they're still dogs" canard about "macroevolution" on Friday.
There's an entire segment of redneck America that takes this crap seriously. We have a media that is willing to perpetrate untruths. We have religious wackjobs throughout all levels of government.
No, I don't want to be nice.
Posted by: SC, OM, Blogmistress | July 26, 2009 2:03 PM
I read it this morning, and it was as muddled and self-contradictory as anything they've written on the subject thus far.
They keep referring to what "scientists believe" and "scientists think" and "scientists love to cite," without providing any documentation for these claims. It's completely bizarre that they appear to be putting their own ideas in the mouths of "scientists," apprently oblivious to the fact that their strawman scientist community is basically themselves.
First, intelligent people, scientists and others, don't think this is entirely an issue of ignorance. We recognize that there are powerful religious, political, and corporate forces (often in combination) working to distort people's views and get them to reject scientific knowledge. For Pete's sake, it was the subject of Mooney's last book. Moreover, he's been mentioning it himself in interviews for the past few weeks.
They're clearly arguing with themselves here. Although they still haven't defined "scientific literacy," the term itself carries a plain meaning of lack of knowledge. When we say people are illiterate, we understand by this that they don't know how to read, not that they know how to read but refuse to do so and will throw books in the trash rather than read them. And yet their book is about scientific literacy - not scientific and critical-thinking rejection.
Their solutions, in addition to having an annoying generationist ring to them, are weak and pointed at the wrong people. As I said here
http://saltycurrent.blogspot.com/2009/07/review-ofwell-comment-about.html
they had every opportunity to make them strong, but arrogantly threw them all away.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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July 26, 2009 2:04 PM
wow. if the entire book is like that, it's a waste of perfectly good trees. half of it is trivial (the American public needs to become more proud and supporting of science? not all science students will be working in academics?! science communication is important?!? wow, I didn't know!!), and the rest is split between things where they say one thing but do the other (asking for more support for science communicators on the one hand, but on the other hand bashing successful science communicators like PZ for being successful), things they're completely naive about (like, that many Americans actually want real answers to their questions, rather than using questions as rhetorical devices to bolster their preconceived notions), and things they're wrong about (like the "fact" that Americans think scientists are arrogant and aloof because those silly scientists want to fill their head with knowledge... not because American has had an anti-intellectual subculture since its inception, which got only worse when it became "commie pinko intellectuals" vs. "down-to-earth, hard-working Christian Americans")
Posted by: Meyrick Kirby | July 26, 2009 2:05 PM
Whether science illiteracy is the fault of scientists seems to be rather besides the point. The question is, will the above advice help? At face value, a few media-savvy scientists doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
Posted by: tmaxPA | July 26, 2009 2:06 PM
I have to say, after reading a few paragraphs of that article, I cannot avoid coming to a slightly disturbing conclusion. This isn't idiocy, PZ, this is more intellectual prostitution. These guys have been payed by some right wing loony bin to set up this fog bank. Why do I suspect this?
It simply isn't conceivable that anyone would consider the examples of stem cells and global warming and not at least notice that millions if not hundred of millions of dollars have been spent obfuscating the facts about these very things. I will believe there are many people dumb enough not to consider this important, but I can't believe anyone is being intellectually honest when they have failed to consider it at all.
Posted by: Robert Grumbine | July 26, 2009 2:07 PM
Oh well. Another article from Mooney, another time I'm told I'm doing it wrong, without being told how to do it right.
He buys in to another myth himself, and then propagates that --
Nope. The anti-scientific are seldom scientists. That's why Heartland or Discotute tout so loudly the few that they do get. Among those few, even fewer are scientists with any relevant background.
I'll invite folks to stop by my blog Monday (27th), when I'll be continuing to do the wrong things (viz. Mooney) as I take a look at a paper the global warming deniers have been touting loudly since it came out on the 23rd. Maybe one of you all can tell me what I'm doing wrong, since Mooney refuses to (I've asked, of course).
Posted by: Matti K. | July 26, 2009 2:07 PM
Chayanov (#7) "Mooney and Kirshenbaum should be more accommodating of those who deny AGW, and be respectful of the differing opinion. How could they possibly expect to gain over the AGW deniers by telling them they're wrong in what they believe?"
Actually, the word "denialism" seems to be verboten within the framing ideology:
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/11/listen_to_this_radio_segment_a.php
Then again, it may be that Mr. Mooney and Dr. Frame have grown apart sincen 2008.
Posted by: JJR | July 26, 2009 2:10 PM
Gail Lowe, new head of the Texas SBOE, is an AGW denier, among other things, just FYI.
Posted by: zaardvark | July 26, 2009 2:25 PM
M&K's problem is that they believe the movie myth of the stuck-up, weird, and unsociable scientist. Seriously, they actually seem to believe this misconception, and are trying to address how to deal with it -- forget whether their solution is correct or not, because they don't even understand the problem!
Posted by: tmaxPA | July 26, 2009 2:32 PM
Blockquote fail, sorry.
But since I'm here, allow me to continue. (Each new line of this piece is like an exquisitely unique experience in masochistic stupidity.)
Those aren't the words of a moron or someone merely stupid and dishonest. Those are claims that could only be made by a professional liar, being paid to tell just those particular lies.
Actually, a proper high-school education, an open but rational mind, and an ability to read are all that is required to tell denier bullshit from logical reasoning. If that.
You could just read Pharyngula , and take it on PZ's word that there is no god, that humans are closely related to squid (compared to bacteria, which we're also both distantly related to), that stem cells aren't people, and that global warming is a pressing danger to our entire civilization. But what's the fun in that?
Far more convincing than PZ's authority on these positions is the bogus crap that religionists and faitheists alike try to use to refute them.
Utter crap. Scientists ARE distant voices of authority. It doesn't matter how hip they are; what matters is their data. I don't WANT them to be everyday guides and allies; they have no more wisdom than street musicians, necessarily. Listen to who, the less-authoritative public? Why? Do we think they should be sensitive to our squeamish concerns, or do we think they should just get accurate data?
I'm pretty sure the commercial relationship these guys have with large and very rich business interests leaves them wanting nothing more than for scientists to be 'sensitive' to whatever populist outrage they can drum up concerning what should or should not be investigated by scientists.)
Imagine my surprise when I found out scientists are members of the public. Who knew?
Posted by: defective robot | July 26, 2009 2:39 PM
But, but, but...it's the scientists fault! They don't communicate from their ivory towers! They don't make science sexy like on CSI! They don't go sing lovely ballads about neutrinos on American Idol! They don't appear on Topps cards, or drive really fast race cars, or romance Jennifer Aniston, or live in gilded apartments on Fifth Avenue, or appear in Gatorade commercials, or...!
And if they don't do any of that, why should our kids aspire to be them?
America's scientific illiteracy has nothing to do with the writing talent of a scientist or the ability of a "neo" atheist to offend the delicate sensibilities of a religulous wuss. It has everything to do with America's infatuation with lazy fame and fatuous materialism.
Scientists? They're not the problem. The problem is us.
Posted by: Unilever | July 26, 2009 2:50 PM
Chriiiiiiis M.
You don't have to put on the red light...
Posted by: Holbach
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July 26, 2009 2:55 PM
I have a nice collection of science books on many subjects on my shelves, and there is never an impediment to take them down and read the wonderful world of science discovery and knowledge. Even if you read only the numerous books on science by Isaac Asimov, you would have a good understanding of the history and workings of science. That's just Asimov. Even if accepted that many scientists are aloof and distant, this still does not limit a person's quest for scientific knowledge as the scientists books are still published for all. Just pick the book up and read it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 26, 2009 3:23 PM
No they aren't, and no they don't.
To be more precise, they might be an engineer or a dentist or a scientist in a field irrelevant to the topic at hand; and on the chance they cite a peer-reviewed paper, euros to éclairs they're doing so dishonestly, misrepresenting its content through quote-mining or the like. The fact that M&K don't acknowledge or don't understand the ways denialists build spurious credibility is. . . interesting.
Posted by: CDA | July 26, 2009 3:49 PM
Out of all the garbage in the K&M op-ed, the following seemingly innocuous statement bothers me the most. I see it constantly and it's one that often slips by.
Variations of this gets burped up by nearly all of our detractors. Those rabid and purportedly open-minded and moderate alike. In its most distilled form this statement is true; science is about searching for the truth, an imperfect process, et cetera. One of the largest problems we face however, is the myth that the scientific method is something done only by scientists for science. We need to dissuade people of this. This rigid distinction is false and harmful and we reinforce it in the educational system.
In our country (I'm sure we're not alone), we teach the scientific method/mentality only as it pertains to laboratory experimentation. We leave science to the sciences (biology, basic astronomy, "physical science", and IFF you are an AP student, chemistry and physics). We promptly ditch all of science's scrutiny, critical thinking, and methods when we go on to teach the other subjects (Hey, they aren't science, right!). For instance, we teach history as if it is a book of facts and not as a subject that too contains biases and periodically gets revised when new information comes to light as it really is. While many of us come to know this intuitively, it isn't usually presented as such when covering the material. We don't teach all subjects the same way: scrutinize the details, consider the sources, look for biases, question authority, etc. This rift between the way we teach sciences and non-sciences helps to build a wall in the mind. Things we unquestionably know on one side, things we don't on the other. Facts on one side. That fuzzy imperfect science on the other. When in reality, things move around (as everyone on here knows). Things routinely go from imperfect science to fact. Our world view changes. Flat world to round world. Center of the universe to a small small fraction of it. Mother Theresa from altruistic roman catholic to beleaguered doubter. It happens all of the time but we are not all educated to be cognizant of it.
Posted by: Skemono | July 26, 2009 3:50 PM
That would be awesome.
Posted by: SLC | July 26, 2009 3:52 PM
One only need look at who the most fervent defenders of the Bobbsey Twins are over at their blog. Two of the biggest assholes who comment anywhere, John Kwok and Anthony McCarthy. With supporters like that, who needs opponents.
Posted by: Carlie | July 26, 2009 4:08 PM
Science museums and science centers exist entirely to educate the public about science in a nice, friendly, easy-to-understand way, and often have free admission or really, really cheap admission.
Now go count the number of people who go to a science center in a day compared to the number in a movie theater in a day (who are paying a lot more, btw).
So the problem is that science isn't working hard enough to get a nice, friendly, easy-to-understand message out there? Or is it maybe that a lot of people would rather be watching Seth Rogen stick his finger up his nose in a Judd Apatow movie? And how is that scientists' fault?
Posted by: Ophelia Benson | July 26, 2009 4:11 PM
"For instance, we teach history as if it is a book of facts and not as a subject that too contains biases and periodically gets revised when new information comes to light as it really is."
Yeah - and we teach it as if the book of facts just kind of writes itself. You don't learn anything about methodology unless you major in history at university level.
Posted by: Ken Cope | July 26, 2009 4:12 PM
zaardvark @25: M&K's problem is that they believe the movie myth of the stuck-up, weird, and unsociable scientist.
Mooney's cardboard cutout scientist is not nearly as nuanced as the caricature from the pen of animator Ward Kimball in his 1950s cartoon for Disney, Mars and Beyond, viewable here, starting at 4:15.
Posted by: Otto | July 26, 2009 4:18 PM
Oh, leave poor Mooney and Kirshenbaum in peace! So they are a bit of fluffheads but at least they are not pushing astrology.
Even less than rigorous science reporting can GET kids interested and every little bitch helps!
Posted by: Lynn Wilhelm | July 26, 2009 4:24 PM
Heard Sheril on local public radio station for the State of Things with Frank Stacio. Have a listen http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0722c09.mp3/view
Quite a bit of the blame the scientist sort of thing. She explains how she sort of found her way into science through her interest in conservation biology. Gee, that sounds like science to me. She's seems to be making herself sound like a non-scientist scientist.
She says how it's so hard to get scientists together to discuss issues, but she learned a lot about social marketing at her job at a pop radio station.
She didn't answer Frank's question about whether or not it's that people don't value science education or just don't know about science. She just says that science is important to our lives and the scientists aren't engaging people. Again putting it all on scientists. For her it's all about communication. She thinks "science should be a bigger part of the discussion." What is this supposed to mean? "Scientists aren't working together to figure out what their message is and how to communicate it effectively." Do scientists have a "message"?
Then the Pluto thing comes up and Frank says that the notion that a group of experts can tell us what is or isn't planet is now culturally unacceptable because we believe in democracy.
Listen, it's fun. I really like Frank Stacio and his show, but he's just not too scientifically up on things for this interview. He even asks some good questions, but is too nice to let her dance around them. At the end he touches on the new atheist/religious controversy. But she dances even more saying she had to just be nice to religious types to be able to work with them.
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl
|
July 26, 2009 4:25 PM
I had never seen those before - thanks! Moral: K&M are useless. Point taken.
Posted by: Lynn Wilhelm | July 26, 2009 4:27 PM
Hit post too soon:
He even asks some good questions, but is too nice AND lets her dance around them. At the end he touches on the new atheist/religious controversy. But she dances even more saying she had to just be nice to religious types to be able to work with them.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 26, 2009 4:29 PM
CDA:
Well said.
. . . Hey, you aren't the CDA who went to MIT at the same time I did, are you?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 26, 2009 4:31 PM
Completely unrelated, I see that John A. Davison has now started commenting there as well
ROFLMAO
THAT should tell those two just how far they've flung their nets.
look what they caught!
with supporters like Davison...
Posted by: blf | July 26, 2009 4:42 PM
Any chance of the LRO taking a picture of them? NASA even has PR people so M&K
can'tshouldn't object…(Posted without Preview because Seed needs a few techies in addition to run the SciBorg sites—PR people might be Ok at site concepts, but not actually making and keeping the damn thing running…)
Posted by: FredW | July 26, 2009 4:45 PM
Kirshenbaum and Mooney should both stop claiming that Kirshenbaum is a scientist. She's not. She has a master's degree in science, but has clearly stopped doing science as a going concern after publishing three trivial papers. She is a writer, and a p.r. person, but she doesn't do science.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 26, 2009 4:46 PM
Carlie @34,
You're probably right that most people would rather go watch the latest Rogan flick than go to the science museum. The Boston Museum of Science is addressing this by having a Harry Potter exhibit.
Um.....
Posted by: blf | July 26, 2009 4:58 PM
The Science of the Discworld series is another attempt at addressing scientific thinking by using a hugely popular fantasy setting. (I highly recommend the series, both the Science of… and of course Discworld itself.) I have no idea if there's been any attempts by a respectable museum using pTerry's Discworld to attract visitors and increase understanding?
(Posted without Preview because Seed must have hired the Wizzards of UU to do technical work on the site rather than, say, cunning artificer…)
Posted by: SC, OM | July 26, 2009 5:06 PM
Yes.* (Though this isn't merely an issue of science vs. non-science.) I've told the story of how my "awakening" as a child was a result of my reading Cosmos, but prior to that I became interested in doing investigative work from seeing the ridiculous finding-Noah's-ark movie with my church. It may have been the first time I saw people actually doing research. All I had seen prior were predigested "facts." As obviously silly as the film was ("They found a bit of wood on Ararat! It's the ark!") even to an elementary-school student, it was life-changing in its way. As were the short lectures my calculus teacher gave about the personal stories of the people involved.
I think much education should contain units, and really an overarching structure, based on the question "How do they/we know that?" including a discussion of the history and how that discovery fit into it and the methods people have used to investigate it (inspiring kids to want to go discover things for themselves). Of course, if I were planning to propose this in, say, a book, I would ask teacher-commenters on my blog about the practical difficulties, the programs that already exist, what they've tried or are doing now and the problems they're facing, their suggestions for making programs along those lines work, etc.
But that's just me. :)
*Related to what I've argued on my blog:
http://saltycurrent.blogspot.com/2009/07/review-ofwell-comment-about.html
:P
Posted by: MadScientist | July 26, 2009 5:13 PM
"Where's the civility?"
As long as no facts were asserted and the anti-AGW comments were not corrected/contradicted that would be in line with the book, wouldn't it? Just say what you have to say about science and leave people's wierd beliefs alone. After all, no one in science wants a fight and controversy only leads to fights. It's not as if people like Darwin, Einstein, and Pauli ever had to stand up for their claims despite severe and largely incorrect criticism; oh no, they only had to say things and everyone believed them. After all, isn't science all about consensus?
Posted by: Denis Loubet | July 26, 2009 5:26 PM
Where will all these Media Savvy Scientists come from to solve the problem? Media-Savvy-Scientists-R-Us? If you're just going to wildly wish for stuff, why not just skip the middle-man and wish for everyone to understand science?
I wonder if Mooney and Kirshenbaum conveniently consider themselves media savvy?
Posted by: SplendidMonkey
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July 26, 2009 5:30 PM
I know of one scientist who's parlayed that into an entire career - Dr. Science!
Posted by: F | July 26, 2009 5:45 PM
Don't worry, they have a wave of book coming to answer those pesky "so, what is your solution" questions.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/25/the-first-of-four-books-on-science-communication/
Posted by: articulett | July 26, 2009 5:50 PM
It's hard to teach science to people who think there are "other ways of knowing" (faith and feelings). Why do the hard work of learning to think when there are supposedly "other ways of knowing" even "higher truths"?
Science is the only way of "knowing" that has verifiable useful results. It works. Faith and feelings are equal to superstition when it comes to actually knowing anything.
That's a message the "toothpaste twins" seem very resistant about sending. And they vilify anyone who even suggests that's the message that should be sent.
It's not scientists that are claiming to have divine truths or that imagine themselves to be experts at communicating them to the public. That would be religionists and the faitheists that enable them.
Posted by: Sasquatch groomer | July 26, 2009 6:08 PM
Speaking of global warming, the absolute best site I have ever seen is www.climatedepot.com . I wish everyone knew about it.
Posted by: JHS
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July 26, 2009 6:09 PM
What BS. Though not surprising. The general public isn't scientifically illiterate? Blame the scientists! The general public doesn't appreciate literature? Blame the English professors (...like me...)! The general public can't diagnose and treat themselves? Blame the doctors!
Posted by: Carlie | July 26, 2009 6:12 PM
The only reason they get so much traction in the general media is that they provide an out - a reason to blame others instead of oneself. You don't know much about science? You fell for what some kook said about global warming and voted for an idiot who ruined everything? Blame scientists! They're the ones who didn't teach you well enough! It makes scientists the scapegoat for everything that's wrong, and that's incredibly appealing to anyone who isn't a scientist.
Posted by: Carlie | July 26, 2009 6:15 PM
Don't worry, they have a wave of book coming to answer those pesky "so, what is your solution" questions.
And let me guess, the scientists are going to be abandoned in the Astrodome when it comes.
Posted by: Fred Bortz | July 26, 2009 6:19 PM
Oh, come on, Gang!
You guys are having fun bashing Mooney and Kirshenbaum personally when you need to be looking at the book. Yes, I saw PZ's original scathing review after having decided not to review it myself (more below). That was quite enough. It got personal in places because PZ's "militant atheism" came under attack. But on the whole, the review made good points about the book's weaknesses.
I happen to agree that Unscientific America is far from Mooney's previous standards (see http://www.scienceshelf.com/StormWorld.htm). In fact, I backed away after successfully pitching a review of UA to one of my major newspaper clients because the topic was important.
I hoped to find an original solution to a significant issue in the book, but quickly discovered a rehash of conversations and issues I had experienced in my previous life as a physicist deeply involved in K-12 science education and public understanding of science. And, like most of the commenters here, I disagree with M&K's proposed solution on many grounds that most of you already know.
Since my newspaper clients have limited room for negative (or even mixed, leaning toward negative) reviews unless a book is being praised in a flood of publicity-hype, I knew it was time to tell my editor not to expect a review of UA after all.
(Believe me, what M&K are doing is normal promotion. I'm thinking of a book in which the author was being hyped as a cross between Madonna and Carl Sagan, when it turned out her ideas made her more like her departed friend Timothy Leary.)
So the upshot was that I walked away from reviewing the M&K book, just as I abandoned reading the M&K blog once they started focusing on framing.
Still, I have hope that Sheril will be valuable as an advocate for science in the political arena and that Chris will go back to writing books as important and valuable as his first two.
Discovering this gleeful personal attacking of them here tells me to to forget Science Blogs with an "s-s-s-s-s" and go back to my own blogging at Science Blog (click my name). Perhaps a few of you will follow me, despite PZ's recent complaining that Science Blog allows crackpots to post there. What he missed is that the crackpots are quickly exposed, while lesser riff-raff like me get to make useful comments in an environment where smart readers are less likely to engage in the kind of gleeful piling on I am seeing here.
Posted by: 12th Monkey | July 26, 2009 6:21 PM
SC #47: I think much education should contain units, and really an overarching structure, based on the question "How do they/we know that?" including a discussion of the history and how that discovery fit into it and the methods people have used to investigate it (inspiring kids to want to go discover things for themselves).
Personally don't understand why scientific method (not just "facts") is not taught all through the curriculum in every country on earth. Our entire physical civilization is essentially the result of just about 200 years worth of scientific discovery these days after all. It's as though we were all living in a vast space station but schools only made occasional and trivial references to things like rocket engines, vacuum, spacesuits, radiation and other aspects/hazards of living in space, nor to the fact that we all came to the station from a place that was almost unimaginably different.
Actually, I think I do know the reason. Corporate, religious and governmental establishments would be undermined if more than a small fraction of the population started thinking critically and asking "how do we know" too often.
Posted by: Matti K. | July 26, 2009 6:41 PM
#4
"The general public isn't scientifically illiterate?
-snip-
Blame the English professors (...like me...)!
May I blame Mr. Professor for the double negative? :-)
Posted by: JDP | July 26, 2009 7:30 PM
As an academic (and a scientist, to boot!) I think there's a point to this. Successful science communication is important. Gould, for instance, was a reasonable scientist (not great, but certainly reasonable) but his forte was providing solid, effective, and immediately compelling analogies for a general audience. Whine about his baseball digressions all you want, but Gould knew what he was doing; he was establishing a rapport with his non-scientific audience and then building off of their existing knowledge to make an interesting and high-level point. I think this is a cogent point that should not be thrown out with the bathwater. As much as Dawkins and other notable science communicators churn out book after book, the sense of relationship between writer and reader is certainly not the same as Gould would offer.
Posted by: Marc Abian | July 26, 2009 7:32 PM
Perhaps your country is different in this regard, but that's not my experience in history class.
Posted by: Ophelia Benson | July 26, 2009 7:35 PM
"You guys are having fun bashing Mooney and Kirshenbaum personally when you need to be looking at the book."
Blame the scientists!
No, wait.
Blame M&K's steadfast refusal to acknowledge objections, answer questions, explain obscurities, provide evidence, offer arguments, stop throwing accusations around, and do anything but go on repeating their already-demolished claims.
Posted by: SC, OM, Blogmistress | July 26, 2009 7:46 PM
Hi Marc,
Could you describe your experience? When in your education did you learn about this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography
and how? How was it kneaded into the curriculum, and what problems did the history teachers who attempted it face?
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2009 8:05 PM
A common issue I have with Mooney's line of thought, though seldom brought up, is the assumption that it is the traditional responsibility of the scientist to communicate their findings to the public at large. It is my understanding that typically it was and is journalists (which today have become specialized science journalists) who take such information and pass it along to the general public. They are the communicators. Or at least that's what I've been lead to believe.
Aside from very few exceptions scientists usually spend their time doing science and journalists are the ones who then report on it and hopefully popularize it within the culture. So it seems to me that Mooney is in effect criticizing himself and his profession when he goes on about how science is being badly communicated these days and he does so by assuming that it was always the scientists job and never the journalists.
This simply doesn't fit with the history.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 26, 2009 8:53 PM
You can hardly blame the scientific illiterate from being scientifically illiterate. That won't get us anyway. All that's left is to blame the big bad scientists who make science sound sterile and scary...
Is it really that scientists aren't media savvy that Oprah has people like Deepak Chopra on instead of Lawrence Krauss? Is the only reason that Casey Luskin is on Fox News as opposed to Neil Shubin that Casey Luskin has much better media training? See, I would think not. I'd say in my very limited experience that there's a great distrust of science because it is uncompromising when it comes to rigorously testing ideas. That fraudsters like Uri Geller can still get a gig is not because there aren't scientifically-sceptical magicians out there, but because science destroys magic thinking.
Posted by: Michael Kingsford Gray | July 26, 2009 9:00 PM
Faitheist accomodationist!
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
July 26, 2009 9:21 PM
well, we didn't have much Historiography per-se, but a large chunk of it was implicit in the way our textbooks were designed. I've seen american textbooks, and they're pages and pages of wall-o-text description and not much else, it seems. our textbooks had short summaries, but otherwise lots of primary source texts(sometimes opposing view ones about the same event), photos, etc. so at least we got a decent idea of what all this historical knowledge is based on, even if the actual method (other than comparing contradictory text sources) wasn't really studied...
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 26, 2009 9:31 PM
Any illiteracy in the public is the fault of the likes of Tolstoy, for making such dense and unreadable tomes that those who cannot read will never have a shot at learning... it's not that we should combat illiteracy by offering help to those who are illiterate, or making it socially unacceptable to be illitarate - it's all the fault of 'elitist' intellectuals who won't write to engage the regular joe. If War & Peace couldn't be submitted to Playboy magazine, then what good is it?As much as M&K want to make scientists more media-savvy, the main problem as I see it (I could be horribly wrong) is that being scientifically-illiterate is socially acceptable, as is following pseudo-science and magic thinking. And until such time when being scientifically-illiterate is frowned upon as much as being illiterate, that won't change. Hell, I even see hostility towards scepticism from otherwise sceptic people. Cultural relativity is winning the war, and they are doing it on the back of an enterprise that is too eager to give them the technology to do so.
Posted by: SC, OM, Blogmistress | July 26, 2009 9:40 PM
But did you learn how to do history? That's the question. The actual methods, and how the discoveries fit in the historical chain of knowledge, are what I'm saying should be a central part of the curriculum.
If this is done really well in European countries, then communication with teachers or curriculum-developers in those countries should be central for people in the US. Input from history teachers in Africa, Asia, and South America is also essential...
Posted by: SC, OM, Blogmistress | July 26, 2009 10:07 PM
Um. So I'm arguing with no one. But my points were made!
:)
Posted by: eddie | July 26, 2009 10:46 PM
I think I've finally worked out what M&K's plan is. I was thinking that their stated strategy; to train up a lot of 'science communicators' to spread the word (what word, exactly is uncertain) and to have these funded through research grants and philanthropy was flawed enough: The best this could achieve was to have a situation similar to the campaigns for healthy eating, or against smoking, etc. These were small, underfunded voices crying in the wind of big-budget ad campaigns from food and tobacco corps and were pretty useless.
Then I got it! What decent 'science communicator' would want to work for peanuts when they could get much more working for the other side. Genius. M&K will get all the ID advocates and AGW deniers trained up at the expense of the taxpayer and research in general. For them it's a win-win.
Also, hey SC, OM! I read your piece on a comment on M&NK and really enjoyed it. I Wanted to comment but I don't have any of the means to sign in. I use typekey here at a pinch but not typepad, google or the others. Can you add typekey to your list?
Posted by: eddie | July 26, 2009 10:51 PM
And my typekey login attempt just failed, with a message that began;
and went on for several lines.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 27, 2009 12:47 AM
Jason Rosenhouse has the first instalment of a three-part review up on his blog now; I ramble in the comments.
Posted by: Dan | July 27, 2009 2:54 AM
@5, @60,
We could all do with improving our writing skills, perhaps through writing courses/training; it is certainly a skill we could use. But almost without exception every scientist I know cares about writing and communicating. To suggest otherwise is both ignorant and insulting.
Moreover, the people that really need to be educated the most are the journalists! Almost all communication is done through journalists and media powerhouses. The idea that scientists can communicate directly with the public is fatuous, unless you are in the business of writing books, like Messrs Dawkins and Gould etc.
Lastly, after reading the article, one really gets the impression that the authors do not circulate among working scientists, or are not very observant.
The authors should take a long hard look in the mirror.
Posted by: Aquaria | July 27, 2009 5:17 AM
Having the knowledge equivalent of a PhD is more along the lines of what’s necessary to refute them, and even then, the task requires considerable research and intellectual labor, far more than most people have the time for.
Fuck you, Mooney, you condescending git.
I don't need a fucking PhD to detect bullshit and analyze information. Just because I'm a postal worker who never finished college doesn't mean I'm a moron. How insulting to imply that I can't take down a fundie retard with, "That's nonsense/bullshit, and here's why..." I do it, all the time. They hate me for it, but I'm not in the business of being popular. Fuck 'em if they can't take the truth.
I think that needed to add, "Like M&K, perhaps." Don't discount the possibility that it's what they really mean.
I've thought for a long time that one of the possible reasons why M & K and their fellow framing pearl-clutching WATB traveler were so bent out of shape about the way PZ and etc. grabbed the spotlight (and even diverted it away from Mooney) is that they want to be the go-to people for communicating science. Them. Nobody else. If they're the Big Kahuna communicators, then they get the fortune and fame. And all the TV spots, too.
It would explain a lot about M's bitchy reactions.
Oh--and Mooney can still fuck right off. Wonder if he'll highlight my uncivil post, pass it off as PZ's and whine about it--the cowardly prick.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 27, 2009 5:59 AM
No one seems to have noticed that M & K’s prescription is the exact opposite of a sane marketing approach.
Their basic approach is to urge scientists to be more aggressive about giving away their knowledge of science for free.
How much do people value something given to them for free? Especially when the people giving it seem to be pushing it on you when you are not really all that interested?
How much do you value the literature the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ guy hands you when he rings your doorbell at 8:00 Saturday morning?
If we really want people to place some value on science, the opposite approach would make more sense.
Let scientists in general tell the public that we have gone to a great deal of personal expense and effort to acquire knowledge that is of great value, both monetarily and in terms of one’s personal life (all true).
And we have no intention of giving it away for free to people who treat us with contempt.
In fact, we will do what we can to prevent people who show contempt for science, not just fundies but religious believers in general and faitheists, from getting an education in science.
What would happen?
Well.. if this were actually a large-scale effort, there would be squealing like a field of stuck pigs across the land. We’d be accused of discriminating on the basis of religion, of lack of concern for our fellow humans, etc.
And some people might actually start scheming to get their hands on scientific knowledge despite our boycott of them.
Implicitly, by their very complaints against us, people would be acknowledging that knowledge of science has some value.
This actually happened, by the way, in Maoist China: my wife and I read a book some years ago by a young woman who had managed to teach herself quantum mechanics by illegally getting hold of Western science books during the Maoist period (she felt inferior to her brother who did the same thing to teach himself quantum field theory!).
Alas, the scientific community will not come together on my plan, but then nothing will come of M & K’s plans, either.
Eventually, something of the sort may come to pass many decades down the line as US scientists migrate to Eurasia and as Eurasia in general surpasses the US in science. Of course, then, it will be mixed in with anti-Asian racism (those dirty Chinese who beat us in science simply because they will not let us in to their superior Chinese universities!).
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Sigmund | July 27, 2009 6:50 AM
Lets face it, the next time a truly dangerous pandemic - the sort we were worried that SARS, bird flu or swine flu would be - manifests itself and begins to spread around the world killing off members of all our families, the public will suddenly realize the value of science and listen very carefully to what the experts have to say.
Posted by: Carlie | July 27, 2009 6:53 AM
the public will suddenly realize the value of science and listen very carefully to what the experts have to say.
Hasn't happened any of the other times we've had crises, has it? In fact, they're more likely to blame us more for not making them care enough to learn about it in the first place.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 27, 2009 7:02 AM
I remember Ken Miller saying something similar when he was on The Colbert Report - that when they go to get a flu shot they should have to sign a piece of paper acknowledging that evolution works. After all, that's why they need a flu shot each year.
Interesting sentiments, completely impractical.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 27, 2009 7:23 AM
The fundamentalists would probably just say that it was God's wrath for allowing gays to marry.
Posted by: Sigmund | July 27, 2009 8:20 AM
"The fundamentalists would probably just say that it was God's wrath for allowing gays to marry."
Perhaps they would but that wouldn't stop them seeking scientific treatments the same way they do at the moment if they are diagnosed with serious ailments like cancer or heart disease.
The point is that we simply haven't had a disease that threatens the population at large wit the same danger as previous pandemics. This is despite the fact that people have probably been exposed to far more exotic diseases in the past century than any previous time. Modern scientific healthcare has virtually eliminated the danger of such mass killing pandemics yet this contribution is entirely under the radar of the population at large.
As an example think of HIV. This disease has the potential to cause huge loss of life and disrupt normal medical practice and surgical techniques (as evident from sub Saharan African experience) yet the invention of techniques such as monoclonal antibody screening, PCR etc have made test easy to perform and thus blood transfusions are safe in western hospitals. The general public simply doesnt realize how close we came to having a huge disaster with HIV - a disease that started to spread about a decade after monoclonal antibodies/ELISA tests etc were developed.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | July 27, 2009 8:27 AM
Why isn't stuff being taught? Bootstrapping problem here: because those (in general) who study elementary school education have little at best scientific accumen or training, and the issue becomes self-perpetuating. I had one teacher in elementary school who had no grasp of what she was doing that way, for example, and if it hadn't been for my father (who actually was a scientist) I would have found what was done incomprehensible at best. (Because of him it was incomprehensible in another sense!)
Posted by: Carlie | July 27, 2009 8:36 AM
The point is that we simply haven't had a disease that threatens the population at large wit the same danger as previous pandemics
Doesn't matter. People who are anti-science view healthcare as a completely separate animal. Doesn't matter how much you tell them that it's based on all sorts of other science, it's still different to them. Humans are special snowflakes in creation that are different from anything else, and medicine is applied technology, and none of that has anything to do with what they think of as science. The NIH could start funding music videos in the previews of every movie in the country, medical doctors could be held as the pinnacle of all things smart and holy (like they kind of have been for the last 80 years), and it would still not budge public perception of science in the least. They simply don't see the connection.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 27, 2009 8:59 AM
Rāmen.
No longer! That's what ScienceBlogs is for: to bypass the journalists and have the scientists talk directly to the public.
(...Even though the German version is populated mostly by journalists, some of them pretty ignorant.)
Posted by: Brandon P. | July 27, 2009 9:33 AM
Does anyone have an hypothesis explaining why the general public is so anti-intellectual to begin with?
Posted by: FormerComposer | July 27, 2009 11:01 AM
There was a book in the 50s/60s called Anti-Intellectualism In American Life (or something similar) by R(ichard?) Hofstedter. I've been meaning to read it for the last 40 years -- maybe now's the time.
Posted by: FormerComposer | July 27, 2009 11:15 AM
Further details re Hofstadter -- published in 1964. From the Wikipedia entry, it sounds like it could have been written yesterday:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. To quote the wise philosopher Pogo,
Posted by: Richard | July 27, 2009 11:18 AM
I've re-read their piece a few times, and something is starting to bother me.
PZ runs a very popular science blog. Evidently it's so popular that it can affect popular opinion.
If New Atheist scientists are driving away 'the public', who is reading the blog and making people upset?
Is there some religious test for being a member of the public?
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | July 27, 2009 11:28 AM
Richard said:
The ilk apparently (or the horde).
We're like the public except during times of special celebration where we sacrifice crackers to our blog overlord whilst destroying the proper public's natural love of science, thus making proper scientists cry.
Or something . . .
Posted by: Peter Beattie | July 27, 2009 11:39 AM
»
You guys are having fun bashing Mooney and Kirshenbaum personally when you need to be looking at the book.
Pretty much everyone here has been bashing M&K's ideas and non-arguments. And PZ's three paragraphs here are "a tirade"? Really?
Seriously, why is it that a substantial number of people apparently need to go running for the smelling salts as soon as somebody else disagrees with their ideas? Why is it that they take that kind of thing personally?
Posted by: Peter Beattie | July 27, 2009 11:42 AM
#90 was directed at Fred Bortz, #57.
Posted by: Fred Bortz | July 27, 2009 12:35 PM
Re: Peter Beattie #90/91
Thanks for visiting my blog to add your comment there as well.
Click my name to get to that thread. Read on for Peter's comment there and my response to it.
I probably won't be responding any more there (or here), because my blog entry was intended to provoke discussion by others. Let the discussion proceed!
Posted by: Dan | July 27, 2009 12:39 PM
Good point!
I look forward to the time when faculty review committees take blogging excellence (in addition to teaching, mentoring and research excellence) into account when deciding whom to hire.
Posted by: Lynna | July 27, 2009 5:13 PM
Sigmund @81. I do some PR work for BioAssay Works occasionally. I am very much impressed by how their monoclonal antibodies and ELISA-type test kits contribute to the well-being of society. They recently got a development grant for a rapid diagnostic test for small pox.
You are right that the "general public," no matter what they believe or don't believe, will make use of health-care related science. It's odd how most true believers will make use of science on the one hand, while throwing it away with the other (as in attacks on education).
A few people insist on dying instead of being treated for disease, but I don't think those people earn a lot of points even within their own community of believers.
Posted by: PhysicistDave | July 27, 2009 6:08 PM
Keith Douglas wrote:
>Why isn't stuff being taught? Bootstrapping problem here: because those (in general) who study elementary school education have little at best scientific accumen or training, and the issue becomes self-perpetuating.
Yeah, I’ve had a number of friends, and a step-sister, who teach elementary school – their knowledge of science and, even more so, math may be weaker than the general population. See Liping Ma’s “Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics” for data on how great the problem is: Dr. Ma found that most American elementary teachers whom she tested did not even know how to divide fractions!
It goes deeper than that: six years ago, when my niece was in fifth grade, I looked over her science book (Harcourt), and, in just a few minutes, I found a section where the book explained, in careful detail, that the speed of sound was proportional to the frequency! See the online Textbook League for other horror stories like this.
Any American parent who thinks their kid is learning science in American public grade schools or middle schools is probably delusional.
Because I think science and history should be the central subjects in one’s education, I’m homeschooling our kids: even among elite (i.e., expensive) private schools, I have found none that treat science seriously. As homeschoolers, we started talking about evolution, the Big Bang, etc. in kindergarten.
And, of course, since we are homeschooling, I can simply tell the kids the truth about religion whenever it comes up, as it naturally does in history, science, etc. (Contrary to the popular impression, there are now a large number of non-religious homeschoolers in the country.)
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: Cathy Young | July 27, 2009 11:03 PM
I find it interesting that I'm being vilified in the comments here when I have published numerous criticisms of "intelligent design." Evidently, anyone right of center is automatically considered an anti-science neanderthal. Not a great way to combat anti-science prejudice.
Posted by: Brandon P. | July 27, 2009 11:15 PM
@ Cathy
The only comment in this thread that could be construed as "vilifying" you is #2. The other posts don't even mention you at all.
Posted by: PhysicistDavedhm | July 27, 2009 11:23 PM
Well, actually, Cathy, I am critical of you for being too sympathetic to Big Government and its leaders – Bush, Obama et al. Yeah, I know you criticize them sometimes, but I don’t think you point out clearly enough that they are all just a bunch of murderous, thieving thugs.
So, you see, it’s not just leftists who criticize you!
PZ runs kinda a rowdy house here.
All the best,
Dave Miller in Sacramento
Posted by: JThompson | July 28, 2009 3:50 AM
Wow. A crappy blogspammer and a persecuted right winger in the same comment thread. Awesome. (Fred: No one fights in your comments because for the most part there are no comments. Cathy: Center has moved so far to the right in this country that "Right of center" is what used to be called "Extreme Right" and what we call "Conservative" we used to call "That schizophrenic guy that screams at people.".)
@PhysicistDave #76: I've had thoughts along those lines, except it'd be the researchers refusing to look for cures.
"Cure AIDS and cancer? We're not even going to try to cure acne or athelete's foot. No more erection pills, either. Get used to looks of disappointment, Floppy."
You'd either end up with scientists being treated like rock stars or rioting in the streets. Either one could be amusing.