Did I frame that wrong?

Whew! That's a lot for others to follow. I wonder if many will try to catch up with all that.

Yes, in a sense I'm a new blogger. On the other hand I am a usenet veteran, and have been discussing environmental issues online since 1991, especially during my own period of dissertation avoidance ('93-'96). Look for me in the sci.environment archives.

While you were writing this lengthy (and, I am guessing, hard to follow) summary, I was thinking further about our disagreement myself. My attempt to clarify my position is visible right here under this clicky thing.

The Usenet environment trains one to be quick on the trigger! I am glad I got out of it in the early 90s (can you imagine how aggresive were Usenet groups in Serbo-Croato-Bosnian languages at the time? I am much more mellow now - most blogs are a level above the usenet in tone.

Hey, I may be the only SB blogger not to have banned 'Deep Thought' from my comments - au contraire he is welcome although we disagree on everything and easily throw epithets at each other (but we can, because we've known each other for a couple of years and thus trust each other never to cross the 'line').

Damn! Just when I thought I was making some really interesting comments on your previous posting it turns out that I only "skimmed it quickly, found what he did not like in it with his own frame of mind at the time, and used it as a starting point to make his own point."

Oh, silly me. I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that your first posting (since revised) wasn't as clear as you originally intended? Or even--perish the thought--you were wrong? :-)

raised hackles, indeed :) if it was a trap you set, guess i fell in, making the exact point of the importance of framing along the way. and fair enough - you're very right that emotive language brings with it both connotations and preconceived notions. the dangers of these notions are in fact what underlie some of my more major concerns about framing.

but between you and me, and with all of my concerns aside, the necessity of framing in today's "me"-centric media is slowly making more sense to me. but it still doesn't make me happy.

[and, for the record (and to reiterate what i'd blogged), i thought your contentional post was a superb overview, and quite rational]

Larry: many, many people responded to the Nisbet/Mooney paper as well as to my post, and you are the one of only two who did not get it. Perhaps you should consider that you are wrong, particularly as you do not appear to be familiar with the literature on framing and speak entirely out of personal experience as a scientist. In other words, you are the target audience of their paper, but due to its brevity, and your reluctance to dig into the primary literature, you refuse to budge.

And my addendum did not bring anything new, just summarized the entire post. All I am doing is giving you an easy way out, i.e., not accusing you of selective quote-mining (which is dishonest), but suggesting that perhaps you did not read it closely enough (which is an honest mistake). As you are a very smart guy, I doubt that you could read it thoroughly and still not understand it (the third possible explanation). Take the best of the three when offered.

How about the best of the four? Add "read it carefully and charitably, and did not find it satisfactorily substantive"? It's also poor framing to tell people that they only have a choice of three alternatives, because the first thing many of us will do is try to think of others.

P.S. Think "Kobayashi Maru". It's how the great ones triumph.

Yup - Larry suggested that fourth alternative in his comment. As I disagree, I offered the additional three to choose from.

What is Kobayashi Maru? It does not elicit any frames for me - blank slate.

Google. Now I see - this is something only Trekkies would know. Not me. Remember, I was second but last in the geek contest.

"skimmed it quickly, found what he did not like in it with his own frame of mind at the time, and used it as a starting point to make his own point"

That's Larry's typical M.O. Anyone who's had him write entire posts based on objections to their writings that, in fact, have nothing to do with their writings, know this. He doesn't read to comprehend, he reads to find fodder for a new post regardless of its relevance to the post he links. But hey, he's on the "right" side.

I'm disappointed.

I want to see the graphic that goes with this version of the Great Chain of Being.

The quail on top!

Larry: many, many people responded to the Nisbet/Mooney paper as well as to my post, and you are the one of only two who did not get it. Perhaps you should consider that you are wrong, particularly as you do not appear to be familiar with the literature on framing and speak entirely out of personal experience as a scientist.

I getting really, really sick of hearing people say that I'm not familiar with the literature on framing. It's true, I haven't read the literature on framing. I also haven't read the extensive literature on propaganda but that doesn't mean I should engage in propagandizing.

What you and Nisbet and Mooney are trying to do is convince me that I need to be framing. You aren't doing a very good job and simply telling me that I'm not an expert on framing isn't going to do it.

The irony here is that you claim to be an expert on communicating because you're read the literature on framing. Why don't you put your expertise into practice by framing your argument in a way that scientists understand? Tell us why we should change the way we've been teaching science.

I responded to your earlier posting by pointing out where I disagreed with you. So far you haven't responded to the problems and questions I raised. All you done is point out that most people agree with you. I'm sorry, but that doesn't impress me very much.

Aha! I've got it. Nisbet and Mooney are actually .... (as they peel off the latex face mask with the old Mission Impossible theme song playing in the back ground) none other than William Dumbski and Ken the Ham.

"Mwaa haa haaa...." they intone as they look upon the science bloggers and evolutionary biologist go at each others throats ...

Did you notice that you never see Nisbet in the same room as Dumpsi, and Mooney in the same room as Ham? Did you?

If work out the numerology of the word "FRAMING" it comes out to ..

.... 666

I think this conversation (not just THIS one here but the whole thing) requires something more substantial, something real, to bring this discussion to a point of real practical reality. I've posed a very specific question with an example and everything. Actually, I describe (and this is open to critique by the framistas) details of a key published study on framing and then offer a roughly parallel example that would relate to Evolutionary Biology. I'd like to know what the experts think of it.

It is here:

http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=701

C: I'm not trying to spam your site. But maybe breaking out a fire extinguisher or at least getting a bucket of cold water would be good.

And, you really need to work that tree of life into a full blown Baltimore Catechism style graphic!

How long have we been discussing this? Five days? First, there is only the short Mooney/Nisbet piece and blogospheric response to it so far. Matt provided us with papers we'll read and discuss them in the future. There will be, I hear, a response in letters to Science. There will be, I think, a long detailed response by Matt and Chris. Then, once we get to some kind of a better undrestanding what framing is (and it's fine if there are a couple of dissenters remaining on the sidelines), we can start on the project of actually designing specific strategies for specific cases of countering anti-science spin in the media (short-term) and the project of long-term strategies for changing the American (and to a lesser extent international, which is already in a much better stats except in the Middle East) way of thinking about science - a project that will, among else, involve science education and popularization, the science education of science journalists and writers, etc.

As for the Chain of Being, someone with good Photoshop skills should do it and I'll proudly display it here - blogging is supposed to be fun, after all, including making fun of ourselves.

Coturnix:

I'm ready now. I've read a half dozen papers provided by Matt/Chris. I've formulated a fairly clear question that does not require background in the literature to address, and I think it is a good formulation because it speaks directly to the issues brought up by several concerned individuals. Matt and Chris or any other Framista is more than able to reformulate my question or critique my brief characterization of the gay marriage research paper ... I may have missed key points in the summary.

I'm not sure why we have to suddenly stop and wait for the next Science piece (maybe that is not what you are suggesting).

No, that's fine and I expect Matt and Chris will respond once they get online and find some time. We are each on our own timelines here - I have not found time to read all of the papers Matt sent me yet, but will blog about it once I get to it.

Anyway, can we get back on track and try to answer Michael Tobis' concerns here.

I understood what Tobis is saying. In fact, as I read the original post, I imagined a medieval-style Scala Naturae with DS Wilson, Lakoff, and Lewontin at the top (the Trinity?), Pinker and Williams several rungs below (where do Mae-Wan Ho and Brian Goodwin go?), etc all the way down to, I don't know, theo-wingnut warbloggers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Great_Chain_of_Being_2.png

The model, positing causal linkages between three continua - historical progress, individual maturation, and differentially sophisticated contemporary worldviews - is almost Haeckelian and reminded me of pre-Synthesis notions of ontogeny and progressive evolution reviewed by Stephen Jay Gould in the first part of Ontogeny & Phylogeny.

Perhaps I'm extraordinarily obtuse, but is the model intended to be: a) a serious contribution towards a new synthesis of developmental psychology, politics, and the sociology of science b) a light-hearted lark, or c) a little of both? I understand that the format of blogging favors the polemical, but most readers are going to take what's written at face value.

It's noteworthy that one of Gould's recurring themes was that newer - whether in the realm of evolution or ideas - was not necessarily superior. One of his missions was to extract the useful parts of older ideas that had been mostly discarded at the time, like Goethe's laws of form and catastrophism. Gould believed that the later stages of the Modern Synthesis had hardened into a narrower doctrine, excluded too many heterodox perspectives. Arguably, one of Gould's greatest accomplishments was helping to revive interest in the relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny, although he cautioned against simplistic mapping of maturation during the life cycle to unilineal progress.

Coturnix says,

Then, once we get to some kind of a better undrestanding what framing is (and it's fine if there are a couple of dissenters remaining on the sidelines), we can start on the project of actually designing specific strategies for specific cases of countering anti-science spin in the media (short-term) and the project of long-term strategies for changing the American (and to a lesser extent international, which is already in a much better stats except in the Middle East) way of thinking about science - a project that will, among else, involve science education and popularization, the science education of science journalists and writers, etc.

Me and most of my friends have been designing such strategies for about 35 years. There are newsgroups, listserves, blogs, books, and conferences that debate these things. If you're confused about it, just ask and I'll be glad to explain it to you.

And what good did it do? It's obviously not working.

The method you are using (and we all are using) is great for TEACHING the willing audience. It does not work for swaying uninterested voters to do what is right and pressure politicians to do something about global warming, stem cell research, environmental protection, teaching evolution in schools.

That is why this entire project is starting - to use the findings of cognitive science to find a method thatWILL work.

Maybe I need to be more concrete, since people don't seem to understand what I think is wrong with what Coturnix says.

It is accepting the misleading framing of the enemy to link atheism and evolution.

That is why it is a very bad idea.

It is our job and our responsibility to establish trust with the general public. We are failing in some circles, for a number of reasons.

Coturnix's linking of science and religion falls perfectly into a framing trap. Coturnix is welcome to believe in not-God, but this belief is of an entirely different quality, and the evidence for this beleif of an entirely different nature, than is his understanding of evolutionary biology as a professional scientist.

By linking the two, he absolutely and abjectly falls into the trap set by the professional bamboozlers, of reinforcing the link between theism and "believing in evolution" as if evolution were a philosophy rather than a substantive scientific consensus.

I'm not saying we should mince our words, saying "hmm, well, evolution is probably kinda true sorta, maybe". What I'm saying we should not do is agree with the opposition that evolution is closely linked with atheism.

That is what they are saying, remember? This is the best way to help keep evolution out of the public schools.

So for people to be looking to Coturnix for his wisdom about framing is, umm, weird. (It's late, somebody fetch me a colorful analogy, I'm a Texan now, can't be tongue-tied like that...)

His original article is horribly misframed, and as far as I can tell nobody gerts it. So let me be really clear about it.

Linking evolution and theism is the tactic of the enemy.

Avoid the linkage, which is nonsensical. Only the most superstitious and backward ideas of religion have anything to say on such questions.

Accepting the proposition that evolution has anything to say about religion in general (as opposed to one or two very simpleminded religions) plays directly into he hands of the cynical people who promote these naive ideas for selfish ends.

It is very bad framing. Please stop it.

OK, my post argues: a) there is a link between conservative theism and bad science, b) the link between atheism and good science is not nearly as strong (as liberal theist are often OK on science), c) linking atheism and evolution when talking to particular audiences is counterproductive (as liberal theists have a knee-jerk response to side with co-religionists against good science), and d) pushing atheism separately, and vigorously, in society as whole, will change mindsets of the population in a way that it will make is easier for us in the future to teach (and, yes, sell), good science.

Also, this looks like a confusion between 'framing a scientific issue' and 'talking about framing as a method'. My post is the latter and thus necessarily cannot work as the former - it reveals the "tricks" to the enemy, if you wish to put it that way.

Reminds me of the time when Lefty bloggers thought that Lakoff's notions of Strict Father and Nurturant Parent were understood to be frames themselves, instead of ways to organize one's thoughts when preparing a message. The two terms were never to pass your lips once you talk to the voters - they are "internal memos" about the way to think about the way people think.

So, as I noted in paranthesis, my post was not framing, it was about framing, and was bound to offend the theists and conservatives. And this is my blog so I have no interest in writing posts that will make me palatable to the morons from the Little Green Footballs - I am bound to write stuff that half the country will disagree with, there is no way not to.