How difficult has it been for economists to communicate their expertise to policy makers during this financial crisis? The Chronicle of Higher Education has this report: During the days after the White House announced its rescue proposal, economists of diverse stripes drafted plans, petitions, and working papers. And a few scholars were summoned to the U.S. Capitol to advise lawmakers directly. But now that the dust is beginning to settle in Washington, many academic economists have the gnawing feeling that during moments of crisis, they don't have much ability to sway public policy.

Democrats are far from innocent when it comes to twisting the reality of science policy for political gain. For example, back in 2004, when the Kerry/Edwards campaign tried to use stem cell research as a wedge issue against Republicans, Edwards infamously went well beyond the uncertainty of stem cell research and the realistic timeline for therapies when he said on the campaign trail: ""If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." And now in 2008,…

From the University of Pennsylvania's FactCheck.org, (listen to the ad and read the full analysis): An Obama-Biden radio ad hammers McCain for being opposed to stem cell research. Not true. Meanwhile two spots from the McCain-Palin campaign, together with the Republican National Committee, describe McCain's support for the research; they're largely accurate. By saying that "John McCain has stood in the way - he's opposed stem cell research," the Obama ad seriously misstates the view that McCain has held on this issue since 2001, when he began backing embryonic stem cell research, a position…

Nielsen has released an interesting breakdown and comparison of the audiences for the first presidential debate and the VP debate. According to Nielsen, sixty-one percent of all U.S. households watched at least one of the two 2008 election debates aired so far. Of all households, 39% watched neither debate, while 30.3% tuned in to both, 11.2% of all homes tuned in to the presidential debate only, and 19.5% tuned in to just the V.P. debate. Watching the debates, I've expected that the largest audience was tuning in for the first 30 minutes of the 90 minute debates, but according to Nielsen (…

If Bill Maher's strategy for landing interviews for his mockumentary Religulous sounds familiar, it's because it's the same method that Ben Stein & co. used for Expelled. From an LA Times blog: So how did Maher manage to get all these people to actually talk to him? Since "Religulous" was directed by Larry Charles, who also did "Borat," I suspected that subterfuge and trickery were involved. I was not far wrong. Here's how Maher pulled it off: On how he got people to talk to him: "It was simple: We never, ever, used my name. We never told anybody it was me who was going to do the…

Remember the Democratic New Hampshire primary? According to news organizations and many pollsters, the NH primary was supposed to be the loss that put Hillary Clinton out of contention and sealed an early nomination for Obama. Yet Clinton staged a surprise victory. At the time, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz pulled no punches in criticizing the horse race coverage that defined the primary races: "The series of blown calls amount to the shakiest campaign performance yet by a profession seemingly addicted to snap judgments and crystal-ball pronouncements. Not since the networks…

With $3.5 million earned in its weekend box office debut, Bill Maher's Borat-inspired mockumentary about religion managed to just edge the opening weekend for Ben Stein's Expelled. Religulous, which opened in half as many theaters as Expelled, outgrossed Stein's weekend take by roughly $600K. Religulous benefited in part from a massive free media campaign, with Maher appearing on shows ranging from The View and Conan OBrien to NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Still, given major studio backing for the film, the producers are likely to be somewhat disappointed with the returns. Expect the run…

Just how bad has the information tide turned against McCain on the economy? The conservative Economist magazine, in survey results published this week, finds that economists overwhelmingly name Obama as more qualified to handle the economy. More Democrats than Republican economists replied to the survey, but even among Republicans, Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Obama has the better grasp of the subject. In terms of who is more likely to surround himself with qualified experts, 81% of all respondents say Obama; 71% among respondents who say they are unaffiliated with a party.

How critical is framing to effectively communicating about complex policy problems, especially under conditions of uncertainty? Just take a look at the debate over the economic crisis. As I noted last week, the term "bailout" has locked in a specific framing of the issue that inflames populist anger and caters to House Republicans' efforts to exploit the situation for political gain. The "bailout" triggers thoughts of saving irresponsible wealthy bankers who got greedy, whereas economists view the problem more along the lines of jump starting an economy that is collectively a stuttering…

For the fourth straight month, Framing Science ranks among the top 15 science-related blogs, as tracked by Wikio. The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. (Blogrolls are not taken into account and Wikio only counts links from the last 120 days.)

According to Nielsen, close to 70 million Americans tuned in to watch the Biden-Palin debate. For comparison, the 2004 vice presidential debate between V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards drew 43.6 million viewers. The second Bush/Clinton/Perot debate of 1992 also attracted 69.9 million viewers. The all-time debate leader is the Carter/Reagan debate of 1980. In a CBS News web poll of uncommitted voters who agreed to watch the debate, 46 percent said they believed Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Palin, and 33 percent who were undecided. In a CNN survey of people who had…

More people are following the nation's economic problems than almost any other public event over the past two decades. According to Pew, the percentage of Americans who say they are following the economic conditions "very closely" trails significantly only the 9/11 attacks and the Challenger disaster, among major news events.

Bill Maher's mockumentary Religulous opens in theaters on Friday. Judging by Maher's media interviews, it's more of the same type of sophomoric ridicule that has been so self-defeating to the atheist movement and that I have written about at this blog and in recent articles. Watch the trailer of the film, directed by the high minded genius who brought us Borat. As this NY Times review describes, Maher chooses the easiest of targets to interview in his film, such as an amusement park Jesus. In the process, Maher makes fun of fundamentalist religion while seldom addressing the moderate…

A news release on a new survey from the Woodrow Wilson Center's project on nanotechnology: Washington, DC -- A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about the emerging field of synthetic biology, according to a new report released by the Project and Peter D. Hart Research. Both technologies involve manipulating matter at an incredibly small scale to achieve something new.... Synthetic biology is the use of advanced science and engineering to…

Were Ronald Reagan and Carl Sagan the dominant communicators of the 1980s? Watching this past week the PBS American Experience biopic on Reagan reinforced in my mind the parallels between the president and the astronomer that I have mentioned at this blog before and during Q&A at talks. The Great Communicator and the Showman for Science coined the dominant metaphors of the 1980s, Reagan referring to the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" and Sagan re-casting the strategic arms race in terms of "nuclear winter." In the years before cable television fragmented Americans into ever smaller…

In the Post's Sunday Book Review, atheist and Georgetown professor Jacques Berlinerblau reviews Michael Novak's "No One Sees God: A Catholic Philosopher Attempts a Dialogue with the New Atheists." In the review, Berlinerblau emphasizes many of the same points that I have made at this blog and in articles over the past year. Namely, that Dawkins & co. alienate religious moderates with whom they could otherwise make common cause. I elaborate on the Dawkins problem in this recent video interview I did with Big Think.

Given the complexities of pressing science-related issues such as climate change or biomedical research, we need a new breed of specialist journalist who covers the intersections of science and policy. Rick Weiss, recently retired from the Washington Post, or Andrew Revkin at the NY Times, are probably leading prototypes of this desperately needed specialist. There are few other major outlets for this type of journalism, The Economist or Dave Goldston's column at Nature the exceptions. News organizations and editors, despite budget tightening, have to prioritize the hiring and cultivation of…

The Dartmouth investment banker and the Princeton professor. It would be interesting to trace the origin of the term "bailout" as applied to the Bush administration's plan since the phrase has locked in a specific framing of the issue that inflames populist anger and caters to House Republicans' efforts to exploit the situation for political gain. Of course, a "bailout" is not how an economist is likely to view or describe the proposal. An alternative description unlocks a very different perception and understanding. The bailout triggers thoughts rescuing individual wealthy bankers who got…

Back in July, I sat down for an hour long interview with the new TED-like social media site Big Think. The innovative project features "hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today's leading thinkers" segmented by topic category and spliced into 3 to 4 minute conversations. The general focus of the interview was on the nature of strategic communication with an emphasis on science and environmental topics. Big Think has organized the conversations into 11 different sections. I link to several of these below with the description from the site. The themes will be familiar to…

Bush-Gore Debates 2000: The focus was on performance rather than substance. For those that have seen the Nisbet/Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talks over the past year, you might have witnessed during the Q&A some disagreement over the merits of actually having the presidential candidates participate in a "Science Debate." As I have said at these talks, I think the goal of raising the profile of science and environmental policy in the presidential election is a good one, it's just that I have doubts about whether or not pushing for an actual debate between the candidates is the right…