nisbetmc | June 28, 2006A pre-publication release of a study I did with Kirby Goidel of LSU is now available at the website of the journal POLITICAL BEHAVIOR. Analyzing national survey data collected in 2003, the study finds that the most consistent predictor of citizen activism in the stem cell debate (measured as donating money, contacting officials, writing letters to the editor etc) is church-based mobilization, including the distribution of materials at church, and requests to participate from church leaders. Below is the abstract and article information. Readers at universities should be able to download…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2006
I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to see Superman Returns tonight at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park. Here is the scoop, without spoiling the movie: Superman foils a plot by Luthor to create a new Fortress of Solitude-like continent in the middle of the North Atlantic. As Luthor explains with the aid of maps and visuals, the emergence of a new landmass in the middle of the ocean would displace enough water to flood most of the coastline of N. America, Europe, Africa, and S. America, and in the words of Luthor, "killing billions."
Though climate change is not mentioned in the film,…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2006In the recent issue of The NY Review of Books, James Hansen pens a must-read review of several recent books on climate change, and includes a review of Gore's Inconvenient Truth.
Hansen on the film:
The movie seems to me powerful and the book complements it, adding useful explanations. It is hard to predict how this unusual presentation will be received by the public; but Gore has put together a coherent account of a complex topic that Americans desperately need to understand. The story is scientifically accurate and yet should be understandable to the public, a public that is less and less…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2006Frank Luntz, GOP pollster and architect of the Republican message strategy on global warming, said last night in a documentary on CBC that he has changed his position on global warming, and now accepts the scientific evidence. Go here for more and to see archived video. Below is a transcript from the show.
NARRATOR: Today, Frank Luntz says the advice he offered the administration on global warming was fair when he gave it. But, he's distanced himself from their policies since.
LUNTZ: It's now 2006. Now I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place,…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2006With the Supreme Court deciding yesterday to hear a case challenging the Bush administration's enforcement of the Clean Air Act (Times coverage here, Post here), the Center for American Progress has issued the following Talking Points memo framing the issue of climate change around PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY. At issue, argues the Center, is that the Bush administration is formulating policy based on industry manipulated science. Efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have been stalled, despite the fact that, according to the Center's interpretation, polls show that the public wants action.…
nisbetmc | June 26, 2006On June 15, the day I moved from Columbus to DC, I listened during my drive out here to a few hours of Rush Limbaugh. On his program he discussed a story in the Boston Globe that outlined the major points of the election platform for Congressional democrats, dubbed a "New Direction for America." I was suprised to hear that a novel part of the platform emphasized investment in stem cell research and the defense of evolution in schools.
So I finally got around to looking up the Boston Globe article, based on a press release from Nancy Pelosi's office. Below is the text, what is interesting is…
nisbetmc | June 26, 2006I've been meaning to start blogging about this site launched last week, and as it turns out, I just received this press release via email. I am sure I will be coming back to the site with posts this week and in coming months. Definitely a new relevant resource on framing to check out. Below is the press release.
NEW ONLINE STRATEGY PUBLICATION SEEKS TO HELP DEMOCRATS ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE MAJORITY
Strategists Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira, and Bill Galston launch TheDemocraticStrategist.org
Washington, DC. On June 19, 2006 Democratic strategists Stan Greenberg, Ruy Teixeira, and Bill Galston…
nisbetmc | June 26, 2006The real test as to whether Gore's Inconvenient Truth can capture a mass audience takes place over the next two weeks. The film opened in a 100 new theaters this past weekend, bringing its total to 514 theaters across 40 cities. (By comparison, the comedy Nacho Libre played in over 3,000 theaters.)
With the greater number of venues, Truth averaged $3,700 per screen, down from $4,700 the weekend before, and down from the stunning $70,000 average when it opened in just four theaters on May 24. According to BoxOffice Mojo, Truth earned $1.9 milion over the weekend, ranking it 14th among…
nisbetmc | June 25, 2006Ian Wilmut appeared on NPR's Science Friday this past week to promote his new book and to discuss developments in human cloning. Below are a few highlights from the transcript. Go here for the full archived audio.
On International Regulation and the Possibility of Reproductive Human Cloning
FLATOW: So is it possible that there might be rogue scientists out there who, themselves, would take on human cloning for a person?
Dr. WILMUT: I think is extraordinarily unlikely. The people who've talked about this in the past, it seems to me, have been advertising themselves but actually not doing…
nisbetmc | June 23, 2006Buried in today's NYTimes Business section is a report on the vote yesterday by the U.S. House to permanently eliminate the estate tax for about 99.7 percent of all families and reduce tax rates for the few who still faced a bill. Regardless of your partisan affiliation, if you have an appreciation for how the perception of statistics and numbers can be skewed by language and selective definitions, then the Estate Tax is a lesson learned.
In an era of skyrocketing deficits, the bill, reports the NYTIMES "would reduce tax revenue by $282 billion in the first five years after it took full…
nisbetmc | June 22, 2006Yesterday Peter Whoriskey of the WPost detailed the weaknesses in the dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee in Florida. If the dike failed, as might happen if a major hurricane hit the region, the lake would flood the surrounding area, affecting about 40,000 residents.
I have spotted a few of these kind of stories in the news, focusing on a specific region or area and the problems with dikes or levees designed to prevent catatrosphic flooding. But when do the media and advocates re-define these isolated features into a larger national problem that requires national legislation and funding?
I am…
nisbetmc | June 22, 2006Yesterday, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank detailed the GOP's effort to frame the debate over a pull out from Iraq, as a decision to "cut and run." The phrase has become almost ubiquitous, and purposely so. It's the perfect example of a "frame device," a slogan or catchphrase that captures the essence of an underlying interpretation: In this case, a pull out from Iraq would be a decision that failed to live up to commitment, responsibility, and would be a sign of cowardice.
nisbetmc | June 22, 2006I ran across this excellent short ten-minute film highlighting the persistent negative stereotypes of Arabs in Hollywood film and television. Watch it. Definitely worth checking out.
According to the film site, "out of 1000 films that have Arab and Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000) 12 were postive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 900 and so were negative."
nisbetmc | June 21, 2006In this news release from Focus on the Family, Senator Sam Brownback pushes the SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTY frame in arguing against the Spector-Castle ESC bill, claiming that ESC is "speculative" science and diverts funding from research on adult stem cell sources. To emphasize the message, Brownback stole a page from pro-research advocates, gathering patients treated with adult stem cell therapies to give personal testimonials at a news conference held here in DC on Tuesday. Brownback was joined at the press conference by representatives from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who argued…
nisbetmc | June 18, 2006It's rare in media coverage to see a focus on the PATENTS/PROPERTY RIGHTS dimension of stem cell research, even though patents are the engine driving research. But this weekend, the Wisconsin State Journal spotlights a developing dispute between the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). At issue is CIRM's ability to require that 25% of all earnings from grant-supported research be given back to the state of California. The problem is that WARF, which holds the patents on most stem cell research in the United States,…
nisbetmc | June 12, 2006
The "Economic Competitiveness" frame is one of the dominate ways that proponents of science try to rally public support for investment. Historically, first in the context of the Cold War, and now in the context of globalization, American science has warned that the U.S. is falling behind other nations in science education, PhDs, engineers, science spending etc. The strategy is a classic example of the construction of a social problem, interpreting real-world statistics or events in ways that raises alarm, mobilizes concern, and sponsors action. (See this recent Time magazine cover story…
nisbetmc | June 12, 2006What research would I be focused on if I weren't currently studying the interactions between science, media, and politics? It would have to be the role of the news and entertainment media in shaping international public opinion about the U.S., what pundits and journalists commonly refer to as the "Anti-Americanism" problem, though the topic is much more complex than that label implies. My brother Erik, who is in graduate school at Cornell University, is actually writing his dissertation on this topic.
nisbetmc | June 12, 2006
Over the weekend, there was a Bigfoot sighting near my parents' house in Clarence, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. The sighting is complete with the following photograph. See how local TV news covered it. The Bigfoot myth continues to be a favorite of American culture. For more on Bigfoot, see these articles from Skeptical Inquirer magazine by managing editor Ben Radford (here, and here.)
nisbetmc | June 9, 2006
In 2004 when The Day After Tomorrow hit theaters, I wrote this column evaluating its possible impacts. Later, Anthony Leiserowitz followed with a study appearing in Environment magazine assessing the public and media impact of the film.
As other studies have shown with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, and Passion of the Christ, there is a strong self-selection influence, with like-minded citizens attending the film, and coming away with their beliefs reinforced. So, for example, in the case of the Passion of the Christ, the already strongly religious attended the film, and came away with…
nisbetmc | June 8, 2006In my latest Science and the Media web column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, I take a look at the current debate over re-investment in nuclear energy as a means to curb greenhouse gas emissions and shift the country towards energy independence. I show that the same frames used in the nuclear energy debate during the 1970s are still in play today.
I also review poll findings that indicate public support for nuclear energy has increased since 2001. However, comparisons to independent surveys show that public support isn't nearly as strong as industry-sponsored poll trends indicate.