Science Online 10, or as I like to call it, S0t0, is shaping up to be quite the un-conference. Stephanie Zvan has organized a session called Trust and Critical Thinking, with herself PZ Myers, my favorite Radio Talk Show Host Desiree Schell, and Kirsten "Dr. Kiki" Sanford. Oh, and me.
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?
In other words, how do we get our subversively skeptical message across.
Check out the S0t0 program here.
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Any chance any of this will be webcast during, or after, the fact? Your panel is obviously going to be a bang-up one. The panel on the Importance of Meatspace looks interesting, as does the talk on Open Access. I also see the Flying Trilobite himself will be on hand!
Laypeople? No doubt. But what is *really* disturbing is that physicians (for the most part) lack the ability to distinguish solid research from sophistry -- and then prescribe treatments/meds based on what they "know." Frightening, really.
Jason, none of us have pseudonyms that would be violated, so I'm hoping we can get this recorded. I'm hoping Glendon's session is recorded too (and Arikia and Nate Silver), since we're running opposite.
Catharine, the dirty little truth is that physicians, unless they work hard to be otherwise, are laypeople when it comes to science.
I would be very interested in hearing what you all have to say about this. I run into it often and it's become a serious problem as of late (I'm hoping to blog about it soon).
It's not just laypeople. Some scientists are effectively laypeople when it comes to other fields, especially those which require more specialized training.
Barbara, if this is anything like the session I did at last year's Science Online, and I hope it is in some respects, I'll try to get some blogging going on on the topic from lots of people to get input and ideas flowing before the conference. If you have recommendations or questions, I'd love to hear about them and incorporate them in that pre-conference brainstorming.
"physicians, unless they work hard to be otherwise, are laypeople when it comes to science. "
SHHHHHH!
Next thing you know you'll be pointing out that immunologists, unless they work hard to be otherwise, are laypeople when it comes to medical practice.
This is in part what my skeptical sketpicism tag is for. There is a trap skeptics can easily fall into: That if one is a well formed skeptic about some things, that one is a well formed skeptic about all things. Which I am very skpetical of.
This was especially apparent to me at the SkepchickCon when five or six people in a room full of self-defined skeptics expressed the same opinion to the knowing agreeing nods of dozens of others: "The problem with science education in this country is that the students are taught just facts with no context or process"
That is, of course, what is SAID about science education. Is it really what happens in science education. It is easy to demonstrate that this is not uniformly true, or true in the majority, that this is was PART of the problem in the past and is the main problem that has been addressed by reforms in most states over the last ten years. But this "fact" which ever was only partly true is part of the daily bla bla bla that even skeptics utter thoughtlessly.