A Dialogue on Framing, the F-Word, and the Future of ScienceBlogs: A Roadmap Forward

I don't think that there is at this point a need for a review what you have said since your first "mea culpa". After all, that is easily found scrolling your blog.

If you don't have anything to say on the substance, why do you write in the first place?

Be forewarened: Any premises about which people "agree to disagree" can't be further employed in the course of constructing an argument. Agreeing to disagree is the end (but not the telos...) of rational argument regarding the point(s) of disagreement.

Chris,

I think your elitist attitude is showing. While it is certainly true that the average person is uninformed, and largely uninterested, in scientific issues that doesn't mean you should assume that they are incapable of understanding the basic theory and evidence involved in any particular issue.

It would seem that you have concluded that being a "science journalist" is about manipulating people's emotions and biases to get them to take the political action that you favor. The buzzword you often use is "resonance". You advocate hitting the "resonant" frequency of the target audience rather than presenting a scientifically compelling argument.

This approach has more in common with product marketing than science education. It is also clear that there are specific "products" you are selling. These are the scientific products of the "progressive" movement; evolution, anthropogenic climate change, environmentalism, stems cell research etc.

It's a package deal for you. You only have interest in scientific issues based on their political value to your cause.

As someone who is a scientist and an educator I find this approach both counterproductive and personally offensive. In my math and physics classes I try to make the topics interesting and compelling to my students by highlighting aspects of the topic that may be more appealing to a particular group of students but never at the expense of the science. I taylor these lessons to the experiences of students but only for the purpose of giving the students an analogy to better understand the nature of the topic not to sway them emotionally to accept an argument.

You have every right to compel people to join your cause. This is the legitimate aim of the political advocate. If, however, you aspire to be a "science journalist" you should strive to achieve the objectivity that is the cornerstone of both science and journalism.

Framing, not matter how you spin it, is clearly inconsistent with objectivity.

She speaks out of her personal experience working on Capitol Hill, so I really think her perspective on the matter is invaluable.

You just don't get it, do you?

Politics is not science. The fact that you could make such a stupid statement after all you've heard in the past three days suggests that you just aren't listening.

Larry,

Re politics and science, see The Intersection post immediately below this one, 'Talk about a War on Science.' Scientists may not like politics, but the political process is more than happy to swamp science.

This article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed offers some observations and insights that I find relevant:

Why We Can't Just Get Along

To me the important part of the essay is in the middle paragraphs, around this intriguing observation (emphasis mine): "students are also trained in the art of intellectual combat."

Cheers

To clarify, by no means do I plan to defend 6--I do not always agree.

I intend to explore the premise and expand upon it a bit and will be interested to hear what readers think.

When you asked us all to "check our critical faculties at the door" several days ago, you really meant it, didn't you? Thus far it's been more spin, no science - and I completely agree that framing, as you've described it, sounds more like Marketing 101 than objectivity and the scientific method.

Larry Moran is also correct: politics is not science, and I will go so far as to say the two are incompatible. (Ask any scientist who worked on HIV research in the 1980s, for example.) It seems to me that this is the ultimate goal of "framing science" - to marry politics with science, and the fact that you seem surprised it hasn't gone over well is a bit disturbing to me (one who isn't a scientist, but is scientifically literate and has a social-science education).

Like many others, I've enjoyed reading your blog in the past, but this uber-conciliatory attempt of yours to placate the pundits as well as the scientists has worn thin. If farming science works, please show us some solid evidence. If it does not work, please abandon it and get back to your stated goal of communicating science.

Dammit - that's "framing," not "farming." Need more tea.

Of course communication isn't pure science. Of course when you're communicating in a politicized environment, you're not going to be using the same approach you use when you're preparing a journal article.

But even if it isn't pure science, what then? Does that mean that it doesn't need to happen? Doesn't that get us back to the problems Chris described in the Republican War on Science? I think the people who think that the whole solution to the problem are better education and more critical thinking are dreaming. That may be part of the solution, but it seems Utopian to think that that's the whole project.

On March 30th, Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science wrote on the idea that

"scientists share a common goal with the scientists with whom they most strenuously disagree -- the goal of building a body of reliable knowledge about the world --" and she noted that "that makes science a very different kind of activity then politics." I noted in a comment that it also makes science a very different kind of activity from religion

Contrast this with the intro to the textbook Biology for Christian Schools (as noted today by Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

"If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."
--------------------------------------------
There is a fundamental disconnect between those two points of view that no amount of Framing can bridge. There is no common ground between science and Biblical literalists. NONE, NADA, ZIP ZERO. It isn't just evolution that is an issue. Any of the earth or space sciences that portray an Earth or a Universe more than a few thousand years old is at odds with Fundamentalist teaching. No amount of framing can minimize that gap.

Larry: Politics might not be science, but having to communicate scientific ideas to people not particularly interested in science is REALITY. Scientists do not run Congress and make ultimate decisions on on government regulations and funding. Nor do scientists run the majority of large corporations which perform private research while also being subject to the whims of public opinion and the stock market.

Learning how people process information and how to best take advantage of those processes is a form of science itself. The particular details change with time, but those details should still be studied.

Chris,

I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but the slow pace of your comments worries me, a little. You've put up three posts without really saying anything about the sources of the controversy. You make a show of admitting to mistakes, but talk only about "communication" mistakes, which distracts attention away from the real issues at controversy. You seem to think that if you can only "communicate" with us better (and I put "communicate" in scare quotes, as we may have different ideas of what the word means) you'll prevail in the controversy, but I do insist on seeing the issues dealt with. I'll try to remain open to the possibility that such a treatment will come eventually, but my patience is beginning to wear thin.

I hate to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld (boy do I hate it), but you have to work with the citizens you have, not the ones you wish you had. Here, I think, people in favor of framing have a legitimate difference with someone like PZ Myers, who seems to me in favor of getting the citizens we wish we had first. Perhaps I'm simplifying his position, but I would argue that that sounds utopian. You can't just say "if you don't get me on my terms, that's tough for you. You're not the utopia I wanted anyway."

I'm not so much worried about the slow pace as I am the lack of substance. I don't care about apologies or mea culpas or explanations of past errors -- either you've got nothing, and framing can be thrown into the dustbin of historical failures, or you've got a positive contribution to make in advancing science communication and you tell us what it is, and then we're all happy.

Don't try to frame the past. Move forward and give us something to work with. You know that a lot of the voluble antipathy to the idea was not simply a rejection of you and Nisbet, it was disappointment at the vacuity of the idea...and people are still listening to you.

As a scientist, politician and bloger living in Sweden I will ad just a short comment on the matter.

First, Dawkins (and maybe PZ) I think is very important in the long run so as you say this split on framing is really bad.

Secondly I must say that the view that science isn't politics and therefore there is no need for framing is naive. You would be amazed on how important it is to speak in different ways to even get parts of the population to listen. Going out once when you just finished a paper in the media and then sitting back and relaxing isn't going to work if you really want to get you're facts out there and listened to. Just saying the right thing just don't cut it. In politics you are often reminded that it's more important to put time on delivering the message then delivering smart solutions and facts... just look at Obama... (whom I do like)

And thirdly I'm happy to say that neither global warming nor evolution needs much framing in Sweden... hope you will get there to in time. (I guess partly due to much fewer trusted TV-Channels)

Larry Moran:

She speaks out of her personal experience working on Capitol Hill, so I really think her perspective on the matter is invaluable.

You just don't get it, do you?

Politics is not science. The fact that you could make such a stupid statement after all you've heard in the past three days suggests that you just aren't listening.

Larry proving the case for the need for scientists to be educated.
Of course Science isn't Politics, but communicating science, convincing and influencing others regarding science is POLITICS

That said, I think PZ did a great job in spinning the Expelled drama of last week. He clearly exposed their agenda. I don't know how well he communicate in Expelled (or conversely how well the Expelled production spun PZ)

I predict that Chris, Sheril and Matt will find out just how much of this particular science **IS** nothing but pure politics, before this is over.

Over at Denialism I offered some comments on a very parallel issue. I have to say, those in science who reject political involvement do so at their own peril. Scientists are called on more and more to give "expert" opinions to resource managers and a whole raft of other goverment decider-types. And when we are asked to do so, framing matters very much. So yes, sad to say, but science and politics are linked in our modern world.

All the calls for Chris and Sheril to tell us how to frame, and examples of "good" framing are interesting, in that they sound way too much like the deniers calls for "more study" or "better data" or "access to the data." Such calls from outside our little community here in SB are all about delay and subterfudge, yet when they surface here, we all get irate if they aren't met immediately. Really, let's sink into that morass.

Chris and Sheril will never be able to give you definitive "works every time" examples of framing, because the playing field framing occurs on is always in motion. That's like saying that levee designs from the early 1950's are adequate to protect coastal cities that used to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of storm-force absorbing marsh, when such cities are now hard against the encoraching ocean. Wait, does that sound familiar to anyone?

I also resist the idea that framing is "vacuous" if it doesn't give people a deep technical understanding of a scientific issue. It's as if we're going to arrive at a society where everyone's going to become science mavens. It's not going to happen. And people still are going to have to have ways to grasp important scientific issues.

...I laid out the framing science "premises"--prior to their application to any specific issue--and then readers pointed out which premises they rejected. This was very illuminating to me. So I now also need to do a post or series of posts defending some of the premises (or agreeing to disagree about them).

It would be nice to have Richard Petty's opinion about framing. Broadly construed, framing seems categorizable as an aspect of the persuasive communication literature in social psychology. Richard Petty's Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is the basis of most of the persuasion literature, as it is a comprehensive model explaining information processing in the context of complex interactions between the source, the message, and the audience.

Several of the premises in the previous post look like foundations of the ELM.

Lance: "These are the scientific products of the "progressive" movement; evolution, anthropogenic climate change, environmentalism, stems [sic] cell research etc."

What a weird mishmash! Evolution and anthropogenic climate change - processes occurring in the world, which science has discovered; environmentalism - a political stance based in part on scientific findings; stem cell research - a branch of cytobiology with possible medical applications. What are you trying to say?

Chris, I would be interested in hearing about the choices that you made while writing Storm World. Did you think explicitly about how to frame the science part of the book (as opposed to the end, where you discussed science communication)? What audience were you aiming at, and how did you set up the book to appeal to them? How did those underlying principles guide you, or did they?

I would like to have something concrete to talk about. And I believe PZ gave your book a good review.

Philip H. said: "All the calls for Chris and Sheril to tell us how to frame, and examples of "good" framing are interesting, in that they sound way too much like the deniers calls for "more study" or "better data" or "access to the data." Such calls from outside our little community here in SB are all about delay and subterfuge, yet when they surface here, we all get irate if they aren't met immediately."

Thanks, Philip, that's kind of how I feel. I have tried to depolarize the framing battle, calm things down, explain what is going on here, confess to my own particular mistakes, Nisbet's, etc. The idea was to start from there and then *proceed* to dealing with the issues in my own particular way.

But I'm not sure it is succeeding--I don't get the sense that a lot of readers really care about how I wish to address matters. They instead demand the answer to their particular question ASAP. It's exhausting to try to keep up with and more than a little discouraging.

Chris,

It's your blog; you can proceed however you want. But you are right that a lot of us don't care how you *want* to proceed; we think that you have made egregious errors and want to see some substantive analysis and, we hope, some sign that you are willing and able to change your mind even when a prized thesis (framing) fails its testing.

I was just browsing some posts from almost exactly one year ago, and many of the same posters were saying the same things in response to your comments about framing, Nisbet, the attacks on Dawkins and others (remember the lead to your Washington Post article: "If the defenders of evolution wanted to give their creationist adversaries a boost, it's hard to see how they could do better than Richard Dawkins, the famed Oxford scientist who had a bestseller with "'The God Delusion'"), and your very strong defensiveness in the face of even reasoned, specific criticism.

It's really striking how very much the same you sound now as a year ago. I don't think you have a personality (I don't either, so I sympathize) that allows you to respond very well to criticism and let go of cherished ideas. I think it might really be useless for you to do any more posting on this if you cannot offer some new insights, some understanding that maybe Nisbet is not the genius you think he is, some sort of *understanding* beyond vague expressions of responsibility. Maybe you just need to get back to posting on other matters, and letting each of us decide whether we think there is value in continuing to read here. It may be that in interactive forum is not your strong suit; several of us have commented on how much we like your books but how little we like what we are seeing here. Because if you cannot create some distance between you and Nisbet, cannot see with real insight that you have made some huge errors of judgment and analysis, then I'm not sure that there is any point in your continuing to talk about these past few days.

Chris Mooney says,

But I'm not sure it is succeeding--I don't get the sense that a lot of readers really care about how I wish to address matters. They instead demand the answer to their particular question ASAP. It's exhausting to try to keep up with and more than a little discouraging.

Criticism of your ideas began one year ago. I think we've been very patient.

Harry Abernathy says,

Larry: Politics might not be science, but having to communicate scientific ideas to people not particularly interested in science is REALITY. Scientists do not run Congress and make ultimate decisions on on government regulations and funding. Nor do scientists run the majority of large corporations which perform private research while also being subject to the whims of public opinion and the stock market.

I do my best to communicate how science really works, warts and all. My goal is to try and make people interested in science and to try and teach them accurate scientific concepts and facts. I do not intend to sacrifice scientific accuracy or integrity just to advance a political agenda when talking to scientific illiterates.

Any scientist who does that is doing great harm to science. It's the approach that has been advocated, and practiced, for decades and look where it's gotten us.

Chris, I think you need to decide what it is you're trying to do with this blog. If it's just a forum for you to communicate your ideas, then by all means continue as you're doing. There's nothing wrong with that; it's how many bloggers operate.

But if you're trying to have a dialogue with your readers, then it's not very productive to try to dictate both sides of the discussion. We're not students in your classroom or subjects being interviewed by you. We have our own views on what the discussion should look like; dare I say, our own "frames"? You can ignore those views and proceed at your own pace, but when you complain that we're not following the script you had in mind, you look petulant and uninterested in dialogue.

But I'm not sure it is succeeding--I don't get the sense that a lot of readers really care about how I wish to address matters. They instead demand the answer to their particular question ASAP. It's exhausting to try to keep up with and more than a little discouraging.

Peer Review

Well, emboldened by this very supportive post from Terra Sigliata, I am going to keep trying. I hope people will appreciate that I am on the road and have many obligations right now. That said, I plan on engaging further.

Nick Gotts,

"What a weird mishmash! Evolution and anthropogenic climate change - processes occurring in the world, which science has discovered; environmentalism - a political stance based in part on scientific findings; stem cell research - a branch of cytobiology with possible medical applications. What are you trying to say?"

Nick I agree that all of those topics are strange bedfellows if science is the criteria by which you try to organize them. The link between them is that they are the pet topics here at the intersection.

What I'm "trying to say" is that Chris only has interest in science topics that can be used to further his political agenda. Do a search of each of those topics here at the intersection and see how many hits you get. Then do a search with any other science topic that comes to mind and see the difference.

Actually it's not a big surprise since the blog is called "The Intersection", meaning the intersection of science and politics. The only complaint I have is that the politics and the science are skewed to fit Chris's and Sheril's personal biases.

But hey it's their blog. I just think it would be a much more interesting place if each topic were approached objectively with regard to the science and the politics.

Ping

One of the unexamined assumptions in the critique of PZ Myers and Dawkins is that any negative criticism of intelligent design will draw attention to the idea and therefore make it more likely for people to hear about the movie Expelled than if no one had said anything about the movie. It is unclear to me that there is any evidence for the idea that negative attacks in the media have much effect at all on people's perceptions.

Taking Mr. Nisbet's admonition to do the research to heart I found some interesting papers on negative campaigning and framing. Here, here, and here.

I only have access to the abstracts of these papers (suggesting we would be better served to be fighting for open access to peer reviewed research than fighting about framing). But from what I can glimpse there appears to be no conclusive evidence that the creation of controversy has a depressing effect on voter turnout. If Mr. Nisbet or Mr. Mooney would like to refer to some papers that demonstrate the bad effects of attacking an idea or a candidate then please add them to this therad or send them in an email.

I want to be sympathetic to the claims of the framing advocates because I believe they have some important things to say about paying attention to audience when communicating ideas. But most of what has been posted so far are rather airy axioms about avoiding "poliarizing controversy." I think this premise isn't at all as clear-cut as the framing advocates say.

So I call for using the wonderful linking power of the internet to direct us to the solid, evidence-based studies that demonstrate the effects of framing. If the readers of Sb can digest the the efforts of the blogging for peer reviewed research in biology and other science, then surely we are ready to read the reviews of Mr. Mooney and Mr. Nisbet that tell us about the actual research that supports framing.

I really can't fathom how you're getting this impression, Chris. There are *some* vitriolic/childish messages (welcome to the internet) but most are indeed asking you questions, the same ones, over and over again. You don't answer them.

I don't understand why you'd be discouraged by that, in fact the opposite should be expected: those who keep asking the same question and getting ignored should be getting discouraged, and that's exactly what's happening. The (apparent) combination of framing and what you or Nisbet thinks should be framed in a certain way started about a year ago, I think, and since then the questions have been the same:

1. 'How do I apply framing for my (PZ's, Moran's) message, not yours?' 2. Why do you sell framing in two different forms without differentiating between them? On one hand you list the generals of framing, which some are OK with (or mostly OK with). On the other, you tacitly supported PZ and Dawkins staying low so that the messages of *others* will come through. How is that framing *any* message?

You know what I would do, rather than posting messages about losing confidence or passive aggressively insulting your readers? I'd just answer their questions and stop trying to pretend I'm 100% in the right and the problem is in how I sell it (you're trying to reframe framing).

Sample answer to #1: Apply the postulates listed in one of your other, later posts. If you're speaking to a radio audience, point out the dishonesty of the other side while maintaining your own civility. Don't let them get into a Gish Gallop, interrupt them when they are simply listing falsehoods. Point out the possible economic benefits of your work or whatever you are supporting.

Sample answer to #2: A blog post renouncing Nisbet's claim(s?). I know you go lecturing together, but is that really worth your integrity? I'd wager most people have the impression that you think PZ and Dawkins should just be quiet.

You don't have to do any special framing here: just be completely open and honest, answer questions. Don't start over from the beginning - we already know *that* half of framing. Your repeated assertions to the contrary are frankly condescending and you should not be surprised that people react to substanceless answers to substanced questions with snark and irritation. What would your reaction be if PZ had a 'skewing' thesis that relied on only scientists blogging at ScienceBlogs and not only ignored your questions and assertions but condescended at the same time, all the while repeatedly pointing out the failure of non-scientists to successfully communicate science (in his opinion)? Would you give him the benefit of the doubt? How long would you do that? A year?

"Well, emboldened by this very supportive post from Terra Sigliata, I am going to keep trying. I hope people will appreciate that I am on the road and have many obligations right now. That said, I plan on engaging further."

I find myself rapidly losing hope. Chris, you just don't show any sign of "getting it," and requests for patience that we'll see signs of the light bulb going on are really empty. The Terra Sigliata post really didn't say anything much different than what many of us have been saying - except for granting you the patience you ask for - and your comment there really shows how obtuse you are being on this issue. Of course we know you are not Nisbet. How stupid do you think we are? But you have repeatedly defended him, sided with him, and adopted his (or your shared) views, something which reached new heights with your post about PZ and expelled. You have done very little to separate yourself from him for the past year and seem to lose judgment and objectivity where he is concerned. To whine that you are not Nisbet is really insulting and meaningless.

As I've said, I love your books and think you have done and will do great work (unless, gawd forbid, you write a book about framing). But I'm near the end of my own patience with reading this blog. I see enough closed-mindedness around me every day without going out of my way to read more of it here.

All the calls for Chris and Sheril to tell us how to frame, and examples of "good" framing are interesting, in that they sound way too much like the deniers calls for "more study" or "better data" or "access to the data."

That's a silly thing to say. Those calls for 'more study' or 'access to data' work both ways. If some pseudoscientist is trying to sell me a miracle pill then I'm going to ask to see the data that it works. If the data they provide is poor or derived solely from cell culture then I'm going to ask for better data or more study.

I'm not saying the framing discussion is pseudoscience, but positive, testable claims are being made so it's not unreasonable to want to see data. It's not about delaying so we don't have to accept a theory, it's about seeing if the theory is supported and worth adopting.