I've been somewhat decoupled from blogdom in general recently, as I've been busy working on the book and getting ready for FutureBaby. It's also been a useful mental health break, though, as I'm a little less worked up about stupid stuff than I was a few months ago.
Every now and then, I catch the edges of some kerfuffle-of-the-moment, though, and it reminds me that continuing the decoupling is probably a Good Thing. The latest is the ongoing squabbling over Sizzle, which is the new "framing" fracas. This has been dragging on for a week, now, with the latest entries to catch my eye coming from RPM and Chris.
I have to say, I'm not finding much positive on either side of this argument.
This is really pretty much a continuation of the "framing" squabble, and a lot of the arguments are basically recycled from that. Take, for example, RPM's complaint that:
In Randy [Olson]'s mind, he's the expert on communicating science, and he loves telling scientists that they're doing it wrong. However, he won't tell us how to do it right!
I don't want to just pick on RPM, because this is pretty widespread, but I continue to find this critique kind of baffling. I originally wrote it off as disingenuousness on the part of people like PZ Myers and Larry Moran who don't actually share an agenda with Olson/ Mooney/ Nisbet. Now I'm just kind of confused, though, because I've heard the same thing from people who aren't huge "new atheist" partisans.
I'm confused because it just doesn't seem that complicated to me, and I wonder if I'm missing some nuance. The point that Olson is making is that the "all data all the time" format that scientists are prone to using doesn't work very well for communicating with the general public, and public communication of science requires some additional factors-- humor, appeals to emotion, some downplaying of caveats and qualifications. I'm not sure what's missing here-- ScienceBlogs is full of smart people, who shouldn't need him to draw a map. It doesn't seem that hard to figure out.
I'm also not sure he could draw a map, any more than you can write a foolproof algorithm to allow anyone to teach science to undergraduates. Teaching is a subset of communication, after all, and they're both highly individual activities. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another-- there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for being a great science communicator. Carl Sagan is not Brian Greene is not Steven Jay Gould is not Oliver Sacks. Jennifer Ouellette is not Natalie Angier is not Dennis Overbye is not Carl Zimmer. And so on.
The point is to be aware of the process, and use your own personal strengths to suit that end. I couldn't do a typical Cocktail Party Physics post-- I'm just not comfortable writing in that style, and it would show. I can do imaginary conversations with my dog, though, and that provides a moderately effective means of achieving the same end, that Jennifer probably couldn't do (actually, she might be able to write great pet dialogue, but I'd rather not know that...).
General guidelines are the best you're going to do, realistically, and I don't personally think that Olson (or Nisbet and Mooney) has been unclear about what needs to be done as a general matter: keep it short, keep the storyline simple and compelling, don't drown people in data. But maybe I'm missing something.
On the other side, Chris Mooney has been very vocal about promoting the movie, in a way that's not winning him many converts:
Overall, at the screening I continued to feel struck by the incredible gap that exists between most ScienceBloggers, and most others, in terms of their responses to this film. Whereas many ScienceBloggers either didn't like Sizzle or didn't appear to get it, the audience in LA laughed at all the right moments, laughed repeatedly throughout, and generally seemed to be having a grand old time. Similarly, although I get the impression that many ScienceBloggers aren't particularly entertained by Randy Olson's mother, Muffy Moose, the audience loved her. Just as it loved Mitch, and Brian, and especially Marion, the film's trouble-making cameraman.
There's a significant difference between seeing a film in a theater with a crowd of other people, and seeing that same movie at home on DVD by yourself. Movies that seem pretty entertaining in a theater can fall flat in other contexts, and I'm not sure I'd be willing to draw too many conclusions from the fact that the crowd at the premiere enjoyed it more than a bunch of bloggers watching it by themselves.
More importantly, though, "You just didn't get it" is a pretty lame counter to people saying that they didn't like a movie. It might be true, but it's rarely a useful response, and stating it bluntly isn't likely to change anybody's mind.
Elsewhere, he busted out a variant of the "but some of my best friends are black/gay/Martian!" defense against some of the complaints regarding the stereotypes in the movie, which is just astonishingly tone-deaf. It may be that the characters that played as bad stereotypes to me aren't offensive to actual black and gay people for reasons that I don't know, but "It can't be offensive, it was written by a black guy!" just doesn't fly. Reviews from people at the gay and lesbian film festival where it premiered might be convincing, but the nationality and/ or orientation of the screenwriters and actors doesn't change the fact that the gay producers gave me the creeps from start to finish.
So, in the end, I'm sort of leaning toward washing my hands of the whole business. Not entirely, obviously, or I wouldn't've gone to the trouble of typing all this out, but all in all, I suspect I can find better things to expend mental energy on.
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Nobody does canine conversations better than Chad. I wouldn't even attempt it. :) My cat does have her own blog, though, although she hasn't posted anything since March...
"I can do imaginary conversations with my dog, though,"
What, those are imaginary? You aren't *really* conversing with your dog? My illusions are shattered . . .
What you're missing is that this advice is about as useful in the context of scientific communication as "buy low, sell high" is in the context of investing in stocks.
The devil is in the details, and these framing fuckwits get the details wrong every fucking time.
What you're missing is that this advice is about as useful in the context of scientific communication as "buy low, sell high" is in the context of investing in stocks.
My point is that, like "Buy low, sell high" for stocks, anything too much more specific is likely to fail when applied to specific cases. There are a lot of different ways to try to identify stocks that will increase in price, and none of them is foolproof. It's not even clear that they're all that much better than random guessing.
Similarly, there are lots of specific things that people can do to communicate science, none of which will work for everyone. They all follow a handful of general principles, but there's no foolproof step-by-step process that you can follow in detail to become an effective communicator.
Demanding that Olson, Mooney, Nisbet, or whoever produce one is just ridiculous.
Speaking just for myself, I am not demanding that they produce one. What I would like is for them to shut the fuck up about "Scienz Kamunikashunz: Yr Doin It Wrong", and find something else to occupy their time.
I am increasingly confused by this entire "framing controversy."
As a non-scientist, ScienceBlog lurker, I simply do not encounter many examples of really poor communication skills by scientists. In fact, most seem to bend over backward to try to make their research understandable to people like me. I find that the ScienceBlog writers generally adhere to the "keep it short, keep the storyline simple and compelling, don't drown people in data" rules as well as providing more in depth data for those who want and understand it. Seems to me that the whole framing thing just promotes and continues a sort of lame stereotype that does science and those who appreciate and participate in it a disservice.
As a non-scientist, ScienceBlog lurker, I simply do not encounter many examples of really poor communication skills by scientists. In fact, most seem to bend over backward to try to make their research understandable to people like me. I find that the ScienceBlog writers generally adhere to the "keep it short, keep the storyline simple and compelling, don't drown people in data" rules as well as providing more in depth data for those who want and understand it.
The problem is not communicating with people who already choose to read sites like ScienceBlogs, the problem is communicating with the general public. Some of whom not only don't care about the in depth data, but will actively run away from anything that appears to contain in depth data.
The audience here is laregly self-selected, and not representative of the people who need to be reached.
Perhaps you are right Chad, still...
Perpetuating the stereotype scientists as boring, social outcasts is probably not the way to get more of the general public interested, nor encourage young people to enter into or become interested in science...
It seems to ignore the communicative strides that science is already making. There are interesting and attractive people who are becoming minor celebrities per podcasts and television programs (Dr. Kirsten Sanford of "This week in Science", "Mythbusters", Neil deGrasse Tyson among others). I wonder if we shouldn't be promoting some of our really great communicators (not all people are going to be great communicators in science: as in any field there are going to be some who are more talented in that area) who may inspire others to become better, rather than making blanket statements that seem to do no good. I mean, come on, how helpful is it to have Olson making statements like "Don't be such a scientist?"
There are untrue stereotypes in my field that we have been combating for a century now and are just, just starting to get past. Most come from people who are uneducated about the artform... it's really destructive to have those same stereotypes come from within the community, which seem to be happening here, in the scientific community.
As a non-scientist, ScienceBlog lurker, I simply do not encounter many examples of really poor communication skills by scientists. In fact, most seem to bend over backward to try to make their research understandable to people like me.
Chad already mentioned that the ScienceBlogs audience is self-selecting. In addition, the writers are a somewhat self-selecting group. Having good communication skills is a necessary condition for being able to keep an audience coming to your blog.
I was at a conference last week, and I saw more bad talks than good. Some of this is the inevitable result of scientists having to present their work in a language (English) in which they are not necessarily fluent. More often, the issue was PowerPoint abuse, such as trying to cram too much text into PowerPoint slides. (Not that PowerPoint is a good tool for giving a scientific presentation, but too many scientists find ways to make it worse than it should be.) The most common presentation sin was trying to cram too much material into the time allotted. In one particularly egregious case the author overlooked the fact that his audience were not experts in his subspecialty and therefore did not have the background to understand any of his scientific points.
I agree that the Absent-Minded Science Professor and the Incomprehensible Brilliant Foreigner are stereotypes. However, there is an element of truth to these stereotypes, and the public sees enough of that truth that the stereotypes can be perpetuated. It doesn't help that many college students in the US have little or no experience with non-US accents until they encounter that foreign grad student TA (or professor!) in their science courses. (Here in New Hampshire, you are unlikely to encounter anything other than a New England or standard Middle American accent unless you are within 10 miles of either UNH or Dartmouth.) I've overheard undergrads complaining about the accents of certain professors in our physics department who, although foreign-born, are completely fluent in English.
Hey Eric and Chad,
You guys are both hitting on really pertinent points (self-selecting science bloggers as good communicators, SB readers, again already having interest, stereotypes often having elements of truth) and I agree with you: you are right.
I wonder if "framing" or stereotyping and all that may be meandering aimlessly around the issue of a lack of scientific acknowledgment in our culture and media. I know they think framing may help with that. I suppose it might depending on the packaging. Still, framing sort of demands a constructed perception (almost stereotype) of science and scientists: I enjoy seeing all of the different personalities and styles here on SB (the posting debates/arguments are amazing -when you take out the trolls- and often hysterically funny). I think I would regret seeing a homogenized interpretation of scientists and what they do and what they are as much as I resent the stereotypes we have now. I mean its not like there needs to be 3 million scientists out there, looking good and articulately talking about stuff: Carl Sagan seemed to do a lot to get people interested... Maybe Carl Zimmer or Tyson to help interpret some of the more difficult ideas to the talking heads who tend to be scratching them and re-framing scientific ideas to fit their own agendas?