communication
jstemwedel | June 7, 2006One of the first things that happens when you get a faculty mailbox in a philosophy department is that unsolicited items start appearing in it. There are the late student papers, the book catalogs, the religious tracts -- and occasionally, actual books that, it is hoped, you will like well enough that you will exhort all your students to buy them (perhaps by requiring them for your classes).
Today, I'm going to give you my review of two little books that appeared in my faculty mailbox, both from The Foundation for Critical Thinking. The first is The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking…
jstemwedel | May 3, 2006There's an article in yesterday's New York Times about doubts the public is having about the goodness of scientific publications as they learn more about what the peer-review system does, and does not, involve. It's worth a read, if only to illuminate what non-scientists seem to have assumed went on in peer review, and to contrast that with what actually happens. This raises the obvious question: Ought peer review to be what ordinary people assume it to be? My short answer, about which more below the fold:Not unless you're prepared to completely revamp the institutional structure in which…
jstemwedel | April 26, 2006A couple posts ago I posed these questions:
What do you want lay people to have as part of their store of scientific knowledge? What piece of scientific knowledge have you found especially useful, or would you like to have if you don't already?
Among other things, my query prompted this response from commenter tbell1:
I'm usually just a lurker here on science blogs, but I have a pet peeve about the use of the terms 'lay' or 'lay people' in reference to nonprofessionals in science. Doesn't it just stink of religion? Am I the only one who hates the term? Can we generate an alternative? 'non-…
jstemwedel | April 25, 2006My favorite T-shirt says "I [heart] irony. It's a great shirt, because no one can be absolutely sure that I love irony. Maybe I'm ambivalent about irony and I'm wearing the shirt ... ironically. Despite what the Ethan Hawke character in Reality Bites may have said, irony is not as straightforward as meaning the opposite of the literal meaning of the words you are uttering. Rather, it's meaning something that is some distance from what those words mean -- a distance that some in your audience may be able to decipher, but that others may miss altogether.
What, you may be asking yourself,…
jstemwedel | April 4, 2006Last week Kevin Vranes wrote an interesting post about "skeptics". One of the things he brought out is that, depending on the context, "skeptic" can be an approving label (here's someone who won't be fooled by flim-flam) or a term of abuse (there's someone who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts of the matter). As well, Kevin notes that, especially when scientists are dealing with folks from outside the scientific community (e.g., journalists or politicians), terms like "skeptics" and "the mainstream" can be used to designate something like tribal memberships: here are the people…
jstemwedel | March 1, 2006I have noted before that communicating science to non-scientists can be, to put it technically, wicked hard. Some of this has to do with the current state of science journalism -- journalists who don't really understand scientific methodology or rules for engagement in disagreements between scientists get obsessed with "balance" rather than finding the center of gravity of the scientific community's understanding of a given phenomenon. I'm optimisitic that science journalism can be improved, but it probably won't be fixed by tomorrow.
You might think, though, that there are some good bets…