Framing Science
clock | July 14, 2008Yes, I am one of many SciBlings and other bloggers who got offered to pre-screen Randy Olson's new movie "Sizzle" (check the Front Page of scienceblogs.com for links to all the others). I was reluctant at first, but in the end I gave in and agreed to preview a copy. Why was I reluctant? As a scientist, I need to start my piece with a bunch of neatly organized caveats, so here are the reasons why I thought I would not be a good person to review the movie:
- I am just not a good movie critic. Of the thousands of movies I have seen in my life, I disliked perhaps three. I am terribly…
nisbetmc | July 3, 2008Chris Mooney has this Science Progress column up reviewing the seminar we conducted last week at Cal Tech. As he puts it, science needs a "paradigm sheep." Read on, it all makes sense. Trust me.
In the meantime, we are looking to take the seminar on the road to other leading universities and research institutions. We hope to have announcements about some Fall dates and locations very soon.
cmooney | July 2, 2008
That's the title of my latest Science Progress column....even though the column itself is not entirely about sheep. Rather, it's a recounting of the Mooney-Nisbet science communication "boot camp" at Caltech....but, well, sheep came up, and believe it or not, it was in a pretty profound way.
Insofar as that's possible.
For more, read the column.
P.S.: Did anyone else notice Sheril subbing for me at Science Progress last week and writing a pretty profound column on the plight of postdocs? Even if you did notice, you may not know that this is her first piece of freelance science writing, and a…
nisbetmc | June 27, 2008I'm back in DC after a week long tour of southern California. On Monday night, an audience of close to 100 scientists, students, and staff turned out at Cal Tech for our latest Framing Science lecture. We followed on Tuesday with a day long science communication seminar (syllabus) that included 30 PhD students, post-docs, and Cal Tech staff. (Read one blogger's summary.)
I ended my morning session by posing the following issues and questions to the participants, with these issues arising from what I see as major changes in the political and media system that are generating new demands for…
nisbetmc | June 23, 2008Here are the details on the talk I am giving with Chris Mooney tonight at Cal Tech. Also online are the syllabus and readings for the science communication workshop we are running on Tuesday. For readers in the Los Angeles area, we hope to see you tonight!
cmooney | June 19, 2008Over the past year, I've done well over two dozen talks, with Matthew Nisbet, about science communication. And now we're taking it to the next level.
Next week at CalTech, we're unveiling a two-part affair: Our lecture (entitled "Speaking Science 2.0") followed by an all day "Speaking Science" boot camp, which we're describing as follows:
...the full-day workshop will provide a hands-on media primer, focusing on two critical issues: 1) how audiences find, understand, and use scientific information; 2) the knowledge and tools that scientists need to deal with the press. In other words, when…
nisbetmc | June 15, 2008Next week, I will be teaming up with Chris Mooney at Cal Tech for an evening lecture followed by a day long science communication seminar for the university's graduate students and post-docs. Details are below along with the suggested reading list.
Speaking Science Boot Camp
Matthew C. Nisbet & Chris Mooney
Over the past several years, the seemingly never-ending controversies over evolution, embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, and many other topics have led to a troubling revelation. Scientific knowledge, alone, does not always suffice when it comes to winning political…
clock | May 16, 2008Ha! Made you look! Which is exactly the point! Go and add your own ideas in the comments there....
nisbetmc | May 13, 2008
At the BIO 2008 International Convention coming up in June in San Diego, I will be participating in a panel on the communication challenges facing biotechnology. Below are the details on the panel, followed by a 500 word summary of the key points of my presentation. Readers should find the themes familiar.
Communication Challenges: Defining the Industry for Policymakers and the Public
Conference Breakout Sessions
Track Policy
Date/Time 6/19/2008 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Location San Diego Convention Center
Room 25 A
One of the key mandates offered up by policymakers taking part in a special session…
gregladen | April 23, 2008Despite the fact that the producers of Expelled! have the most nefarious of motives in mind, and that we can expect more from them (we are waiting for the other shoe to drop), it is interesting to note how many conversations this documentary about Intelligent Design Creationism has sparked. Ultimately, the intended purpose of Expelled! is to silence real scientists and set back scientific research that is on the verge of filling one of the most important "gaps" in which the Christian God of the theistic evolutionist currently lives. In the long run, conversations that arise from movies like…
nisbetmc | April 21, 2008Back in February, I traveled to Rome, Italy to present at a conference sponsored by Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Adriano Olivetti Foundation. The focus was on climate change and cities. For the proceedings on that conference, I was asked to contribute a short overview on the communication challenge surrounding climate change and the connection to urban areas and populations. Below I have pasted a first draft of that contribution, as I conclude:
Solving the public opinion challenge means defining the complexities of climate change in a way that connects to the specific core…
cmooney | April 11, 2008At the risk of getting more comments about framing...In January I spoke at the 2008 American Meteorological Society meeting's 7th Communication Workshop, and the audio and powerpoints are now online. Many or most of the panelists--and especially myself and Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan--are making "framing science"-type arguments, but of course, there is no real controversy over them because we're applying them mainly to global warming, not evolution.
Anyways, you'll need the WebExPlayer, but I encourage you to check out the session. The panelists were myself and Arthur Lupia,…
clock | April 7, 2008Bee and Michael and Chad and Eva and Timo and Cameron will be there. And so will I. And many other interesting people. Where? At the Science in the 21st Century conference at the Perimeter Institute (Waterloo, Ontario) on Sep. 8th-12th 2008. And it will be fun. This is the blurb of the meeting:
Times are changing. In the earlier days, we used to go to the library, today we search and archive our papers online. We have collaborations per email, hold telephone seminars, organize virtual networks, write blogs, and make our seminars available on the internet. Without any doubt, these…
cmooney | April 7, 2008Well, discussion seems to have mostly run its course on "framing science" premises II and III. I have defended them, at least to my own satisfaction. There may be some folks who still reject them, but at this point, at least for those who don't, I'm ready to continue with the argument.
So let's get on to the next two premises that gave some people trouble, or raised issues. Premise V was the following:
Therefore, if--if--you want to get beyond audiences of science enthusiasts who understand the fine details, and move this broad public on these highly complex and politicized issues, you have…
nisbetmc | April 7, 2008In the left side bar, I have had a standing policy on comments for the past year. Here's what it says:
Keep it substantive, serious minded, on topic, and respectful.
Somewhat curiously, the only time I actually have to take action to enforce the comment policy is when a swarm of ardent faithful from PZ Myers' blog suddenly surges over here to complain about any criticism of PZ or any suggestion that diverts from the path of militant atheism. It's what physicist Chad Orzel describes in this post as the "screechy monkey" problem.
cmooney | April 3, 2008Okay, so: After reading over some ninety comments, I think I am ready to advance the framing science discussion further. Recall that I am starting from the ground up, because I believe that while I have made some errors and Nisbet has made some errors, and there has been some unfortunate polarization and nastiness on top of that, I still think that the concept of framing holds considerable import for the future of science communication.
So I am now going to defend those premises that received considerable criticism in my previous post. I want to go in order, because I want to play this out…
sheril | April 2, 2008Chris has been posting his thoughts on framing, and while we share many ideas, it's time I provide my own perspective. You see, I'm often mistaken for my coblogger, and while I do understand a thing or two about storms and climate, we're not one in the same. So with that in mind... [deep breath], let's get down to making sense of framing science.
There is much I have to say on this topic, and could not possibly do so in a single post, so I would like to expand upon the premise written yesterday that has been discussed a good deal in the comments that followed:
6. Rather, you have to pare…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2008
Over the summer I addressed by video conference a meeting by the National Academies on state science policy advice. They've now produced a report based on that meeting and it is free as a PDF download.
Chapter Five of the report focuses on the communication of science advice at the state level and provides a fairly detailed overview of the Framing Science thesis generally. Below the fold you can read that section of the report. The narrative follows closely the article that I published at The Scientist last year with Dietram Scheufele (PDF) and the presentation that I have been giving on…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2008At Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School on Monday, about fifty faculty and students turned out for the lunch time seminar on Framing Science. The Q&A generated traditional questions but also a lot of new ideas and angles. From one of the visiting faculty, we even received an invitation for a possible fall talk at Carleton College in Minnesota.
For those in the DC area, I will be giving a another talk tomorrow at the George Mason-Arlington campus. Open to the public, it's part of the George Mason-Georgetown-George Washington seminar series on science and technology policy. Anyone is invited…
cmooney | April 2, 2008Well, it's Wednesday, and so far I've done two posts--and gotten more than 170 comments--in the new "framing science" dialogue that I've sought to begin here. Let's briefly recap, so that I can then explain how I'll be moving forward. Meanwhile, Sheril wants to start weighing in, so expect her to do that later today.
First, I began with my "framer culpa": Clearly, I have not managed to get these ideas across to many ScienceBlogs folks in a way that resonates. Rather, the subject has become polarized, and generated far more heat than light. I am in part to blame. Mistakes have been made--…