Media
clock | April 24, 2007Barry Saunders is a local columnist for Raleigh News & Observer who I never thought was very funny (there is a mysoginist streak in his writing) so I rarely read him these days. But the other day I could not help but notice that he started his column with the old "no atheists in foxholes" stupidity - in context of the VT massacre, of course.
I was far too busy these last couple of days to do anything about it myself, feeling confident that he was gonna hear about it from many others. And, sure he did. Just like Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer and John Burnett (the latter two…
pharyngula | April 24, 2007Commercials baffle me, but this one for Tostitos more than others. It's a little trite, using the scenario of the little kid who asks "why?" to every explanation as a transparent excuse to drive exposition about why you should try their product, but it has an odd conclusion.
We're all made from different DNA.
Why?
So we can adapt and survive.
OK!
It's a bit clumsy, but there it is: biology used to sell snack food.
Why?
I know we evilutionists are a minority—why would there be a commercial to target such a narrow slice of the market? Could it be a test, to see if the ad generates a little…
pharyngula | April 22, 2007Larry Moran listened to Nisbet's podcast on Point of Inquiry. No surprise—he didn't like it at all. I finally listened to it last night, too, and I have to crown Larry the King of the Curmudgeons, because I disagreed with fundamental pieces of his story, but I'll at least grant Nisbet that there aspects of communication theory scientists would benefit from knowing. So why does he ignore those aspects in his own talks?
I want to focus on one thing: conflict. The podcast revealed another unfortunate inconsistency in the framing approach.
Science is really, really good at conflict. It's right at…
pharyngula | April 19, 2007I've tried a different tack now — I've left several comments on Matt Nisbet's very own blog, in the fading hope that he'll actually pay attention to what I'm saying, rather than what he imagines I'm saying, or what other people tell him that they imagine I'm saying. Comments there are held up for moderation, so in case you really want fast feedback, I've tossed my comments below the fold here where you can savage them instantly … or you can head on over to Framing Science and state your piece there.
Nisbet writes about Steve Case on Framing and Dawkins, which is basically a post of some fan…
clock | April 9, 2007It appears that scientists are not the only ones who do not grok framing. Jeffrey Feldman's book got blasted by some ninkompoop in NY Times yesterday. Jeff responds:
Indeed, when I read that passage I wondered if the reviewer had given up on reading my book just after glancing through the table of contents. It seems that, instead of writing about my book, Fairbanks popped in a DVD of "The Matrix," or maybe "A Clockwork Orange," and then churned out a piece of creative non-fiction reacting to those other works of sci-fi.
Update: More about the "fairbanksing" of Feldman here, here and here.
pharyngula | April 7, 2007
Abbie makes an excellent point on it the ongoing discussion of the Nisbet/Mooney paper: just how often do scientists get an opportunity to discuss their work to the public, anyway?
I have a few simple points to make.
1. Why are scientists being told so often that they're bad at communicating? Because, like, we aren't. Most scientists are awesome at communicating, just not on the terms dictated by Fox News.
Try grabbing some random person and telling them that they are expected to do a one hour presentation to an auditorium of 90 people on some specific, complex subject…tomorrow. Most will…
clock | April 6, 2007My SciBlings Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet just published an article in 'Science' (which, considering its topic is, ironically, behind the subscription wall, but you can check the short press release) about "Framing Science"
Carl Zimmer, PZ Myers, Mike Dunford (also check the comments here), John Fleck, Larry Moran, Dietram Scheufele, Kristina Chew, Randy Olson, James Hrynyshyn, Paul Sunstone and Alan Boyle have, so far, responded and their responses (and the comment threads) are worth your time to read. Chris and Matt respond to some of them. Matt has more in-depth explanations here, here and…
signout | April 6, 2007I'd ask Atul Gawande why he blogs.
However, 1) he doesn't blog, and 2) he's already answered, sort of. (Scroll down to the bottom of the second page, unless you want to read the boring details of a parathyroidectomy, or something.)
clock | April 5, 2007Energy Use Study Demonstrates Remarkable Power Of Social Norms:
Most people want to be normal. So, when we are given information that underscores our deviancy, the natural impulse is to get ourselves as quickly as we can back toward the center. Marketers know about this impulse, and a lot of marketing makes use of social norms. This is especially true of campaigns targeting some kind of public good: reducing smoking or binge drinking, for example, or encouraging recycling.
This tendency may not always be used for good. This is, after all, the idea behind the Overton Window, which the Right…
clock | March 31, 2007The best way to make it easy for the low-brow followers to kill the enemy is to dehumanize it. That is what right-wing talking-heads have been doing for a while. Of course, if someone actually gets killed, they did not do it - they were just telling "jokes" on radio or TV.
clock | March 26, 2007...yet even at the start of it, back in March 2003, The Onion understood the dynamics of war and the psychology of defenders of war better than almost half of Americans and all of GOP today.
[Hat-tip, commenter Lindsey]
clock | March 25, 2007On the heels of my last week's post, it seems everyone is writing about journalism, blogging, and how to move back from infotainment to actual journalism, as in "information + education" which a populace needs if the democracy is to flourish. So, check out Brad DeLong, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Greg Anrig and Dave Neiwert on the subject of "boring" journalism and why the GOP does not want you to think policy wonkery is interesting.
clock | March 24, 2007When a newspaper publishes a column about religion (in their Religion section) that takes into account only the Christian point of view, someone is bound to object.
When the newspaper rectifies the error by publishing an article by an atheist, then, of course, some Christianists are going to object as well.
Discussion follows - kinda basic, embryonic and naive compared to informed and sophisticated discussions we often have on atheists blogs - but a discussion nonetheless, involving local (Greensboro NC) readers of the paper.
Hat-tip: Ed Cone
clock | March 23, 2007The first issue of Carrboro Citizen is now available both in hardcopy and online. [Background here]
Update: Brian is gushing over it....
signout | March 21, 2007Yesterday, I got tagged with a meme by the inimitable Dr. Flea, of whose recognition I am totally not worthy. Although normally, memes, meh, this "Thinking Blogs" meme gives me the opportunity to give props to several excellent thinkers and writers who routinely send my tiny brain into spasms of glee.
I'd have tagged Flea himself if it hadn't been he who tagged me. That not being an option, here are five other bloggers I adore:
1. I Blame the Patriarchy. My daily dose of radical feminism since 2004, this blog has done nothing less than give me a new vocabulary for thinking about human rights…
clock | March 21, 2007This is kinda funny. Waveflux digs out a couple of truly ancient articles - What Journalists Can Learn From Bloggers and What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists by Steve Outing, which, though not as awful as some (especially the first one), still reveal (especially the second one) the basic misunderstanding of the blogging world in the way we have by now got used to (no editorial control, no accuracy, no money yada-yada-yada). But that was 2004 and one could be excused about not understanding something that was quite new at the time (hey, not THAT new - even I had a blog back in 2004 and I…
clock | March 18, 2007There used to be two big independent papers in the Triangle: Spectator and Independent.
The former was full of information about local events, movies, restaurants. The latter had some of the best political and social writing anywhere.
Then, several years ago, the two papers fused into one and Independent Weekly was born, putting together the best of both worlds. It is an indispensable weekly read for the Triangle folks.
Chapel Hill has its own local indy paper - the Daily Tar Heel (which I should get into the habit of getting regularly).
Now, Carrboro is getting its own - the Carrboro…
purepedantry | March 12, 2007David Wallis, writing in SFGate, has a very interesting article about politics and political cartoons. I like all the historical background, although I don't entirely buy the one-sidedness of the censorship he seems to suggest:
Adolf Hitler understood the power of cartoons. They made him crazy ... crazier. Long before World War II, David Low of Britain's Evening Standard routinely depicted Hitler as a dolt, which infuriated the thin-skinned fuhrer so much that the Gestapo put the British cartoonist on a hit list.
The CIA also appreciated the huge influence of little drawings. Declassified…
clock | March 11, 2007Abandoning Net Neutrality Discourages Improvements In Service:
Charging online content providers such as Yahoo! and Google for preferential access to the customers of Internet service providers might not be in the best interest of the millions of Americans, despite claims to the contrary, a new University of Florida study finds.
"The conventional wisdom is that Internet service providers would have greater incentive to expand their service capabilities if they were allowed to charge," said Kenneth Cheng, a professor in UF's department of decision and information sciences. Cheng and his co-…