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Apr
28
2012

I was invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this week to outline my notion that it is possible, amid the reverberating noise and distraction, to use the Web and other emerging communication tools and networks to make the world a better place.

Here’s my talk, “Building the #Knowosphere: How new ways to share and shape ideas can help build durable progress on a finite planet”:

dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/...ormation-matter-in-a-noisy-age
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Information Noise Communication Science Journalism

Mar
14
2012

  • I've always thought "environmental journalist" was an environmentalists first and a journalist second.

In this episode, Massimo and Julia discuss science communication with Howard Schneider, dean of the school of journalism at SUNY Stonybrook and former editor of Newsday. A guest at previous skeptic events, including the first annual Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, Schneider has argued in the past that skeptics lay too much blame at the feet of the media for public misunderstandings and misconceptions about science (video here). Julia and Massimo question him on this point, and ask him for his thoughts on what *can* be done to improve scientific literacy. As the founder of the Center for News Literacy and the Center for Communicating Science, Schneider has plenty of thoughts to share -- including making scientists take improv classes. Should science communication involve more storytelling? And is there any way to take advantage of new, online media formats to remedy some of the weak points in the science communication process?

www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/...-on-science-news-literacy.html
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Science Science Journalism Communication

Feb
28
2012

While these organizations have the best of intentions, there may be inadvertent aspects of what they do that actually undermine their stated goals. In particular, in this piece I’m going to argue we can make science communication better not only by having lots of panels on the matter, but by changing some very simple and basic things about how scientists present their knowledge at conferences like AGU and AAAS.

www.desmogblog.com/on-start-bad-powerpoint-habits
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Science Communication Climate Science Conference Academic Research Academic PowerPoint

  • My focus on how scientists present at mega-conferences is not accidental. These conferences are, for many scientists, their number one opportunity to engage in the act of communication. Their talks, to be sure, are aimed towards their peers rather than public audiences. But nevertheless, the techniques and practices inculcated here surely have an oversized impact on scientists’ broader communication activities—including their classroom activities (where bad habits are also common).
  • Caught in a Bad PowerPoint. A cardinal sin of PowerPoint is putting lots of tiny words up on the screen, and then, basically, reading your notes to the audience. It certainly isn’t only scientists who do this—you see it everywhere. But scientists are often guilty parties in this respect.
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Last week we promised to investigate one of the most-quoted but least-understood statistics of all. That 93% of communication is non-verbal.

Sometimes the claim is more detailed: 7% of communication depends on words, 38% on tone of voice and 55% on body language.

Either way, it's the sort of thing that men in trendy glasses say at management seminars. But, is it true?

gssq.blogspot.com/...at-93-of-communication-is.html
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Statistics Misrepresentation Academic Research Communication

  • 'Absolutely not, and whenever I hear that misquote or misrepresentation of my findings I cringe because it should be so obvious to anybody who would use any amount of common sense that that's not a correct statement.
     
     If I were to tell you that the pencil you are looking for is upstairs in the desk drawer of the bedroom, three drawers down, I couldn’t do that nonverbally. I mean, I could try to point, but that would hardly locate the pencil, whereas I could do that very precisely with words...
  • 'Somebody might say Brute but affectionately'...
     
     'It turned out that when there was a contradiction between the words and the vocal elements, the vocal elements prevailed primarily and very strongly, and the words had hardly any impact. The variance was 5.4 times larger for the vocal elements than for the words.
     
     In a subsequent study I compared the vocal elements with facial expressions. Now in that study, I was able to show very clearly that the facial expressions were 1.5 times more powerful than the vocal elements, and I expressed this as an equation.
     
     Combining the results of the first and the second studies, I was able to arrive at the linear components for content, vocal expression and facial expression, and that's the formula that people have been quoting.'
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Feb
23
2012

we had a chat with Gavin Schmidt, who for 15 years has been a climate researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and, in 2004, spearheaded the launch of Realclimate.org. The blog has become a vital online touchstone for anyone eager to assess what’s known and yet to learn about greenhouse-driven climate change. Here’s our conversation (which was recorded on Feb. 13, so there’s no discussion of Schmidt’s views on the Heartland Institute saga; his thoughts are here):

dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/...lclimate-blogger-gavin-schmidt
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Climate Science Climate Change Climate Science Blog Website Journalism Communication Politics

  • There’s a need for training and in filling in the gaps between the extremely casual tweeting, say, and the I.P.C.C. assessment report. There’s a whole range of levels of communication that could fit in between those two things…. The stuff in the middle, that’s where the people who know what they’re talking about should be acting, because we’re not there collectively now.

    Some of us are. But we’re not there collectively, and that kind of cedes that whole field to the people who don’t know anything and the people who are more fond of their own voice than they are of the facts and the people who want to disinform and misinform the public.

    So it’s that area in the middle, the hinterland between the paper and the tweet, where I think there’s a lot more scope for us to communicate and where, quite frankly, the field is wide open.

Jan
1
2012

Regular readers will know that I think that the print media overall has done a pretty good job on covering the science of climate change, if not always getting the politics right. They will also know what I think about the "debate" over climate change and extreme events (above). But every once in a while I see a story that is so breathtakingly bad that it is worth commenting on. Today's installment comes from Justin Gillis at the New York Times and was published on Christmas Eve. The article is so bad that it might just be the worst piece of reporting I've ever seen in the Times on climate change.

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...nyt-story-on-climate-ever.html
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Climate Change Science Journalism Communication Representation Disaster

Dec
19
2011

Previous attempts at drafting guidelines for science reporting failed because they came from the scientific community, looking like tablets of stone handed down from a priesthood of scientists. But these days many science reporters agree that basic guidelines would protect them from the vagaries of their news editors' preferences. The Science Media Centre also suggests making sure that newspapers include science in the training package for all reporters, editors, and copy editors.

www.slate.com/...ines_might_be_a_good_idea.html
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Science Journalism Communication Objectivity

  • The media were not solely responsible for the MMR scare, but some of the news values that caused the problem are alive and well: the appetite for a great scare story; the desire to overstate a claim made by one expert in a single small study; the reluctance to put one alarming piece of research into its wider, more revealing context; journalistic "balance"—which creates the impression of a significant divide in scientific opinion where there is none; the love of the maverick; and so on.
  • Every story on new research should include the sample size and highlight where it may be too small to draw general conclusions.
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Dec
8
2011

Over the course of my graduate degree, I slowly became more and more aware of the bad information in the media about science, ultimately leading to my interest in the skeptical movement. When I decided to a talk at Skepticamp Winnipeg 2011, I realized that I needed to address the way science exists in the public eye and how its relationship to media has changed over the years. There’s a little bit of history, a little bit of humour, and an honest assessment of where science needs to go if it’s going to continue to have a relationship with the public audience. If you want to see what’s written on the slides, I recommend going full screen in HD.

www.skepticnorth.com/...science-and-media-a-love-story
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Science Communication Media Representation

Dec
7
2011

In Germany, there is news today (here) about a prominent climate scientist who earlier this year saw a court rule against him and in favor of a journalist, Irene Meichsner.  The basis for the lawsuit was what one observer of the German media calls "personal defamation" by Rahmstorf against the journalist.

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...pik-responds.html
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Science Communication Journalism Politics Censorship Libel

Dec
2
2011

A freelance journalist becomes the target of the renowned climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf, who in the struggle for the supposed truth does not stop short of personal defamation.

 In the name of the people, a ruling was announced on 9 February this year, which was remarkable: the defendant was sentenced by the 28th Civil Chamber of the Cologne District Court, Germany, "to (…) refrain from giving the impression that

a) the claimant had plagiarised the blogger Richard North and the journalist Jonathan Leake;

b) the claimant had asked the defendant via the editors of the Frankfurter Rundschau to remove the name of the claimant from the blog post of the defendant “FR withdraws article against the IPCC” and name only the Frankfurter Rundschau."

 In addition, the defendant must pay the claimant €511.58 plus interest and pay two-thirds of the cost of litigation. The Chamber justified its sentences by noting that it was a case of untrue factual allegations, which infringed the claimant’s personal rights "because the objective misrepresentation cannot be classified as value-free."

 This ruling is particularly intriguing because the defendant is the climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf who has often sharply criticised false representations in media reports in his blog (http://www.scilogs.de/wblogs/blog/klimalounge). At least in this case, in which he sets his sights on an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau of 8 February 2010, he seems not to have heeded the rules that he has repeatedly urged journalists to observe: the acquisition of expertise on the matter and the correct representation of facts.

www.wpk.org/...ow-to-silence-journalists.html
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Science Communication Journalism Politics Censorship Libel

  • the malice, which Rahmstorf shows for the author of the article, seems like personal defamation that has no place in public disputes. Not even – or, should I say, especially not - when it comes to a subject as important as climate change. Much of Rahmstorf's way of behaving in this case is reminiscent of what he has always argued against so eloquently: the facts are polished until they support a predetermined interpretation. This case is only superficially about facts that may be true or false. Rather, it is about the importance which is assigned to specific facts in the reporting on climate change. These interpretations are not sacrosanct. There is no one who can or would want to deny Stefan Rahmstorf and other climate scientists the right to criticise interpretations they consider inappropriate and to counter them with others. But anyone who, like Rahmstorf, fails to distinguish carefully between facts and interpretation and applies the one-dimensional criterion of right and wrong to both, enters the arena of a public battle of opinions. Disguised as a scientific expert, he is really a political agitator. He does not fight against false factual claims, but against unpopular interpretations, and in this case he also employs unfair means, as the verdict of the Cologne court documented. The fact that Rahmstorf has now changed or entirely removed certain passages from his blog post of 26 April 2010 without informing his readers about it, all fits into the picture.
  • The moral of the story is not very encouraging - because Rahmstorf has had considerable success. The move that led to the article being withdrawn by the FR made it onto the front page of the New York Times, as Rahmstorf, obviously rather gratified, tells his readers in his blog of 25 May. His initiative is mentioned in the New York Times as one of several successful attempts by climate researchers to publicly correct grossly distorted or false reports. In some cases this may be justified. In this particular case, it is nothing less than a demonstration of how to try and suppress unwelcome interpretations using an authoritarian concept of truth and with the help of a media conspiracy theory based solely on isolated cases and thus basically void of empirical substance.
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In Germany, there is news today (here) about a prominent climate scientist who earlier this year was convicted of defaming a journalist, Irene Meichsner.

The case (described in detail in English here) has to do with Meichsner's reporting of errors in the IPCC 2007 report in early 2010 in the Frankfurter Rundschau. The scientist, Stefan Rahmstorf (known in the US as a blogger at Real Climate and whom I've occasionally sparred with) is a German government advisor who strongly attacked Meichsner for her coverage of the IPCC. His attacks prompted the Frankfurter Rundschau to subsequently correct Meichsner's reporting, apparently based solely on Rahmstorf's say so, such was his authority.

Meichsnner, believing that she had done no wrong, sued. The Cologne court then decided in her favor, concluding that Rahmstorf's attacks were unsupported by evidence and even libelous.

Interestingly, in the US, Rahmstorf's efforts to take down the journalist were uncritically celebrated by no less than the New York Times, which helps to illustrate both a bandwagon effect in coverage of climate by journalists who see themselves on the "same side" as the scientists and also the extensive deference than scientists are granted by the media. Given the court outcome, I wonder if the NYT will be correcting its earlier coverage?

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...list-fights-back-and-wins.html
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Science Communication Journalism Politics Censorship Libel

  • [T]he malice, which Rahmstorf shows for the author of the article,  seems like personal defamation that has no place in public disputes. Not  even – or, should I say, especially not - when it comes to a subject as  important as climate change. Much of Rahmstorf's way of behaving in  this case is reminiscent of what he has always argued against so  eloquently: the facts are polished until they support a predetermined  interpretation. This case is only superficially about facts that may be  true or false. Rather, it is about the importance which is assigned to  specific facts in the reporting on climate change. These interpretations  are not sacrosanct. There is no one who can or would want to deny  Stefan Rahmstorf and other climate scientists the right to criticise  interpretations they consider inappropriate and to counter them with  others. But anyone who, like Rahmstorf, fails to distinguish carefully  between facts and interpretation and applies the one-dimensional  criterion of right and wrong to both, enters the arena of a public  battle of opinions. Disguised as a scientific expert, he is really a  political agitator. He does not fight against false factual claims, but  against unpopular interpretations, and in this case he also employs  unfair means, as the verdict of the Cologne court documented. The fact  that Rahmstorf has now changed or entirely removed certain passages from  his blog post of 26 April 2010 without informing his readers about it,  all fits into the picture.
  • Irene Meichsner – who had to fight her legal battle for her reputation  on her own - has had enough of climate issues for the time being. She no  longer writes about this subject.
Nov
18
2011

The historical backlashes shed some light on a paradox of the current climate debate: As evidence continues to accumulate confirming longstanding warming predictions and showing how sensitive climate has been throughout Earth’s history, why does climate skepticism seem to be growing rather than shrinking?

www.physicstoday.org/...p39_s1
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Climate Science Climate Change Physics Politics Communication

  • At its heart, global warming is a physics problem, albeit a messy one that cannot  proceed far without bringing in meteorology, oceanography, and geology. (See the article by Raymond Pierrehumbert in PHYSICS TODAY,    January 2011, page 33  .) The climate debate has spread far beyond the  confines of any of those scientific circles and into the media and public sphere, where politicization and vitriol are legion.
  • At its heart, global warming is a physics problem, albeit a messy one that cannot  proceed far without bringing in meteorology, oceanography, and geology. (See the article by Raymond Pierrehumbert in PHYSICS TODAY,    January 2011, page 33  .) The climate debate has spread far beyond the  confines of any of those scientific circles and into the media and public sphere, where politicization and vitriol are legion.
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Nov
16
2011

  • One possibility is that people are turning to alternative medicine because their needs are not being met by traditional medicine. As the late medical historian Roy Porter was fond of pointing out, before the 20th century this certainly was the case.4 Medical historians, in fact, are in agreement that until well into the 20th century it was safer not to go to a doctor, thus leading to the success of such nonsense as homeopathy—a totally worthless nostrum that did no harm, thus allowing the body to heal itself.

  • Another explanation may be found in examining what CAMers are offering that mainstream physicians are not: TLC. By this I do not just mean a hand squeeze or a hug, but an open and honest relationship with patients and their families that provides a realistic assessment of the medical condition and prospects. People are going alternative because in too many instances physicians have become highly skilled technicians—cogs in the cold machinery and massive bureaucracy of modern HMO medicine.

     

    I witnessed the effect directly over the course of a decade during my mother’s recurring and malignant meningioma brain tumors. She finally succumbed, but in the process I gained a deeper understanding of why people turn to alternative medicine. Don’t get me wrong—my mother’s doctors were brilliant, her care the very best available, and we have no regrets about what might have been. And that’s the point. Even under such ideal conditions I found the whole experience frustrating and unfulfilling: it was nearly impossible to get honest and accurate information about my mom’s condition; neither my father nor I could get doctors to return our calls; misinformation and (usually) no information was the norm; and despite my best efforts, the relationship with her physicians (with one exception—her oncologist whom I befriended), could not have been more detached.

Nov
12
2011

Martin Bunzl, a philosophy professor at Rutgers University, compared the climate change movement to the civil rights movement. Climate change is often described as a "technical" problem with technical solutions, he said, a portrayal that research has shown is ineffective.

Instead, he said, the key is culture change -- it's about changing what's in people's heads.

www.nytimes.com/...man-mind-might-save-16335.html
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Climate Change Sociology Psychology Communication

  • a basic principle in social psychology: that people's attitudes do not translate into action. But most environmental activism remains centered around the assumption that changing behavior starts with changing attitudes and knowledge.

    "Social psychologists have now known for four decades that the relationship between people's attitudes and knowledge and behavior is scant at best," said McKenzie-Mohr. Yet campaigns remain heavily focused on brochures, flyers and other means of disseminating information. "I could just as easily call this presentation 'beyond brochures,'" he said.

  • To bridge the gap between attitudes and action, people must first address the barriers that stand in the way of action, McKenzie-Mohr said.

    Barriers include not knowing what actions to take, not understanding the benefits or having mistaken information -- for example, research has shown that the top reason parents do not want their kids to bike or walk to school is because they fear abductions, even though the number of abductions per year in Canada is often in the single digits, McKenzie-Mohr said.

    Several sessions at the conference discussed bridging this gap between beliefs and actions. That will affect individual behavior, such as turning off the lights, not driving a car or eating less meat.

    The conference was attended by some 400 people from utilities, national nonprofit organizations, community groups, consulting firms and other businesses, and both the federal government and local governments, according to a participant list.

    Speakers tended to agree that changing people's attitudes remains a problem.

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Oct
5
2011

Cosmology is not the stuff of 300 word stories, nor two minute TV grabs, but it is about reaching out for that doorway to the universe. Although the origins of the words are obscure, it has been noted in cosmology for many, many years, that if or when that door swings open, the true history of our species begins.

blogs.crikey.com.au/...er-faster-than-we-ever-thought
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Universe Physics Cultural Industries Science Communication

  • We can’t actually see light that was emitted in the first 300,000 years or so after the Big Bang, because the universe was too crammed full of primordial material for that light to go anywhere.

     

    And the universe didn’t begin at a single point. It began in a place of infinite size, and everything in this limitless space went ‘bang’ at the same moment (we think) and it was the space between these evolving particles of the physically observable universe which began to expand, letting the light shine through, and as Schmidt et al have found, continuing to expand at an accelerating rate under the influence of what is in science short hand, called ‘dark energy’.

     

    Which means that when we see the light from something that happened more than 13 billion years ago, anything sentient looking towards us from the reverse direction sees the same ancient light emitted throughout an endless universe that was dark (we think) and went bang (we think) at exactly the same moment (we think.)

  • The frustrations of serious cosmologists with popular science short hand lead to Professor Schmidt’s old alma mater, Harvard University, posting its superbly elegant  Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions page on the web, which among other things deals with ‘Does the Universe have an Edge?’ (No) and ‘Did it expand from a single point?’ (No) .
Sep
26
2011

Those who study climate change communication say a multiplicity of voices is exactly what we need. The more cacophonous the symphony, the better! And here’s why …

climaterealityproject.org/...tion-its-a-symphony-not-a-solo
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Climate Science Science Communication

  • Climate change has become such a polarizing issue (at least in some areas of the world) that it’s not always just the cold hard facts that count. In fact, research shows that many of us formulate our opinions on climate change not based on scientific evidence but based on our values. We take whatever position is most in line with and least threatening to our identity. Then — once we’ve firmly planted our feet — we look for arguments to help us defend whatever stance we’ve already taken.

     

  • we’ll have to show that there is no such thing as a stereotypical climate crusader. We need more people like Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian climate scientist, and U.S. Navy Rear Admiral David Titley to speak up. They show us that caring about climate change doesn’t have to be threatening to those with certain religious or political beliefs.

     

    It’s important, of course, for all of us concerned about climate change to be prepared to push back on the misleading claims of climate change deniers (or, to “win the conversation”). But generally speaking, we should attempt to approach our conversations on climate change in depolarizing, inviting and inclusive ways.

Aug
17
2011

I will now demonstrate, with a nerdy table illustration, how you correct for things such as social and demographic factors. You'll have to pay attention, because this is a tricky concept; but at the end, when the mystery is gone, you will see why reporting the unadjusted figures as the finding, especially in a headline, is silly and wrong.

www.guardian.co.uk/...bad-science-adjusting-figures
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Statistics Headline Journalism Science Communication

  • reporting the unadjusted figures as the finding, especially in a headline, is silly and wrong.
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Aug
15
2011

By all accounts the HGP was a huge success. But 8 years after the completion of the first human genome map there is the vague sense in the public that the promise has not been fulfilled. The public was promised that the HGP would allow us to identify genes associated with diseases, and then craft cures based upon that knowledge. So where are all the genetic cures we were promised?

skepticblog.org/...-promise-of-the-genome-project
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Gnome Science Media Communication

  • What is really going on is that even a big-picture successful science project like the HGP can be overhyped by the press. By mapping the human genome scientists were given a powerful tool with which to investigate disease. It still takes, however, a tremendous amount of research to translate that tool into specific knowledge about an individual disease, and then further translate that specific knowledge into a proven treatment. The pipeline for translating the basic knowledge of the HGP into an actual treatment is about 15-20 years optimistically (and that is after a specific disease is pursued genetically.
Aug
7
2011

  • To begin with, by thinking of this opinion as a characteristic of his person, he is ensuring that criticisms of that opinion will feel like malicious personal attacks on him. I have experienced this from the inside (in my youth as an armchair Trotskyite), and seen similar tendencies in many true believers I’m acquainted with. Eventually, criticism of the idea comes to have a nasty emotional impact similar to criticism of, say, personal appearance.
    Relatedly, by committing to this view in public, Carl is ensuring that changing his mind will be maximally difficult and embarrassing. We change our minds less often than we think, and part of the reas
  • (As an aside, this has huge implications for effective communication between people who disagree. For example, try to treat both your own beliefs and those of others as external to the person altogether. A simple change of phrasing from “I think you’re incorrect” to “I think this idea is incorrect” may make the difference between defensiveness and honest appraisal. On a personal level, I find it useful to think of beliefs as maps that I take out of an imaginary glove compartment.)
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