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Criticality . . .

Posted on December 16th, 2009 by earleholland

In physics, it might be called a “critical mass” – the point when a process has garnered enough energy to be self-sustaining.

That’s precisely what science needs now – critical mass.

Scientists who use animals in their research have faced decades of opposition from animal rights and animal welfare activists. Those loud and boisterous voices have continually tarred much of the biomedical research field, labeling such scientists as torturers and abusers and misrepresenting both the process of science and the progress it has brought.

But for years, most of these researchers refused to take a stance against this onslaught, rationalizing that if they weren’t personally attacked, then they wouldn’t be affected. That changed in the last two years, especially on the U.S. West Coast, with attacks by activists using arson and bombings, property damage and even threats on researchers’ lives to make their points.

Recently a critical mass was reached. The community of scientists and the public revolted and publicly opposed the actions of activists.

They collectively said, “Enough’s enough!”

That’s what’s needed now with climate change science. And the need is much more desperate than it was with animal research.

The public’s lack of understanding complex climate science, enhanced by the vested interests of many who oppose any fossil fuel restrictions or business constraints, have melded into an atmosphere where citizens’ disbelief in science is now skewing our public policy.

The theft of emails and files from the computer system at one of the world’s most respected science centers was a gift for those opposed to the notion that humans are largely responsible for climate change. Selective interpretations of some messages, coupled with imprudent comments by some scientists, frustrated by years of attacks, has strengthened what much of the public seems ready to believe – that scientists have lied about the extent and severity of global climate change.

The result: Many researchers are hunkering down and waiting for the storm to blow over, convinced that eventually the facts and data will convince those opposed and those oblivious that the threat is real.

It’s understandably human to move away from strife, to avoid confrontation with those whose passion has overrun their reason.

But climate scientists need to reject that reaction.

They need to heed the call of one of their own, voiced in San Francisco this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Ben Santer, a respected researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a former recipient of one of the prestigious MacArthur, or “Genius,” grants, set the stage.

Just before his scheduled address to an audience of earth scientists, he went off-script with a personal plea and warning. In part, he said:

These “forces of unreason” seek to constrain our ability to speak truth to power. They seek to skew and distort what we know about the nature and causes of climate change. Having failed to undermine climate science itself, they seek to destroy the reputations of individual climate scientists. They seek to destroy men . . . who have devoted their entire careers to the pursuit of scientific knowledge and understanding.

We must not let this stand.

We no longer have the luxury of remaining silent on these issues. We all have voices. We need to use them.

His call to arms, emailed to more than 150 of the leading researchers in the field, will be difficult for many scholars. Scientists are inherently committed to the premise that the value of facts and data will eventually outlast any misrepresentation or fabrication, that “staying the course” will eventually win the day.

That, they say, is the way science works.

But in today’s world, “spin” often reigns and the wrappings often outshine whatever a package may contain. The idea that patient diligence will eventually succeed is more than simple naïve – it may be dangerous.

Scholars need to find a comfortable middle ground between their historical reluctance to engage in public debate over science, and the current push for them to be politically active.

Finding such a path shouldn’t be so hard for those who make discoveries for a living.__Earle Holland

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The controversy’s dilemma . . .

Posted on December 4th, 2009 by earleholland

The real problem looming behind the so-called “climategate” — the email hacking incident involving scientists from one of the world’s great research centers — is not that there is some previously undetected conspiracy among scientists.

Instead, this is just the latest in a long line of instances where the complexity of the issue at hand forces the public to preferentially seek a simpler, more diabolical motive.

As a people, we flee from the detail and long for the rumor, convincing ourselves that it is more likely that individuals will do wrong, given the chance.

For those unaware, someone hacked into the computer system at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain and stole files and hundreds of emails between researchers focusing on global climate change.

The other day, a colleague asked me about the episode and what it meant to the public’s understanding of science in general, and of climate science in particular. It was, she figured, devastating to the public’s trust in science, and since Ohio State is also a respected center of climate change research, then we should speak out on the issue.

I simply asked her how many of the bootleg emails had she read and what it was about them specifically concerned her?

“None,” she admitted, but said she’d read a number of news stories describing the emails’ content and it seemed damning.

I had assumed that she hadn’t actually sought out the source material herself, and I’d guess that the majority of reporters who have produced stories on the controversy in the news media didn’t either. Frankly, it is a daunting task since the online archive of the pilfered messages contains at least 1,100 files.

Personally, I only read through about 15 percent of the collection and only those that related to Ohio State climate researchers but to me, nothing in that sampling suggested anything more than the typical dialogue between collaborating scientists.

News reports have focused on a few quoted passages that at first glance seem to imply a coordinated effort on some researchers’ parts to strengthen their arguments and diminish those of their critics. This, climate change opponents have argued, proves a conspiracy to mislead the public and overstate the severity of the alleged threat.

Hogwash! Conspiracy theorists, and those who seem all-too-eager to believe them, forget that pulling one off is really hard. It demands a level of coordinated activity and shared actions which, frankly, scientists are loath to undertake. Instead, they want to do their science – that’s all.

The oft-cited questionable excerpts pointed to by conservatives as the “smoking gun” are really something entirely different – evidence of the honest naiveté of most researchers! In a time when even the least-savvy among us knows that nearly everything on the internet is obtainable, would these scientists devise a devious plot leaving such an electronic trail? I think not.

True, one of the key actors in this drama, Phil Jones, the director of the research center at the heart of the controversy, voluntarily stepped down from his leadership post this week as he waits for an investigation to be completed. And another player, Michael Mann of Penn State University, is awaiting an assessment by his university of the emails in question. But these are both moves by the principles to accede to public concerns – not admissions of guilt.

The respected British journal Nature this week announced that it saw no conspiracy in the episode and refused to investigate further.

What no one seems to recognize – at least not yet – is the Catch-22 situation that researchers are now finding themselves in. In his latest blog entry, science communications scholar Matt Nisbet [with whom this writer often disagrees] rightly explained:

“. . . the public is expecting and demanding greater involvement in science-related decisions and greater accountability on the part of scientists.”

He and others have argued for scientists to enter the public arena more, to work harder at explaining their science, and to abandon their collective, historic reservations about “popularizing” their research. Only then, they suggest, will the public increase its support for, and appreciation of, science.

But “climategate” shows why that’s difficult – if not impossible – to pull off.

The media frenzy surrounding this whole affair is centered on the assumption of conspiracy, as if working scientists spend their time plotting and strategizing as if they were contestants on the reality television show ‘The Survivor.” And the public, ever content to jump to the nastiest of conclusions, will never actually evaluate the data to reach a logical, rational conclusion.

But that kind of evaluation is exactly what scientists do.

A public unwilling to understand — much less practice — even the most basic of scientific processes in reaching their own conclusions will never expend the effort to really understand complex topics like climate change, with all its countless variables.

No, it’s easier to assume malevolence on researchers’ part. It simply requires less thinking.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Climate change, Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy // 19 Comments »

In the bullseye . . .

Posted on November 30th, 2009 by earleholland

The call came mid-morning, the day after Thanksgiving, and changed my attitude for the rest of the holiday weekend. A friend and colleague had called from Washington to alert me that I was one of four people highlighted on an aggressive animal rights website.

She suggested I take appropriate action.

What is the appropriate action when you realize there’s a target on your back?

Several years ago, I was asked to serve on the board of directors for a national organization, Americans for Medical Progress (AMP), a strong, vocal supporter of the responsible use of animals in research. The invitation had come because for years, I’d been the chief spokesman at Ohio State when it came to dealing with research animals and the broader issue of animal rights.

In some ways, AMP is the flip side of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the national group opposed to all animal use and funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. But unlike its alter-ego, AMP members never throw blood on clothing shops, hold demonstrations with protesters in cages or try to force a different lifestyle on passersby. AMP focuses on explaining the benefits of animal use in research to a public frequently confused by animal advocates’ propaganda.

The website in question, Negotiation Is Over, is based out of Florida and, by any measure, revels in its place at the extremes of the animal rights spectrum. The website’s owner, Camille Marino, offers her group’s philosophy with every posting:

“Negotiating with abusers is an exercise in futility and veganism is essential. The only action that matters to the imprisoned is the one that imparts freedom. It is a moral obligation to protect the innocent whenever we can — and direct action, sabotage, or subduing the violent with violence is a necessary tactic.”

A quick review of recent offerings on the site would worry most Americans. Lauding vandalism, break-ins, property destruction, and praising and defending convicted felons, the website supports what they call “direct action” and defends the most radical of individuals in the movement – the Animal Liberation Front. Individuals recently convicted under the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act and now serving sentences in jail are excused as “political prisoners.”

At the website, along with information on my three colleagues (some of which was incorrect), Marino had provided my picture, lifted from a university website, along with office and home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Accompanying that information was this statement:

“He’s a one-man PR machine for misery.”

As comments go, it was less distressing than the labels my peers got – “animal violence advocate,” and “whitecoat terrorist.” And nothing nasty was said about Ohio State, my employer. A fellow board member’s firm was labeled “the world’s largest animal mutilation drug company.”

Hyperbole is alive and well at this URL!

Finding oneself in the spotlight this way is understandably unnerving. Nobody likes being called names and being suggested as a target for violence. But the identifying information about me has been on the web for years and readily available for anyone who is interested. And 30 years as a spokesman for a national university toughens the hide and makes one more comfortable being in the public eye.

It also teaches you to live defensively and to remain vigilant.

Researchers, however, never made the choice to live in that spotlight. Few thought, as they were earning their degrees to train them for careers in science, that their personal security would be at risk because of what they studied.

I’ve seen it enough times before, in the eyes of scientists who unexpectedly become objects of dissent by an anonymous public. You hear it in the catch in the voice as they try to mask their fear for their children, spouse or family. This is uncharted territory for them and they are understandably unnerved.

Advances in science are made for the public good.

And the public owes researchers and scientists the chance to do their work without fear of attack. It’s the least we can do.

As for me, I’ve been here before.__Earle Holland

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Like a Phoenix . . .

Posted on November 17th, 2009 by earleholland

National Science Foundation's Mosaic Magazine 1970-1992

Warren Kornberg’s email was as unexpected as a snowfall in July, and equally as welcome.

Years have passed since I’d seen him, decades perhaps. Who can remember such things? But Kornberg was of the “old guard,” the troop of masters who reigned in the wondrous heyday of science writing in the late 1970s and ’80s. He’s as much to blame, or credit, for the kind of writer I became as anyone.

In 1978, when I landed at Ohio State as a science writer, only a handful of similar jobs existed at American universities. While the research role of higher education was skyrocketing, the commensurate obligation to translate these wonders to the masses was mostly, as yet unrecognized.

But in the mass media of the time, science reporting was sprinting. Monthly science magazines seemed to grow like weeds – Science 80 (by the AAAS), Discover (by Time Inc.), OMNI, Science Digest and a half-dozen more glossy, four-color pubs were prominent at newsstands around the country at the time. More than 100 newspapers around the country had decided to devote special sections to science and medicine and the promise that research seemed poised to provide never before seemed as great.

Science and research institutions began considering whether they themselves should take on a publishing role to tout discovery and the wonders of science.

Kornberg was already there in 1978 as editor of an acclaimed science magazine, Mosaic, published four or more times a year by the National Science Foundation. While less glitzy than its newsstand competitors, Mosaic was a favorite among the best science writers in the country, primarily because of the space it allowed for individual stories and the emphasis Kornberg placed on seeing the science broadly.

While the trend elsewhere with the new publications seemed focused largely on the benefits or novelty that new discoveries offered, Kornberg and Mosaic embraced science’s breadth and complexity and looked at wide areas of inquiry, emphasizing interconnectedness among researchers.

It was, quite simply, a more accurate and less “packaged” way to explain science in all its complexity.

Last issue of Mosaic, Fall, 1992

Its last issue arrived in the Fall of 1992 with a cover photo of OSU’s own Anne Grunow studying rocks along the shoreline on Sprightly Island, Antarctica. By that time, Mosaic had published 110 issues, carrying a total of 539 stories on broad topics and written by at least 84 different authors, most of which were the best in the science-writing business. The majority of all of that had been accomplished under Kornberg’s steady direction.

In an epilogue published in the newsletter of the National Association of Science Writers, Arthur Fisher, the long-time editor of Popular Science magazine and a Mosaic contributor, pointed to both the challenge the magazine’s story assignments represented and to their massive length – 15,000 words was not uncommon.

“Most of them could not have found a place in Popular Science, where I’ve been science editor for untold years!” he wrote.

Kornberg himself wrote in his last editor’s note in the magazine, “During its lifetime, Mosaic became — of we tried to make it — unique in science journalism, seeking to reflect the substance and processes of research rather than the phenomenology that dominates so much journalism. We wanted Mosaic to be useful to the community it served. We tried not to be presumptuous.”

Kornberg’s email was more than just a voice from the past. He had, along with colleagues, compiled an archive of all that was Mosaic, a digitized compilation of 23 years of science reporting, searchable by topic, by author and by issue.

“The stuff,” he wrote, “if you remember, is still too good to lie fallow.”

“More than just as a warm bath in cool memories, I think it’s still a resource for students and teachers in all kinds of science/tech and science writing programs.”

Agreed.

This was a time, long since past, when science communications wasn’t constrained by a sound-bite mentality or Twitter-like communications.

And now it’s available for all.__Earle Holland

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Fifteen minutes of fame . . .

Posted on October 22nd, 2009 by earleholland

What’s more believable?

The announcement at a gala, premier event of a new primate fossil, touted as a “missing link” connected to human evolution, and acclaimed by its media-savvy, showmen-scientists . . .

Or . . .

The publishing in a formal, staid science journal that the fossil, along with a distant relative, is more akin to nocturnal lemurs and basically unrelated to humans. . .

Sadly, that’s the kind of dilemma faced by those who follow science in the media. It’s the unsettling challenge that modern research scientists now seem to be facing: Choosing between the newer broad, short-term public interest in the research, or remaining with the plodding, glacial pace of traditional science publication.

Most researchers will quickly say that they’d never sacrifice accuracy and fact for fame and the potential of fortune, but the episode of the Darwinius fossil earlier this spring, as well as other so-called “discoveries,” shows that the answers aren’t always so simple.

Comparing the news media coverage of the two aforementioned events seems to suggest where the public comes down in the battle between flash and fact.

The announcement of the Darwinius fossil, fueled by the opening of a new museum exhibit, the airing of a national documentary and the sale of a popular book, generated nearly 800 stories in the news media within two days.

But this week’s publication in the respected science journal Nature reported that a new early primate fossil, Afradapis longicristatus, and the earlier Darwinius fossil, belonged on a branch of the evolutionary tree far removed from humans. While the published paper basically disproved the claims that were so broadly hyped earlier this year, the research only garnered one-fifth as much news coverage.

Nature's representation of the primate family tree. Credit: E. R. Seifert, Stony Brook University

Marketing folks have long-known that being first with new information can often be more useful than being right. But that kind of mindset has usually been absent in science where the validity of the information has been paramount. Ironically, the nature of science is that the early “discoveries” are often proved less-than-right, if not outright wrong. But that’s as it should be – science is inherently self-correcting and our knowledge shifts as we gain more data.

But seldom do scientists ever use this evolution in our understanding to capitalize on the opportunities to mislead. So when it does happen, seemingly intentionally, as in the Darwinius episode, it suggests a new question:

What’s wrong with promoting findings quickly since other scientists will eventually correct whatever errors are made?

Plenty!

The public’s faith in the competency of researchers hangs in the balance in cases like this. And the fact that the public’s memory for detail is short is no excuse for “gaming” the system. Surveys continue to rank scientists high on the lists of those held in esteem but at the same time, the complexity of science in virtually every discipline is constantly doubling, making it harder for the citizenry to even begin to “understand” most science.

Instead, they’re left with a simple faith in the honesty of science, and of those who do it.

That’s way too valuable to risk on just a few minutes of fame.__Earle Holland

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How it’s ’sposed to be . . .

Posted on October 11th, 2009 by earleholland

As far as anthropology goes, 2009 is becoming a banner year for the field. While the scientists themselves may point to a host of discoveries, the lay public will likely only remember two – “Ida” and “Ardi.”

The announcements surrounding the unveiling of each of these two ancient primates filled approximately 1,000 stories each in the news media and held the public’s interest for days. But while they’re similar in the “buzz” they inspired, the two episodes differ drastically in how their stories were told.

They were, quite frankly an example of the worst and the best of communicating science to the public.

Ida’s story, spurred by its behind-the-scene marketing (here, here and here), filled the public eye late this past spring. “Ida”, a superbly preserved fossil of Darwinius masillae, dated back perhaps 47 million years and was unveiled at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, Norway. Described first at a much-touted press conference, the fossil find was also the subject of a two-hour documentary on the History Channel and a companion book describing its finding and study.

Book based on Darwinius fossil find

Billed as a “missing link” in human evolution, television ads promoted the discovery with claims such as “the most important find in 47 million years” and “this changes everything,” in hopes of increasing the television documentary’s viewership.

Information about the discovery had been withheld from science writers until the last moment, resulting in much of the reporting being done by journalists who lacked the basic understanding of the field, and who therefore were unable to critically judge the importance of the announcement.

At the time, researchers involved in the Darwinius effort defended their strategy , explaining that “pop bands and athletes are doing the same thing” as they did in promoting the discovery. And when, after a few days, knowledgeable reporters found a myriad of falsehoods surrounding the announcement, the public had already moved along.

Marketers could look on the Darwinius example as a grand success, given the attention it garnered. But it was explicitly the worst-case scenario for explaining science to the public.

Last week’s announcement of the fossil remains of Ardipithecus ramidus, however, was picture-perfect, an example of the best practices in science communications. Fifteen years after the first of ”Ardi’s” bones was unearthed in Ethiopia, a team of nearly four dozen researchers described their discovery through 11 scientific papers published in the journal Science. A handful of news stories, an editorial and the cover of that issue of the journal were devoted to the find.

Issue of Science featuring Ardipithicus

As with all content in the major science journals, science journalists had been alerted in advance to the upcoming publication and spent the week before publication preparing their reports, questioning experts and affirming the discovery’s importance. The release of the information to the public was flawless, thanks to the planning and partnership of communicators at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science’s publisher, and members of the research team.

According to Scott Simpson, an associate professor of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the Ardi team, the scientists had agreed in the beginning on a set of guidelines about discussing the fossil find and the project.

“It isn’t like we were being spiteful by sitting on this information for 17 years,’ he said. “It’s just that we wanted to be right when we announced it.”

Speaking after a lecture Friday at Ohio State University, Simpson said, “Some people will pick up a fossil in the field and then run to the nearest city and have a press conference. Doing so can bite you in the ass!”

As for the Darwinius episode, he said, “There actually was an ulterior motive – self-promotion” on the part of the discoverers. “They went over the top and said that it (the fossil) rewrites human evolution. I don’t think they were being very responsible,” he said.

“I believe they tried to make it so extraordinary that they stretched the bounds of what they themselves knew to be true.”

Historically, anthropology has been a somewhat contentious field. Experts within the discipline will disagree passionately over interpretations and significance of new finds, and that is how it should be.

But in the case of this year’s two main discoveries, both offer insight – the latter as a model to emulate and the former as a strategy to avoid.__Earle Holland

UPDATE: The Discovery Channel aired a new documentary within a week after Science published its reports on Ardipithecus, but the good news is that the program’s trailers avoided grand statements and overblown hyperbole. Perhaps they learned something from the Darwinius experience.__EH

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Are huzzahs enough?

Posted on October 5th, 2009 by earleholland

Perhaps naively, I’ve always thought myself open to new ideas.

Partly, I suppose, it’s because innovation is seen as progressive and positive, and who wouldn’t want to be seen as being receptive to new invention? More accurately though, it’s probably traceable to the general premise that one cannot embrace science without supporting new discoveries.

Regardless of the inherent bond between the appreciation of science and open-mindedness, there simply have to be limits. That’s my explanation for the fiercely visceral reaction I have to some of the efforts now underway that claim to be in support of science.

Science Cheerleaders

Topping the list should be the website “Science Cheerleader,” an effort by a former cheerleader for the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team to more vividly bring science to the public. Darlene Cavalier explains that her early years as both a college, and then professional, cheerleader and a job at Discover Magazine eventually led her to earn a master’s degree.

. . . I realized I need to combine the academic attitude of UPenn, the mass reach of Disney, and the in-your-face, pom-pom waving personality of a 76ers Cheerleader to kick-start the process.

I founded the Science Cheerleader to get the conversation going, rally the troops, solicit views from all sides and change the tone of science and science policy in this country.

Optimistic? Sure! Energetic and determined? Of course! I’m the Science Cheerleader!

The first stop at the Science Cheerleader website is a page offering a “Brain Makeover” that promises to reveal “what everyone needs to know to be a science literate” (sic). Eighteen little video vignettes fill that page with messages like . . .

“The universe is regular and predictable”

“Atoms are bound by electron glue”

“All living things are made from cells, the chemical factories of life.”

The USAToday-like factoids are offered by attractive young women in full cheerleader garb, replete with shaking pom-poms, in an effort to raise the scientific literacy of the website’s visitors.

But aside from acknowledging that some viewers’ will likely experience a sudden enhanced activation of their endocrine system, I can’t see what this will do to improve their understanding of science. Bare midriffs may have helped auto dealers sell more cars in the 1970’s but I hardly see how they’ll make quantum mechanics any less dense today.

Perhaps Cavalier’s project represents a street-savvy effort to foster a public “appreciation” of science. In recent years, the traditional goal of a public “understanding” has given way to the alternative “appreciation,” if for no other reason, to acknowledge the growing complexity of science. It’s far easier to appreciate than to understand, or so the logic goes.

Lord Paul Rudd Drayson

And perhaps that was what was behind the position taken British Science Minister Lord Paul Rudd Drayson last month when he debated a well-known critic of British science journalism, Dr. Ben Goldacre. The exchange, touted widely within the science communications world and still available on the web, was anticipated because the two speakers were diametrically opposed in how they saw the way the British news media’s efforts at reporting on science.

For his part, Lord Drayson was congratulatory of the reporting arguing repeatedly that the continuing coverage of science and medicine in that country’s newspapers kept the fields foremost in the minds of British readers.

Goldacre, who operates a popular website called “Bad Science“, however, saw the situation with a glass-half-empty view and pointed to the glaring inaccuracies, exaggerations and sensationalism that he said permeated their national science coverage.

Dr. Ben Goldacre

Drayson suggested any science coverage helped the cause and therefore should be applauded while Goldacre withheld tolerance – much less praise – for reporting that ultimately was wrong and misled the public.

And that, I guess, is the sad state of affairs that now exists.

We’re either torn between attitudes where we are so desperate for any attention given to science that we’ll rejoice at the mediocre and accept the inaccurate, or we demand a level of precision and fact that requires more from most readers than may be reasonable to expect.

Science, like most subjects, isn’t easy – it takes effort. Then again, most things worth knowing take work.__Earle Holland

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A matter of time . . .

Posted on September 9th, 2009 by earleholland

There’s been a recent trend among the scholars and science communications’ practitioners to suggest that researchers and scientists should speak out more publicly in explaining their work. If more researchers were visible and vocal, the logic goes, the public would be better informed about the science affecting public policy decisions today.

On its face, that makes a lot of sense. But it is fundamentally flawed.

All things scientific have become enormously complex in the past decades. Grasping the implications that new research advances bring requires a basic understanding of the subject. How can the public seriously discuss the merits and risks of genetically modified organisms or stem-cell research if they don’t understand the basic biology of DNA, or how proteins and enzymes work in the body?

The gap between the public’s basic collective knowledge and the scientists’ understanding has become gargantuan. Bridging it requires more than just better presentation skills on the part of researchers.

But that concept – that scientists should learn to be better communicators – is at the core of a movement supporting “framing science,” and one of the country’s most vocal proponents of it, Matt Nisbet, is touting its benefits in an upcoming paper in the American Journal of Botany. A column last week in the respected Columbia Journalism Review focused on this issue.

The basic notion of framing is, as I understand it, that to effectively convey information to an audience of readers, viewers or listeners, one has to tailor the message so that it corresponds to audience interests. These “frames,” as they’re called, are the architecture by which information is conveyed, the structure around which facts and context are built.

In essence, the teller-of-the-tale determines the best path along which to lead the audience.

Where this seemingly logical approach falls flat is the fact that the “teller” plans beforehand where he/she wants the audience to go. That’s straight-forward persuasive communications, but traditionally scientists – and science journalists, for that matter – are supposed to be providing information, not swaying opinion.

In essence, doing so differs little from the current trend of marketing and “messaging” where a specific set of statements is continually thrown at an audience in hopes that with time and repetition, the audience will absorb the new mindset. As a tactic long used in advertising, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach. In the area of public health, for example, it is the wisest and most effective method available. We want the public to adopt safe activities and actions – our motives are transparent.

But that doesn’t apply for most of the sciences where the object is to uncover information and make it available to all. This issue of the intent of the story-teller is problematic for science.

But that’s not the biggest problem:

Simply put, most researchers simply don’t have the time to enhance their communications skills and, if they did, few have the time available to undertake the kind of evangelism to the public that these “science framers” would like.

In my response to the CJR posting touting the Nisbet paper, I wrote:

In 2007, more than 6,000 researchers responded to a survey by the Federal Demonstration Project intended to gauge how scientists spent their time while working on federal research grants. The report said then that 42 percent of the researchers’ time was now “devoted to pre- and post-award administrative activities – not to active research,” and that compliance issues — adherence to regulations, and the simple management of projects — stole time away from their doing the actual science.

And the case here at Ohio State University, for example, seems even worse concerning available researchers’ time. According to Julie Carpenter-Hubin, director of Institutional Research and Planning, the results of a 2007 faculty survey provide a clear picture of the challenge of faculty finding more time for public engagement.

According to the survey, university faculty say their typical workweek lasts 57 hours (for assistant professors), 56 hours (for associate professors) and 58 hours (for full professors). All faculty surveyed were either tenured or tenure-track.

Assistant professors report spending 36 percent of their workweek on research. Associate professors say they spend anywhere from 21 percent to 29 percent of their time on research and full professors say 31 percent of their time can be spent on research. The rest of their time, they said, was spent on non-research activities like teaching, meeting with students and preparing for class.

Surprisingly, both associate professors and full professors said that they spent 1 percent of their time “talking with the (news) media.”

The question rests with how researchers should spend their time. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press showed that the public’s respect for scientists and their work was substantially greater than it was for clergy, journalists, lawyers and business executives, in that order. One assumes that it is the work scientists do that’s held in such high regard.

What’s worrisome about all of this is the notion that some so-called experts continue to suggest approaches that are unrealistic. How are research faculty supposed to find the additional time to devote to more communications when their average workweek already surpasses the standard American’s by 25 to 50 percent?

Scientists are not opposed to doing more science communications.

But they’d much rather do more science instead.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy // 3 Comments »

Of packrats and horseshoe crabs . . .

Posted on August 27th, 2009 by earleholland

The office as attic

Most people don’t realize that writers are really just collectors.

They collect stories, tidbits, anecdotes, experiences, opinions, triumphs and tragedies and then salt them away until an opportunity arises to regurgitate them to hungry readers.

Sciencewriters are no different, except that most of the things they collect are “sciency” stuff, mementoes of former tales of discovery, artifacts of their on-the-job education. We tend to be pack-rats as well, saving all this stuff for some far-off day in the future, with aspirations that our treasure-trove of memorabilia will amaze young colleagues or, at the least, feed the grandkids’ curiosity.

I recalled this fact-of-life the other day while rooting through the stacks of accumulated material that clutter my office, looking for a specific document. Regardless of the urgency of my need for what I sought, the process literally stopped time.

An “organizational expert” – one of those new-age folks we hire to bring order to the chaos of our lives and teach us feng shui – would cringe over my office, the floor dotted with stacks of unread journals and files of past discoveries and disasters, the detritus of a career spent watching as science goes by. How would such a person react to the seemingly endless mass of questionable stuff?

When the great science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury agreed to host a syndicated television program based on his stories, the producers wisely filled the room behind him with strange and wonderful objects that fans would recognize from his tales, gargoyles and ghouls, devices of wonder, all manner of stuff. It was there that Bradbury would sit, introducing a tale, and viewers would be swept into the mindset of things to come.

In my office, videotapes of old television science programs are stacked on shelves along with press-kits from NASA’s Viking planetary missions and for Skylab, our first “space station.” Elsewhere, there are the official reports from the Challenger Disaster and the “cold-fusion” debacle, and the ill-fated superconducting supercollider that was never built. There’s a self-portrait taken from the reflection of the mirrors making up the Whipple Observatory 10-meter telescope on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. Stuffed toys in the shape of the ebola virus and a trypanosome – the vector for African sleeping sickness – share space with a small alien that asks to be taken to “your leader.” Wind-carved ventifacts picked up at Taylor Valley in Antarctica and lava bombs from cinder cones above McMurdo Station sit atop one filing cabinet. A test kit for gonorrhea made from the blood of horseshoe crabs rests inside one drawer, too unique to discard but fundamentally useless.

James Harder's letter

Tucked away are other oddities, some so strange I occasionally have to pull them out just to assure myself that I didn’t make them up. One clipping from a 1950s issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that speaks seriously about university research aimed at perfecting head transplants. Another told of preparations at Ohio State for a heart transplant a decade before the procedure actually worked at Stanford. These and others are reminders of the sometimes strangeness of science.

Perhaps that is why I got that one particular letter.

It was 1985 and the envelope was addressed to “The University of Ohio” in Columbus but I assume the Post Office figured out the sender’s intent. The gentleman from Memphis had information to offer and someone along the way decided the university’s sciencewriter was the perfect recipient:

Dear Sir:

On Feb. 1, 1984 at 11:00 AM, I learned of life on other planets. We can never surpass them. They have conquered speed, sound and gravity. Their space ships can carry 3 million people faster than light. I have written people all over the world, from the President to the Queen of England. Please believe me. I have seen 3 space ships in one year. They have two means of propulsion.

Yours truly,

James Harder

p.s. A lord of England responded, as did the White House and NASA.

I have no idea what Mr. Harder saw, or what motivated him to send it to OSU, and ultimately to me. But considering what else fills my workspace, it probably belongs here as much as anywhere else. And given the basic nature of science – that we accumulate data with no real assurances of what it might yield in the future – it’s probably worth saving as well.__Earle Holland

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