Had another good event last night at the Hastings Center–some 60 people packed into their library, and I got to use my slides so I was much more fun (as those who have seen me talk before will already know, I dig visual humor). In the audience were, among others, Hastings director Tom Murray and John Horgan of the Stevens Institute of Technology. There seem to be some slight disagreements between John & myself–he tilts somewhat more “New Atheist,” though we’re both atheists–so we’re thinking about taking it to bloggingheads to sort it out….in a civil way, of course. Heh.
Meanwhile, I’m on to Yale, where Zimmer will be introducing the talk and saying a few words. This may or may not reprise some of the themes from our bloggingheads.tv session, so I’ll repost that here. More when I can manage it….
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July 21st, 2009 at 9:53 am
I have posted this before, but maybe I have a better chance of getting an answer here.
I think it would benefit the debate if we could actually try and define what we mean by ’scientific illiteracy’. Judging from the conversation with Carl, what I understand your position to be, Chris, is that mainly there is a lack of factual knowledge, which is a thing easily ascertained in a poll. A little later in the conversation (around 7:30), you say that when it comes to isses like climate change and evolution we can ‘in no way’ blame what’s going on there on a lack of factual knowledge or even a lack of education. There again you seem, at least to some extent, to equate education with a knowledge of facts.
The first thing that strikes me in the climate change and evolution debates is that generally people don’t even know what the word ‘fact’ means. That’s surely a pretty important idea to bear in mind in science. The second point is that science is not even primarily a body of knowledge. Just as much as literacy doesn’t mean to be able to tell different letters apart but how to connect them and how to make sense of them, by scientific literacy we should mean the ability to connect facts about the world and make sense of them. The third point is that there is one intellectual stance that is absolutely central to anything to do with science: the willingness to specify conditions that would lead one to change one’s mind.
It is, as far as I can see, this third point that in the George Will affair as well as in the evolution debates is the elephant in the room. Scientists are willing to say, ‘Convince me that there are rabbit fossils in a pre-Cambrian stratum, and I’ll happily renounce Darwnism.’ We have yet to see creationists do anything that even comes close. Couched in the words of Richard Feynman, “Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” If there is a single principle at the core of science, I would submit, it is exactly this; pretty much everything else follows from there. And it is this principle that should be at the heart of science education, of scientific literacy, and may I suggest discussions about scienctific literacy as well.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I am not sure if you will get to read this, Chris. But, as you take this tour, I would like to hear what you, and your readers, say about Steven Chu’s new appearance on :facebook.
Is this an opportunity to involve others in the actual science / science policy or will it turn out to be just another orchestrated political manipulation… or both.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pm
“he tilts somewhat more “New Atheist,” though we’re both atheists”
What, exactly, does that mean?
July 21st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Live blogging yale talk:
Intro by carl zimmer:
I was a standard science writer and noticed blogs, some were even about science. Chris’s was good and fact based w/ backing of external evidence, which made me go down this path as well.
Proceeded w/ rest of what Chris has been doing now and basic intro to Unscientific America (UA).
CM/SK describe in book issues w/ US population and offer some suggestions on how to advance science in public.
Book has been controversial online, but many like it.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
CM starts:
Starts with background on Republican War on Science (Bush quote on tsumanis from Dec 2004) and how that is now over with Obama.
But then immediately says not to get comfortable because the country is still unscientific. So is the war really over then?
Gives two common examples from public/press that affect their view of scientists: pluto != planet and LHC and black holes, plus a few others. Points out examples are just that, more importantly than lack of knowing facts is lack of understanding process of science.
Global warming deniers/anti-vaxxers tend to be educated (left and right), so how did we get to this point?
July 21st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
While intro was very much aimed at sympathetic audience (including digs and jokes at expense of ‘anti-sciencers’), is now starting to be more even, with more even tone (by ‘even’ I mean straightforward descriptive, not what passes for ‘balanced’ in press today).
Focus on popularization of science. Was Carl Sagan good or bad for science? Did scientists dislike his attempts at getting people interested (denied Nat’l Academies membership)?
Science Debate 2008: Duh! amongst scientists. Dud! amongst politicians. And then we have the press dumping science journalists/sections left and right.
“Internet clusters people of same thoughts” to room full of scientists (95% probably biologists/doctors).
Spends ~5 minutes pointing out his ‘favorite’ bad science movies (day after tomorrow, the core, red planet). Would have been better spent on furthering the part of his thesis on how to actually improve scientist/lay person communication.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Atheism: “I’ve been excommunicated from world of atheism.”
“scientists don’t know what it’s like to be someone whose religion is a _central_ part of their lives” (and vice versa with religious people who hear science attacked daily from the pulpit).
Culture war. Brings out “New Atheists” (with scare quotes on slide). This means he is now unpopular with atheists.
Switches gears to upcoming science policy issues that will be taken incorrectly by the public: eg. atmospheric engineering and engineered microbes (”OMG, UR playing God!”).
Why is this so? Claims that among many scientists, people (because many are clueless) are the problem.
_Flock of Dodos_: “I think people have ot stand up and say, you know, you’re an idiot”. CM says this is 100% counterproductive.
I’m here, they’re over there, what can I do to bring me closer to them? (But CM assumes good faith on the part of the other side, which many, many times is _not_ the case.)
Science communication bill (for grad students) in Congress was made useless by the time it passed. Mentions K12 education as part of the problem as well, which means that is probably a good place to start changing our present situation.
“Let’s focus scientists away from academia pipeline” towards other science fields (AAAS fellowship, etc).
The end.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Q1: NSF fellowship to help postdocs/faculty with undergrad science education.
A1: good thing.
Doesn’t touch up again that by the time a student is an undergrad, they’re already either friendly or unfriendly. Minimal gain for effort.
Q2: NPR mentioned a program to get scientists writing scripts.
A2: “Did it work?” Maybe evil scientist protrayals are decreasing in popular culture, but hard to know just yet.
Q3: Is the anti-science stuff cyclical?
A3: Repetitive, yes. Cyclical? tough to measure. E.g. anti-evolution was a response to NSF education initiative to bring evolution back strongly.
me: does this mean we should tiptoe because others might not like a scientific resurgence?
Q4: How do we bring outsiders into science? Paid university position to help communicate this?
A4: Not sure
me: isn’t this what the PR office already does, which unfortunately is often staffed by non-scientists?
Q5: PIs are already overloaded with just lab management. It’s unrealistic to expect them to also be dealing with general science communication
A5: Need division of labor or at least provide help for those who do want/can push good science knowledge into general public.
Q6: creationist movement, DI, has strong hierarchy with top forcefully pushing their agenda. Do we need something like that to set up science communication strategy?
A6: They’re definitely out spending and out spinning science. Tough to know what to do to counter besides spend counter-money.
Q7: thoughts on problem that science now is so complicated, even experts in the field have trouble keeping up with their own niche.
A7: definitely, but is not a new problem. Gould quote from 1999 with similar answer.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Ophelia
That is an excellent question. Maybe it’s something like, “Horgan might upset some people, whereas I am a really nice guy (buy my book!).”
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I heard the talk went well at the Hastings Center, Chris.
In the bloggingheads video, you did, I thought, a nice job of pointing to the real problem here that drives the disagreements (around 13 min in). You point out that very well-educated people are often trying to sound “sciency” in order to advance their policy agendas. You are skeptical of better education fixing this problem, and I agree. I don’t believe that better education by itself is sufficient (though I do think it must be part of any solution) to address the whole problem (though I do share some sympathy with Carl Zimmer’s view that it could have some impact, like in the context of evaluating an editorial). But I think your solution of better communication on the part of scientists is not going to be sufficient either.
If prior policy commitments drive the scientific disagreements, then shouldn’t we ask what drives the policy disagreements? Sometimes it is private business interests, other times it is religious values, and so on. But I think the underlying problem is systemic and institutional: because of the way our political and economic institutions are set up (with private funding of campaigns, private control of public media, and much more), we allow small, well-organized and especially well-funded interests to have a disproportionate impact on policy. I think we can allow science’s voice to be better heard if we rethink some of these basic institutions. I do not think that better branding of science will have any impact on this prior, institutional problem. We need to, for example, recognize that newspapers and television serve an essential political role in a liberal democracy, and perhaps have federal standards for the networks and papers that (perhaps) require a certain amount of science reporting, while insulating especially the news providers from influence by non-public sources like private corporations, churches, and so on.