It has just come to my attention that the paperback edition of our book was recently reviewed positively in the Bloomsbury Review–I’ve put up the PDF here. The reviewer concluded as follows:

Rather than assigning blame, Unscientific America suggests a broad-based dialogue to generate the political will to reframe our attitudes and policies about science–which of course is not a monolithic entity–and its role in contemporary society. This is an urgent problem for our nation, and this book, newly in paperback, is a thought-provoking way to consider your own place in the solution.

We sometimes get the odd accusation–we being Sheril and myself–that in Unscientific America, we were guilty of unfairly blaming scientists for problems relating to poor science communication and scientific illiteracy.

Yet this reviewer does not seem to have noticed any of the things that those who feel we’re blaming scientists seem to have noticed–and in fact, perceived something very different (“rather than assigning blame…”).

You can read the full review here.

I recently sat down with Lindsay Patterson at EarthSky to discuss the state of science literacy in the United States.

Here’s an excerpt from the transcript:

Sheril Kirshenbaum: I think right now we are touching on an area where there is enormous opportunity. We have a very well-educated group of young people earning degrees looking to use what they know to contribute to society.

Kirshenbaum said part of contributing to the public’s understanding of science is making scientific research more accessible, through new media like Twitter or YouTube, or speaking publicly about their work and discoveries. Kirshenbaum said that today, fewer scientists are ending up in tenure-track, or permanent positions in a university. That’s why scientists who are experts in their field, and can also write or speak to the public, are at an advantage.

Sheril Kirshenbaum: Why not work with people who are thinking about science careers, but teach them science and something else? Enable young scientists to work with journalists and writers and gain skills to communicate that way. Get them more comfortable talking to media. Create the jobs for renaissance scientists, this new generation that’s going to have to step up and be prepared to tackle things we haven’t found solutions for already.

More at EarthSky…

Nishanta Rajakaruna, a professor of botany at College of the Atlantic, sent me UC Davis geologist Eldridge M. Moores’s list on why serpentine should remain the State Rock of California (background here). Why should you care? It’s simple:

When politicians make so-called “scientific” decisions based on nonsense, it’s our collective responsibility to call them out on it!

Alright, so what can you do? Judgment on the bill in question (SB624) happens this week, so if you live in CA, please email/call:

1. Senator Feinstein

2. Senator Boxer

3. The Governor

4. Gloria Romero who is naively pushing for this (and we’re not sure why)

5. Your state assembly person

Let them know that sound science must play a role in the policy-making process. Here are Eldridge’s talking points: (more…)

It’s always fun to give a talk in my own town, so I’m especially excited for this afternoon’s event in Austin at UT’s Cactus Cafe. I’ll be speaking at 5pm with Lindsay Patterson of EarthSky at Science In The Pub and would love to meet some readers from the neighborhood! Here a copy of the flier for details:

Update: Just learned the American Academy paper will be available for download at this link tomorrow. But don’t go now, it just gives an error message….

Well, the piece yesterday prompted a lot of commentary on the blogs, on Facebook, on the Post website (214 last time I checked), and through emails directly to me. I want to make some remarks on some of the more interesting–and less interesting–reactions that I received.

First, though, a factual point: A lot of folks have asked when the American Academy of Arts and Sciences paper that all of this is based on will be available. The answer is Tuesday, and while this paper is being printed in hard copy–technically an “occasional paper” of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences–an online PDF will also be available. I will link as soon as that occurs. (Tuesday is also day the paper is being rolled out at the other AAAS–American Association for the Advancement of Science–and once again, details on the event are here.)

So, on to the responses. (more…)

I’ve got a piece in this weekend’s Sunday Outlook section in the Post, entitled “If scientists want to educate the public, start by listening.” The argument is that although people often seem to resist science and argue back against it, they’re frequently motivated by nonscientific considerations at the core–nonscientific considerations that scientists themselves often don’t really understand. But alas, this means that arguing with them scientifically often doesn’t yield the desired result. Example:

Or consider the long-running controversy over plans to dispose of the nation’s nuclear waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. Although many technical experts have long argued that the repository would be safe, this has hardly convinced frightened and angry Nevadans. In 1991, the American Nuclear Energy Council even launched an ad campaign to educate the public about the Yucca Mountain plan but it backfired. Nearly a third of viewers became more resistant to the repository, and among those who were already opposed, their resolve strengthened. (Just 15 percent had a more favorable opinion of the repository after seeing the ad, and half of viewers did not change their minds.)

The piece also makes a similar point with respect to climate change and vaccination.

So then what is the solution?

Initiatives that engage the public about science policy in a two-way conversation — before controversies explode — show great promise. In Canada, for instance, the national Nuclear Waste Management Organization spent three years listening to the public’s views about how to handle nuclear waste disposal and promised that no dump or repository would be sprung on a community without its consent. Throughout the process, even critics of waste storage efforts remained engaged and supportive of attempts to come up with the best possible solution. In the United States, meanwhile, the federally funded National Nanotechnology Initiative has sponsored a great deal of social science research to explore possible public concerns that may arise as this new field of technology advances.

In sum, work with experts who understand the public to figure out what is driving concerns and resistance–and ideally, do so before you have a long running controversy with lots of bad blood and entrenched positions.

The Post piece mentions in my byline that I’m “author of a paper on the relationship between scientists and the public to be released Tuesday by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.” Indeed, there is a much more detailed and lengthy paper that will be coming out shortly–as well as a public event on Tuesday at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to present the paper and engage in a discussion about it. You can register here to attend. Also appearing: American Association for the Advancement of Science President Alan Leshner, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Executive Director Leslie Berlowitz, and Resources for the Future scholar Robert Fri. For more details, click here.

This morning I fly out to Buffalo, and then ride on to Amherst, New York, home to the Center for Inquiry — the hub of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, Free Inquiry, and much else, including the Point of Inquiry radio show and podcast. This is the place I worked, for my very first job out of college, along with Matthew Nisbet in the summer of 1999. Also present back then: Derek Araujo, now Vice President and General Counsel of the Center for Inquiry, director of CFI’s legal programs, and CFI’s Representative to the United Nations; and Austin Dacey, a writer in New York and author of The Secular Conscience.

The occasion is the Center for Inquiry On Campus Leadership Conference — and, well, I’m reminiscing. It is hard to believe that ten years ago, I was in a secular humanist rock band with Araujo, Dacey, and a few other young skeptic/freethinkers called the House Judiciary Committee (it was the time of impeachment). I was the rhythm guitar player, though I didn’t have any rhythm. One of our hits? An instrumental called “Hook, Quine, and Pinker.”

My goals in Amherst are several. (more…)

Recently, I did a long post describing the substance of the Templeton Cambridge fellowship, and why it is valuable. Fortunately, that’s not a tough argument to make. The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose.

Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER), which now has a new infusion of energy and a new director, Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, formerly of NASA and an astrophysicist with a special expertise in the study of exoplanets.

Yes, that’s right: America’s leading scientific society has created a program to foster more dialogue between science and religion–and of course, considers that to be a very good thing. (more…)

We were initially surprised that our co-authored book, Unscientific America, was so strongly attacked for observing that scientists should strive to improve their skills at public communication–and that this probably includes not alienating potential religious allies or mainstream America. But in a sense, the attacks made a kind of sense. Mostly, they came from those for whom this advice ran contrary to their particular project of denouncing much of America and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition–the New Atheists.

However, with a recent review in The New Atlantis, it appears that we also touched a nerve on the political right. As this is a more interesting phenomenon, I want to explore it in this post. (more…)

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be addressing some criticisms of the Templeton-Cambridge fellowship. There is, for instance, the take of former fellow John Horgan, which is widely cited and certainly critical (although it also acknowledges the value of the fellowship–which, after all, Horgan applied for and accepted).

Among other things, Horgan writes the following:

My ambivalence about the foundation came to a head during my fellowship in Cambridge last summer. The British biologist Richard Dawkins, whose participation in the meeting helped convince me and other fellows of its legitimacy, was the only speaker who denounced religious beliefs as incompatible with science, irrational, and harmful. The other speakers— three agnostics, one Jew, a deist, and 12 Christians (a Muslim philosopher canceled at the last minute)— offered a perspective clearly skewed in favor of religion and Christianity.

First, I do not agree that I have heard skewed perspectives here. I don’t think any of the talks during the past two weeks could be said to have delivered arguments “in favor of religion and Christianity.” If anything, some of them–a presentation by Petr Granqvist that interpreted religion from the viewpoint of “attachment theory,” suggesting it might merely fulfill a psychological need from childhood; or a presentation by Kathleen Taylor on morality, which gave an evolutionary view that deeply undermined the workability of religious moral systems–could be taken as quite corrosive to traditional religion.

Yesterday, meanwhile, we heard from Robin Le Poidevin, a philosopher who is the author of (that’s right) Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. (more…)