{"id":805,"date":"2012-02-19T01:48:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T06:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/?p=805"},"modified":"2012-03-04T17:54:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T22:54:14","slug":"streetfighting-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/2012\/02\/19\/streetfighting-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Streetfighting for Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m\u00a0picking up\u00a0a lot of good energy and ideas — and meeting multitudes of kindred spirits — at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) meetings this weekend.\u00a0 I’ve been meaning to attend these meetings for years, so I jumped at the\u00a0invitation to give a paper\u00a0and let my (science) geek flag fly.<\/p>\n

The most provocative session was a huge plenary on public engagement titled Science is Not Enough<\/a>, moderated by former CNN correspondent and anchor Frank Cesno. The panelists were James Hansen (climate change scientist and author of\u00a0Storms of my Grandchildren<\/em>), Olivia Judson (evolutionary biologist and author of Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation<\/em>), and the\u00a0irrepressible\u00a0Hans Rosling (international health innovator, known for his amazing TED talks and, of course,\u00a0a TSP podcast<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Their themes will be familiar to\u00a0TSP readers:\u00a0 (1) science is in a “street fight” with anti-science; (2)\u00a0we\u00a0could and should do a\u00a0better job communicating scientific evidence to broader publics; (3) science reporting is often geared less toward accurately characterizing the state of knowledge in a field and more toward conveying two extreme positions; (4)\u00a0the continuing struggle to simplify,\u00a0clarify, and communicate<\/em>\u00a0our\u00a0research without dumbing it down or burying important caveats; and, (5) the tensions between value-neutral objectivity and advocacy in public communication.<\/p>\n

The panelists came from distinctly different places on these issues and their conversation seemed to echo conversations I’ve had with Doug Hartmann at\u00a0our weekly editorial meetings. Dr. Judson saw her role as stoking scientific imaginations with the curiosity to know and the passion to care. Dr. Hansen more sharply emphasized how money and power could overwhelm scientific mesages (e.g., the petrochemical industry on climate change) and our responsibility as scientists to subsequent generations. Dr. Rosling viewed his role as seizing upon and illuminating\u00a0intersections of public ignorance and indisputable scientific consensus.<\/p>\n

There were lighter moments, of course,\u00a0and a good bit\u00a0more scatological humor than one might expect at the AAAS meetings. Hans Rosling was incredulous when other panelists claimed not to have time\u00a0for facebook or twitter, for example, saying “that’s like not having time to use paper on the toilet.” He also got off a nice line about “peeing your trousers in winter” that I’ll just have to\u00a0save for my next lecture.<\/p>\n

My own talk was in an early morning\u00a0session on mass incarceration, organized by Bill Pridemore and Bob Crutchfield on behalf of the American Society of Criminology. The papers were strong, the audience offered great insights and questions, and some supersharp journalists followed-up afterwards with the sort of \u00a0penetrating questions that took me years <\/em>to formulate.<\/p>\n

And I guess that’s the challenge and the promise of good science communication. If\u00a0a roomful of curious non-experts can somehow\u00a0apprehend\u00a0the crux of the biscuit\u00a0at 8 am on a Saturday, there’s no reason that sites like TSP can’t do our bit to bring social scientific knowledge and information to broader public visibility and influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m\u00a0picking up\u00a0a lot of good energy and ideas — and meeting multitudes of kindred spirits — at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) meetings this weekend.\u00a0 I’ve been meaning to attend these meetings for years, so I jumped at the\u00a0invitation to give a paper\u00a0and let my (science) geek flag fly. The most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/files\/2012\/02\/streetfight-unicorn.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}