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Getting The Public To Listen To Good Science
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We all know that false or misleading science headlines are all too common these days and that misleading media combined with an apathetic and undereducated public lead to widespread ignorance. But the real question is, how can this trend be reversed? At a session at the recent AAAS meeting, a study was discussed indicating that what matters most is how the information is portrayed. While people are willing to defer to experts on matters of low concern, for things that affect them directly, such as breast cancer or childhood diseases, expertise only counts for as much as giving off a 'sense of honesty and openness,' and that it matters far less than creating a sense of empathy in deciding who people will listen to. In other words, it's not enough to merely report on it as an expert. You need to make sure your report exudes a sense of honesty, openness, empathy, and maybe even a hint of humor."
The biggest problem is getting the public to listen to good science is to make them understand the scientific method and the philosophy of science. Otherwise it is just another type of belief to them.
But how to you start to explain the difference between a priori and a posteriori without people rolling their eyes and walking off?
People have been taught, for several generations now, that causality is optional, that science is for geeks, that geeks are there to serve the jocks, that man needs to serve the state, and that perception is reality. Why would they care about your silly little experiments?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Yes, the eventual failure of AGW (ahem, climate change) theory would have negative impact on the public opinion onto the rest of science.
Well when a major chunk of the population believes the earth is only umpteen thousands of years old, I don't think a presentation of any style or quality is going to get them to listen to what science has to say in any meaningful capacity unless it easily and directly benefits them.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
My neighbour didn't get her baby boy the usual shots. I told her she should do it, but she didn't "trust" it.
I guess cancer is a low concern as long as you don't have it.
Follow these steps and you're sure to have people believe your "correct" science.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Anyway, what is Good Science? A lot of the more entertaining science is Bad Science. For example, Discovery Channel segments on dinosaurs often feature people making roaring extrapolations: find a tooth fragment and say that they have found something from a dinosaur that would have been 25 ft long and run at 40 mph. What bullshit.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
tests and then isolating those scoring below a certain value would fix the world for good. That way 'the public' actually becomes an audience of a different kind than monkeys' who would buy anything as long as it's loud colorful and grants instant gratification at the cost of long-term gains. Giving equal chances to everyone favors survival of the idiots.
Unfortunately, this is a war that we are unlikely to win. The hearts and minds of the populace are mostly centered between the stomach and groin. What the AAS report is basically saying is that science has to "advertise" - just like everything else.
Then it's not "science". It's just one more religion / belief system in a pile of others out to get converts.
The only thing we can do is teach the scientific method - in schools, at home, in conversations. It's the only weapon we've got, however small.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Stop running crappy stories like these:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/0340238 http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/03/1644252
and uninformed editorializing like this:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/0031238
the only way we're going to see the public at large be able to evaluate claims and discard the "bad scinece"/pseudoscience is by starting in the schools. As long as there is a problem conveying basic science concepts to the younger members of our population, there is no hope of solving the problem in adults. Dover, Florida, Kansas etc. all examples where science was dumbed down, misrepresented or ignored entirely in favor of teaching pseudoscience that contributes nothing to the understanding of the world around people. It's terribly disturbing as a biologist to see that the educational system is as it stands, a complete and utter failure especially in regard to the major sciences and that there are little or no plans to remedy the situation.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The lack of emphasis on Science, Maths and good ol' Logic during schooling, especially in the earlier years, is to blame for the lack of public interest in real science. Many of my relatives and friends just don't care about how things work, as long as they do. That, the natural curiosity to find answers for the "how" questions, is what is lacking in society today in general. The only time people want to know it seems, is if they are in danger or if their wallets are involved.
The problem is, the majority of the "ruling class" in management, government and all other areas are generally not scientifically inclined nor are they actively promoting science. They influence education policy and funding for research, which trickles down to the education system and the public's view of science.
I personally found algebra and calculus to be interesting and challenging, the latter is what drove a lot of my friends away, when I first learned it ages ago. I know that if I had worst teachers or if my father weren't an engineer, my feelings towards would have been quite different. Until scientists are more popular than movie stars and mathematicians are more well known than recording artists, the root of the problem will still be that science is just not popular enough to be seen as interesting or useful.
The fact that people actually care about Paris Hilton is also a nice solid data point in my suggestion that people's perspective on what's interesting and important is just waaaay off the mark from reality.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
The hard part would be implementing it. Standardized testing that can be agreed upon is probably a pipe dream for something like this, but if it could be done you'd never see parents take more of an interest in their child's education.
"Powers. I have them."
Impossible feat. If you don't have some level of knowledge about science, you have no ability to discern good science from bad science. You need to understand at least the most basic principals of the scientific method. If you don't, forget about it. And you can't teach the masses, sorry.
The masses trust who they trust. The end.
On the other hand, he wasn't as famous as Michael Jackson or Britney Spears. Says something about our sick priorities, eh?
Or maybe it's the third hand... He didn't want to be open and honest about the cause of his own death, apparently because he didn't want to embarrass his physician.
Oh well. I still regard him as the greatest American. Or maybe he doesn't count since he was an immigrant or the son of immigrants? Back to the sick priorities topic, eh?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If people can't understand basic science, how are they going to make proper decisions on issues that are of a scientific nature? Birth control? Stem cell research? NASA? Global warming? NIH funding? While these people will have advisers to help them judge the issues, ultimately, they won't judge the issue on a scientific principle and that is extremely unfair to the people who want decisions based on objectivity.
It's good to see the AAAS address this under-rated issue, that of public understanding of science. This has been a worsening problem for decades. I hope they follow up and make this a priority, even if they ave to go some "touchy-feely" way (empathy) to reach people.
"We all know that false or misleading science headlines are all too common these days"
Look in the mirror.
Specifically, James Randi, Mike Shermer and Penn and Teller.
Oh wait - human cloning is still hype...
OK or just watch their videos and read their books.
Make sure every science teacher for several generations gets a good dose of their message.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
At a session at the recent AAAS meeting, a studies was discussed indicating that what matters most is how the information is portrayed.
Maybe we should not narrow down to just science, or else we'll all be edumacated.
So people don't trust dishonest, closed-minded, heartless, humorless "experts"? I'm not seeing the problem here. OK, so maybe I'd overlook a lack of humor but, no matter how you slice it, honest matters when it comes to trust.
Overall, I wasn't all that impressed with the article. There were a few interesting ideas here and there but, on the whole, it seemed rather simple minded. For example, there was a long section that presented the vaccination question as purely scientific. That's not to say that science has no place in such questions but questions regarding vaccination also encompass complex questions of human emotion and ethics.
The Toronto Star, the largest daily circulation newspaper in Canada, ran a story a few weeks back about an "inventor" who has discovered a method to get energy out of nothing, with a few electric motors and magnets.
The idiots at The Star ran the story with a straight face, including the financial backing that the "inventor" has raised. Now, I don't know if the "inventor" is an honest kook or a fraudster, but the sad fact is that a major newspaper has no one on staff who ever took a physics course or has any scientific knowledge. YOU CAN'T GET ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING!!!
Sadly, the idiocy at The Star is not limited to science. And this "inventor" is going to bilk quite a few idiots out of their savings and/or venture capital.
At some point you have to say there's one born every minute.
Is it the fault of the reader? The reader trusts "reputable" news sources. They rely on the reporters taking the time to get the full story. This is the reader's largest, yet understandable, downfall.
Isn't the real problem that the sources go for the quick grab headline, rather than take the time to do it right.
> People have been taught, for several generations now, that causality is optional, that science is for geeks, that geeks are there to serve the jocks, that man needs to serve the state, and that perception is reality. Why would they care about your silly little experiments?
:-/
People talking to them that way is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Try an experiment sometime: see how people respond when they're NOT being talked down to. Those perceptions didn't come about by chance. They can be changed and there are methods for dealing with them. But it's easier just to mock the stupid people.
Speaking of which, would an editor mind fixing the 'a studies was discussed' edit in my story?
I have a "special" dentists chair in my basement. It's very comfortable so they don't "need" to move. Then I make the air really humid so that they don't need to blink which really helps make the toothpicks in their eyes much more tolerable. Then I just play them simple, repeatative educational videos for a short time... say about 72 hours or so. I find people are rather receptive to new ideas in the right environment.
If you put all idiots on an island and make a reality tv show out of it, who would watch it?
See Most scientific papers are probably wrong for details.
It's not my responsibility to "reverse the trend" - it's my responsibility to make certain that people that choose to be stupid don't get in my way. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone of average intelligence not taking the time to try to understand the world around them.
Ignorance has consequences. Teach people to be responsible for their own learning, and you don't need to "dumb it down" for them. Pander to them and you're stuck as their babysitter for the rest of their lives.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
Part of the problem, at least here in the U.S. (land of self-centeredness and instant gratification) is that science often fails to give people the answers they want to hear, or the results they want to have.
This is especially true when it comes to medical science. As far as medicine has advanced, there are still diseases and maladies that cannot be cured or even mitigated by current knowledge and practices. It can be very hard, if you are someone suffering from something of that sort, to accept that there may be little, or even nothing, that can be done. Desperation can cause even basically level-headed people to seek out untested or even already debunked alternative treatments that may at best have a mild placebo effect, more likely will do nothing to alleviate their suffering, and at worst can worsen the condition or hasten the person's ultimate demise.
Religion, obviously, can be a powerful impediment to acceptance of science as well. If your faith stands or falls with a literal reading of Genesis, then you will not, indeed CANnot accept scientific evidence to the contrary.
Finally, one thing I've always noted about humans is that we don't like "grey areas." We want answers that are complete, definitive, and satisfying. The fact that science can sometimes be wrong, and theories changed as more evidence is gathered, is unsettling to those who don't understand the scientific method, and leads them to have little faith in its conclusions.
This can only be remedied by not only pushing basic science courses hard and early in school (something way more comprehensive than that which produces the mere ability to answer a few multiple-choice questions on some standardized test), but instruction in reasoning and critical thinking as well. And I don't see that happening, not by a long shot. If you have a child, and want him or her to be scientifically literate, you pretty much have to teach them yourself. Schools today are about establishing minimal (very minimal) levels of ability, and high (very high) levels of conformity. Teaching too much science threatens the former goal, while instruction in critical thinking thwarts the latter.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Then again, every once in a while, someone hits on a previously unknown fundamental breakthrough that turns the rules as we know them on their head. Think Gallileo, Newton, Einsten, et al. It DOES happen.
That said, it's highly unlikely that the inventor of the "free energy" stuff is actually on to anything. I take his claims with a truckload of salt, but am willing to see what is really going on there.
It is possible that he hit on something, but pretty highly unlikely.
"YOU CAN'T GET ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING"
Very true. But if someone DOES hit on a way to tap into something we've been heretofore unaware of, that doesn't make it energy from nothing, just energy from something we didn't know about before -- the same as fusion, fission, and antimatter anniahlation would have been unthinkable in 1670.
Most people are bright, even the ignorant ones. Telling them they need to be educated won't help either. The most disturbing thing that seems to be happening with information overload is that pople just dont wan't to listen to you. It seems hard to have people listen to you for listenings sake. People don't want to hear ideas and just let it sit for a while and hear some more and think some more. They want to know, its A or B. I feel like almost any topic I don't know much about, but im also happy not really caring about alot of the topics even if they mean bad things if they are true or false as the case may be. Alot of things might be messed up, but as bill hicks said, I look out my window and its sunny and birdys are singing. If people could be happier to discuss and hold judgement it would be much easier for everyone to form long term opionions on topics. Im not sure how a US politician could discuss issues without both sides disliking them for being indecisive. If the president could get up and say "All scientific opinion seems to say we are causing global warming, and if we don't change our lifestyles our childrens children probably wont be able to have such a good life. Even if somehow the evidence is not accurate in the future cleaner air, less pollution are good for everyone anyhow.". Instead of "Global warming is the biggest threat to our live. But until other countries start to do their share, why should we?", well, id probably check what i was drinking. Anyhow, my rambling point is, conversations should not have to be arguments with a winner and loser. Debating an issue is great, but not when debating is really just yelling at someone with your fingers in your ears.
Any chance people could read, digest and apply the material referred to in their /. postings?
/. posts, who apparently think nobody will read them if they don't include SF references or FUDish statements, or a combination of the two.
A (very) few popular science media outlets include goofy references in their articles, but not nearly to the extent of
And I do suspect it's the editorial policy. I've submitted many decent articles only to have the same material printed with a bunch of that sort of junk included.
But hey, that's the AAAS and the subject is about science publication and education, not ad supported web sites.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
to many different classes of graduating scientists in commencement speeches he has given over the past couple decades. Amazing that someone else is finally catching on.
Monstar L
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an exceptional (and entertaining - bonus) piece in 1994 about selling Evolution to the lay public - combating the Creationist spin that evolution is 'only a theory' by calling it a 'scientific fact'. He justified this with... well crap, I should let the good Professor say it much better than I could: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html
is that to a non-expert, an expert opinion is taken on faith just as a religious doctrine is. The only difference is that a religious doctrine will stay the same a bit longer.
Is it really a net positive for science if it gives a very skewed version of what science is and how science works?
I would argue that the USA's peak of scientific interest was during the late 1960s when the space program was a national obsession and every second kid had a Nasa poster on their bedroom wall. Perhaps we have a lot of scientists and engineers now, but that is mainly a generational lag thing. Perhaps we know more about science now, but the interest is long gone. The current national obsessions (it there are any) are Britney Spears etc. The USA sure is not seeding the next generation of scientists.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There are other examples that are not political - a lot of the "safety reminders" on products come to mind. For an amusing view on this, I'd recommend 2 the Ranting Gryphon's rant on America. He's a knucklehead, but he's not an idiot and he's funny.
I read somewhere recently that a recent study determined that 25% of the American public sincerely doesn't want to think. They sincerely want to be told what to do and what to think. That they tend to be religious only makes sense. The problem is these people don't want SCIENTIFIC truth, which is always tentative and only true until proven otherwise. This is especially so with the larger questions - where did life start, how did the universe come to be, etc. Sure, we have scientific ideas, but they tend to change over time, and that is something these dunderheads can't cope with. They need UNCHANGING ABSOLUTE TRUTH (tm), and if it comes from some nonsensical piece of crap written by obscure semiliterate Israeli goatherders 3000 years ago, all the better.
Seriously - people don't want science. They want TRUTH, and scientific truth just doesn't cut it - it requires a sense of doubt, and that is something their 1/2 watt brains can't seem to muster. Things are VERY VERY bad, and they are not getting better, and odly, science isn't doing it for them.
Why? Because for every bible thumping retard, there's a dozen who go along with it because it works. How?
1. day care
2. community
3. elder care
4. entertainment
5. The Club
thee are more than that - many more - but churches provide things in the USA that secular society doesn't, and it's the "glue" type things that are not only valuable, but REQUIRED to keep a society together. Example: if you don't have much family in the area (and given the mobile nature of the USA, who does...) you need a baby sitter. Well, so and so from church has a teenager... You need to get some food to granny, but aren't goign to be able to do it. Call so and so from church who lives near her. They owe you a favour anyway... And ten there are the church picnics where people get together and the kids play and it's a nice way to blow a sunday afternoon. And then there's the church youth groups where the kids learn abstinence and practice giving blow jobs. It goes on and on. Yes, it is horrible, yes it is stupid, but in its own stumpy retarded way, it WORKS as long as people don't think too much or often about what the fuck it's all really about or for. THAT requires DOUBT, and that leads to SCIENCE.
So, I don't think tarting up science is going to amount to a hill of beans as long as American society spends half its wealth on the military industrial complex, a quarter on the infrastructure, and some tiny amount on culture and the things that make culture work. Other societies don't have this problem. The USA does, and as long as secular society refuses to step up to the plate and provide the REQUIRED social services for a functioning society, religion will be there to fill in the gap and own the minds and hearts of the retarded half of America.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How many of your local papers had big articles about high school seniors signing letters of intent to attend one college or another on the football team?
How many had articles about students being accepted to academically prestigious schools (e.g. MIT, CalTech, etc.)?
How much funding is there for new locker room equipment? How much for science labs? (my daughter's high school still has the lab benches installed when the school was built 30 years ago.. they also have artificial turf in the football stadium.)
Science needs to be, if nothing else, impartial and rational. The current educational generation are not being educated to be impartial or rational. Thus, science will suffer.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The producers of mainstream media need to portray science in an interesting and entertaining way. And I'm not just talking about TV. Games are becoming a mainstream medium. I've tried to introduce scientific issues in my games, such as Harpooned.
cokane.com
I'm confused. What reality TV did they *not* put all idiots on an island, except for the ones where they stuck them all in a house?
The problem is the current state of the Media. Because of the way the media has transformed in to 20 second sound bites, people are conditioned to turn off, tune out, however you want to say it for anything that take longer to explain. Science, good or bad, in most cases can't be explained in 20 second sound bites. The media is all about ratings and revenue generation. They could care less about getting the story, or the science correct. If they can skew the message to align with their political view (left or right), all the better.
but it turns out that America is producing so much CO2 that we need to explain to them about science after all before they ruin the planet.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I think that all reality TV shows up to now have fallen about six billion short of rounding up all idiots.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Obscurantism (from the Latin obscurans, "darkening") is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known. There are two common senses of this: (1) opposition to the spread of knowledge--a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. One serious problem is scientists (and policy makers) deliberately misleading people with pseudo-science. Scientists regularly use their credentials and objective observers to try to promote their own political or ideological agendas. The solution to this part of the problem isnt just better education for the public - its the scientific community doing a better job of policing itself. For example, anyone claiming "the debate is over" on an area of active scientific dispute should be ignored. Same goes for anyone claiming consensus=science. http://tinyurl.com/23p4la Not surprisingly, these ostensibly credentialed snake oil salesmen are most often found at the intersection of public policy.
Tell me, exactly how is this significally different from the discussion that's going on in x churches at this very moment?
Oh, "we're right, they're wrong". I see.
Nothing bad against science, but when you start talking about "advertising" it, the comparison really starts to make sense.
Would you damned geeks keep it down! Britney shaved her head again, I'm trying to listen to the reports here!
America and the middle east?
Europe, China, Japan, Australia, The Vatican
They seam to understand global warming, evolution, pretty much everything you throw at them. ( and its a real shame because the middle east used to be full of great thinkers, hell even America produced Feynman and some quantum guys)
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like al gore when he presented his global warming video. exuding honesty, openness, empathy and humor are great for getting out the message. of course the message itself needs to be good science. in the case of gore's video, he shows a graph of global warming and c02 levels. the undeniable truth in the graph is that measurements have shown that c02 levels and global temperatures seem to be completely connected. yes they are, but now the way gore explains it. if we could zoom in on any part of the graph, we would see that c02 level changes come *after* changes in global temperature, not before. c02 levels respond to changes in global temperature, not the other way around. and to be honest, true science only concerns itself with measurements. it can only infer causes, but it can never prove causal relationship completely. there will always be some element of doubt.
(putting on my fireproof underwear now ha ha!)
the fact that gore (a politician, not a scientist) got a nobel prize for sharing "good" scientific work that contains clear errors like the one i just shared is just further evidence that the only scientific views that are allowed to be shared are the ones that are politically beneficial to those in power. and so good science will always take a back seat to politically beneficial "science". just consider the work of dr. michael behe concerning irreducible complexity in molecular biology. *he* should have got a nobel prize! he made one of the greatest discoveries ever, and yet because his findings are an "inconvenient truth" for the people in power calling the shots, his findings have been quietly and powerfully buried. (nevermind that none of his peers have ever refuted his work.)
for those of you who are into conspiracy theories, check this out. it may be just another whacko idea with no truth to it at all, or it may be a very good explanation for what is happening in our scientific communities today.
whacko conspiracy link
"The clear message of the session was that a command of facts is never going to be good enough to convince most segments of the public, whether they're parents or Congress. How the information is conveyed can matter more than its content, and different forms of communication may be necessary for different audiences."
Translation: Sophistry trumps logic in public debate.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
"We all know this and that.. but the real question is..."
The first part was a sentence, not a question.
Guys who think intelligent design is a sience just lack biological designed intelligence. Best way to fight it is to brainwash little kids with a sciencebased evolution theory. I am sure such an approach will lead to better presidents.
... is a big problem. Your report could look honest, open, have some humor etc etc, and that will have nothing to do with the fact that it is good or bad science. You can even honestly think that your are an expert in whatever topic is about. But still, it could be very wrong. As in the universe there is no single atom of justice (Pratchett dixit), the same goes for that kind of bells and whistles you want to see in the "truth" (or how it is presented). Wonder how much scientific reports presenting that the earth were flat, or the center of the universe, or that we were created by a superior being had all those attributes, even with the addendum of being of "common sense" at that time.
Still is pending how you distinguish good from bad science, of both can be presented in similar ways. Maybe some trusted authority/organization/etc can say that it is good, or at least, that the followed methodology is right.
This is not a new problem. People have always been ignorant of science. The current trend actually seems to be going in the right direction. These days there are far less people burned for being witches than in the past. Ignorance is a human flaw, and it can never be completely eradicated. I'm not saying that ignorance towards science isn't a problem, just that when you look at the big picture, the world is much better off today than ever before.
In other words, the problem is that everybody else is not like you, and too much like the majority of people.
You've told us that most people "don't care" as deeply as you do about how things work, that most influential people "are not scientifically inclined", and that most of your friends didn't find a math geek appealing as a friend. And in addition you had better-than-average teachers and an engineer as a father, neither of which most people have.
So yes, science is not considered important by society, at least to the degree wished by you and most people here. But which is the objectively correct/appropriate/real level of importance? Each is entirely correct for itself. The real value of science to society is precisely that which society derives from it. When global warming starts flooding major cities, you can bet that every school will be teaching climatology.
And when all the great strides in progress have been made and the value of science to society is equal to its value to you, you'll find that most people will know and care about science as much as you do. And there will be someone else ranting about how people like you are just ignorant products of an inadequate education system.
>>>
the natural curiosity to find answers for the "how" questions, is what is lacking in society today in general.
>>>
If it's lacking in general, it's not "natural".
>>>
The fact that people actually care about Paris Hilton is also a nice solid data point in my suggestion that people's perspective on what's interesting and important is just waaaay off the mark from reality.
>>>
Reality? Paris Hilton being considered more interesting and important by most people than hadron colliders IS the reality of the world. The reverse is the reality for yourself (and myself as well), but no more than your ideal for the world.
This all reminds me of a famous quote by I think WC Fields, "The most important thing in life is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Currently hooked on AMP
In our society we have grown ADULTS who believe in fairy tails such as those found in the "Holy Bible" and "Quran"
First we have to get these people to listen to reason before science can have a go!
~Dan
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Maybe you need an attention span of more than five months to understand this stuff, or at least to accurately report on it.
As a matter of possible interest, here's what I had to say at the time.
-Peter
Mr Wizard died =(
The problem is, the majority of the "ruling class" in management, government and all other areas are generally not scientifically inclined nor are they actively promoting science.
I think there's some truth in this, but I also see little effort by the scientifically knowledgeable to attain great heights of power. When they do, they often lack social skills or approach power in such a dogmatic way as to drive others away. I'm making sweeping generalizations here, of course, and ask forgiveness for that.
Then again, there could be some reasons for this. With all due respect, the "scientifically knowledgeable" are often both obtuse and rude to the outsider, mocking what they find to be important. Of course, the outsider is no better.
As the son of a teacher, I would agree that much of the problem with education indeed has to do with those exercising great influence over - but it's not so much politicians. Teachers at the K-12 level are generally trained as teachers, not specialists in their fields. Education departments at universities like to see themselves as gatekeepers in this way, and view education as their sacred cow (in spite of the fact that the supposed "best way" of teaching children changes every few months, and that imparting knowledge to others, while a skill, does not require much of the psychological crap they are forced to listen to). So, we end up with a crop of teachers who are, more often than not, not up to the same level of expertise as a person who graduated in the same field without the education degree.
Then, these teachers want to limit the amount of work they have to do. I can understand this - lesson plans are hard to write after all, and doing research for hours on end isn't exactly their idea of a good time, especially on their salary. And here come the real molders - special interest groups that seek to "educate" kids. Need to teach your kids about local history? Here comes a group from some minority who wants to do nothing more than let all the children know how great they are and what victims they were - and how we should help them out. Environmental stuff? Here comes the local/national wacko group that will tell your kids all about how the world will melt in 5 years. Parents convinced that your teachers can't handle math properly? Here comes new math!
What we need are specialized teachers with a real education (not classes telling them that diversity is the awesomest thing evah) and real curriculums designed by teachers who research the topic themselves and can show both sides of an issue fairly. (And yes, it can happen - my most even-handed college professor was actually a Green.)
We also need to make sure children understand the difference between METHOD and findings. Classical science and logic are, of course, the former.
I don't see much of a chance of any of this happening, but boy would I love to see it one day.
That's easy. Only the people on the island would watch the show.
wonderful. nothing like standing up for what's right in this world.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Here's a university in Ireland that is just begging for more zealots! http://www.dcu.ie/news/2008/feb/s0208a.shtml
5,999,999,998, not counting you and me.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
See http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html for bio. It was an interesting "invitation" for academics (scientists) to start blogging. Essentially, it's a different sort of "review" that helps academics write about their work in a more approachable fashion. Of course, the danger is to not presume to "dumb down" the research, but rather using the real-time feedback of the online community (whatever nerds happen to follow your field or recognize you as an expert in the field) to massage your message to assure it's understood correctly. He's an interesting speaker, but then again, he's an expert in "media" so, you'll find a lot of stuff that basically makes a lot of (cynical) nerds tune out...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
At CureHunter we try to bring "Evidence Based Medicine" to the people.
Data mining and mapping peer-reviewed research to find all the effective treatment options for any given disease.
Taking "obesity" as an example, you can quickly see strong relationships with "insulin" and "exercise".
And in a few clicks you can read the supporting article abstracts.
Whether or not average people want to read scientific journal articles is debatable, but we can cut through the pharma marketing noise and bring them the sourced research that matters to them.
With goal seeking algorithms and peer-reviewed source data I think information overload and Google spam can be fought.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
I am not very happy with the TV science programs. I did enjoy pbs absolute zero (now online at pbs .org or maybe .com) I think they did a very good job explaining the history of the chase and the personality traits of the scientists. They showed that not all scientists are driven by ego and greed. I Personally think, if everyone was a scientist society would quickly fail. The same could be said about politics and religion. But if you randomly mix the three it seems to work, or i should say survive. Only a small percentage of people are interested in science, and it wouldnt hurt to stop dumbing down the shows, it may help.
Simple, just get Google to pay people $5000 to listen:
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/26/0134235
Table-ized A.I.
Would you listen to someone who views you in that way?
People don't listen to geeky experts because
- The average person has much greater emotional intelligence than the average geek. I had to learn that the hard way. We think we are communicating factually, and the average Joe is hearing something completely different, because he is listening on a broader and higher level. The things he is hearing don't invite trust.
- Experts are so 1950's. I grew up in the 60's, when "Question Authority" was a radical slogan to put on your bumper. Now days, no one accepts authority automatically, but I remember when they did. Bottom line, the experts put forth a lot of bad information that led many people to do things they deeply regretted. Remember the insulin treatments in "A Beautiful Mind"? That's why I don't trust experts, either.
- People learned long ago that experts are just as political and dogmatic as fundamentalists, and they can be just as misguided.
BTW, some of the postings make me embarrassed to be a geek. I don't see disrespect as a sign of intelligence.Just a sidenote on religion, but I just read about the US that "Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population".
So 96 percent are religious to some degree? That is indeed a major chunk. I did not know that (I'm not American myself).
Which is why the should teach scientific method in school and not just scientific "facts" (which change all the time anyways, as they should). For most people science is "what most scientists believe", or worse, "what the press thinks scientists believe", as opposed to a very successful method for uncovering the laws of nature.
I'm going to conjecture that no real scientists have commented here. I've read a few dozen comments and I've read a lot of "scientists use big words for their own egos". I want to dispel that notion. First, scientists do have big egos. I am a scientist and I am confident that mine is one of the biggest. However, with such big egos, we feel little need to find means to inflate them even further by gratuitously selecting big words. No, big words exist for a reason--namely, they are used to refer to complex concepts. We can not get around this necessity.
For example, let's examine the word "dideoxy chain terminator". This is a big word no doubt, but to understand it fully, we would need to know what DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is, its molecular composition, and its structure. We would need to understand how one might synthesize DNA in vitro using a template and how a dideoxy chain terminator would interfere with extension, and to complete the understanding, that we would want this extension terminated because we could glean valuable information from this termination. Since all of this explanation would be beyond your average person's patience to learn or even perhaps even beyond thier ability to understand, we might say something like "we want to sequence your genes". And then the person would say, "they are dockers" and think that you are an idiot for wasting their time.
Just callin' it like I see it.
But for examples of what not to do, http://www.badscience.net/
Would you want everyone with an education to be a scientist, engineer, doctor, or lawyer? In such a world who would end up setting the direction of society (which of the previous list would be most attracted to politics and able to play the game). Without any educated outside opinions you might end up with a very "efficient" society - for making money for companies.
Even worse, maybe the majority without education would identify with the uneducated "Christian Right" (the ones who don't even try to debate because they have a direct line to God who tells them) and none of the educated classes would rule but a "people's theocracy".
Of course, one big problem is that the scientific method is usually taught incorrectly. People frame it as if the scientific method explained everything about how actual scientists do actual science; there's this weird image that scientists just mechanically follow a set of steps, and science results.
If they have half a brain they do this. With less than half a brain they come out thinking that because scientists want to rigorously test things it is "just a theory" and therefore inferior to "things we know/believe to be true".
Yes, we knew all along that global warming was real. We just wanted to keep you dependent on oil to fund the Jihad in the name of Allah. So what if the whole kaffir will be more cooperative when you want us to show you how to keep cool with canvas rather than air conditioning.
Yup YOU UNCOVERED A VAST ISLAMIST PLOT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY AND AMERICA and we were trying to use global warming denial to ruin everything wonderful.
Any scientific theory (good or not) may be used as propaganda for those who want your money or to prove your stupid. Example: Global Warming, while it is very likely that the earth is warming both sides of the argument are just using us to get the money and political support they want. Example: The Northwestern Tree Octopus http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ (Yes if you believe this one you can send me a $1 donation to knit booties for all the freezing polar bears living in Antarica.)
The Mythbusters team attempts to show scientific reasoning, variable elimination, repeatability and other tenets of doing science. They also show the joy of it. And then they blow stuff up, which is enjoyable in itself :-)
Many of the 'real' science programs on TV spend far less time on explaining the process of science, and instead present the subject (whatever it is), as a sequence of 'facts', with little discussion.
I really think that Mythbusters is probably the best science promotion show on TV.
one of the few non-fundamentalist posts about science I've ever seen on Slashdot! (and I'm a scientist as well).
no matter how correct your message is, if you deliver it like a homeless bum on meth, people will avoid your philosophy like the plague.
Probably the most misleading instance where science has been ignored or seriously damaged is the teaching of creationism in science courses or downgrading of evolution by christians who do not like it because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. To teach creationism as coming anywhere near science or being something of which there is any real positive evidence of it is simply lying to children. Evolution is an extremely well supported scientific theory that has a large amount of physical evidence to back it up. Science must be based on physical evidence, not religious superstitions and fantasies. To mention creationism in the same breath as science and suggest it is a competitor to evolution is an insult to everything that science is and that which has made so much progress to our understanding the world better and getting the truths about the universe. If religious fantasy had prevailed, we would still think the earth was flat and stars were little fires several miles above the surface, and that the edge of the earth dropped off into an abyss populated by monsters who ate ships that dared fall into it. Creationism like these theories should be in social studies where it belongs or used only as an example of old, outdated absurd ideas that science has proven wrong.
If it moves, it's Biology.
If it explodes, it's Chemistry.
If it doesn't work, it's Physics.
Thus sayeth the AC who could never get a Wheatstone Bridge to balance.
"Reporters have to ... avoid presenting uncertainties as a matter of balance that's addressed via material from crackpots with credentials."
In other words, reporters should fall in line with what one "expert" says and ignore everything else. Who decides whether one expert is a "crackpot with credentials" and another is not? That is a matter of opinion, based on one's own personal views. Thus, we're having one set of political or religious views forced upon the rest of society and disguised as "science."
Liberalismo es pecado.
In this long list of comments, if this point has already been made and I missed it, please accept my apologies. The main outlet for scientific information is what most call 'main stream media'. As long as those in that industry have an agenda (and make no mistake - they do) you will get anything that is reported spun to their way of thinking no matter what the facts are. They are not the only ones, of course. The so called 'expert scientists' also have their own agendas and most have nothing to do with advancing science. So any findings they may produce will also get skewed so as to further those agendas, whatever they may be. How do you get integrity in these two fields? Many claim it but few seem to deliver it. And many who do are silenced by the agenda driven. These are normal human failings. I don't have a solution. But until you can insure what the public digests is not tainted with personal opinions and agendas you will never get what you are striving for - the acceptance of real science by that public.
Where did you go to school? I don't think I've ever had a science class in school (not university) that didn't start out by teaching the scientific method - it's typically chapter 1 of any lower-level science text.
West Virginai, Florida, Virginia. I learned Sci method from my parents, school was simply memorizing "facts". Probably more important than where is when. 66-77. Glad to hear things have improved!
I think a major barrier to science education in America is our refusal to adopt (what is here called) the metric system.
"Gram" and "millimeter" may as well be Martian.
There's an advantage to reporting your mass in kilograms - the numbers are smaller so you feel better about them!
I do not want to get off on a rant here, but, -- Doctors PRACTICE medicine.
A great deal of what doctors do is the best guess we have today (Feb 2008). When dealing with critically ill people, doctors follow a protocol of tested (and untested) procedures that have been studied and hobbled together from the experience of other doctors. This might make it science, but it doesn't mean it is the best way to handle a certain condition or a certain patient. It is still a BEST GUESS. In 500 years, the best guesses doctors make now will be laughed at.
For example, my cholesterol is about 200. Ten years ago the limit was 230-250, five years ago the limit was 200, now doctors want our cholesterol to be less than 180, next 160? One of my doctors said once, 230 sounds like the correct number and that drug companies are pushing the number lower to SELL MORE DRUGS. No science here.
Another example. My friend's wife is a cigarette smoker. Very addicted. When she got pregnant she asked her doctors "Is the stress from quitting worse than the smoking itself?" She kept asking different doctors this question until one gave her the answer she wanted. (Her kid turned out fine BTW.)
I believe almost nothing the medical profession tells me. Everyone wants me to take a pill for something that can be solved with diet and exercise. YOU are the biggest champion of your good health. If something a doctor says sounds fishy, look it up, read the internet like crazy, then make your own opinion.
Doctors are like auto mechanics that are not allowed to open the hood.
My rant is done.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
"You need to make sure your report exudes a sense of honesty, openness, empathy, and maybe even a hint of humor."
Perhaps this:
"Wow! You're going to love this one - and it's really, really true! Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and us - we all had the same mega-great grandparent! (Gee - so THAT's why I like bananas so much...)"
All this is saying is that the general public won't begin to pay much attention to the science geeks until they actually start sounding human - just like the listener.
As much as we geeks wish it were otherwise, the fact of the matter is that we are domesticated primates, social mammals with a natural preference for prioritizing information along social lines, after immediate survival/pain-response.
We can be trained, imperfectly, to care more about things like repeatability and logic, but the people who are trained best to think this way become, yes, geeks. The rest of humanity continues to rely upon sources of information based more upon social hierarchy than upon reason.
If we're actually intelligent, we'll stop wishing that reality was otherwise (even while fighting to change it), and start tailoring our communications for the world as it is, instead of as we wish it were.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Don't they do that already? Don't people watch it? Only problem: They let them off the island afterward.
8)...and...so... It all starts with the origins, and age of the Earth,etc. After Dr. Hawking, so give a very well thought out origins of the existence of where we came from, at the University of California, and acknowledged the presence of a higher power, acknowledging the universe came forth rapidly, and with purpose, we are so bombarded with the ideas that wish to lead us to believe, that all came from kayos?
Don't you think...? Or don't you?
Only one way. Have good teachers teach good science. Start in kindergarden. As the Jesuits say, give me a child before the age of seven and i will have him for life.
There's not a big enough island.
-FL