...this point about communication... is ... naive or worse--this contention that somehow, climate scientists are dirtying themselves because they now want to communicate to the public. Or that they're just trying to become better spin-meisters.
... Climate scientists overwhelmingly feel they’ve failed to reach the public and to explain their work to them, and polling data strongly supports this concern.
...imagine that you’re a scientist, and you're aware that it's imperative to explain what you do, and why it matters, to non-scientists.
When it comes to scientific topics, citizens—and journalists, and policy-makers--want to know what the bottom line is, in plain language. They want to know why a topic matters, who it affects, what we can do about it. And can you blame them for feeling this way? There is a lot out there to pay attention to. We're all suffering from information overload, all the time.
...[Scientists, in communicating, have to learn to put the conclusion first--followed by the details, because] what non-scientist is going to follow all the steps, trying to keep up with all the jargon and alien terms... without even knowing where it is all going to lead and why it matters?
...once you understand why the details matter, you are more likely to grow interested in them and want to learn more.
...making science more relevant to the public that is affected by it is ...[essential]. Science matters; the public both needs and also deserves to know this; and scientists need to help them understand why.
Stale blog offering Perspective on ideas, issues and life from Nevada County, California - belaboring the obvious since 2003
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
For KVMR folk, on science communication - excellent piece by Chris Mooney
Excerpts from Good Communication is Good Scientific Practice: (emphases added)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Welcome, and thanks for caring enough to donate your time and thoughts toward greater collective wisdom...
Terms of engagement:
* Please be civil.
* * * * Please do not post anonymously * * * (I'd remove this choice if I could, and I may remove your comment if you do) - instead, do this:
Click on the 'Name/URL' radiobutton, then enter your real name (if you're brave) or a pseudonym (if you're not). (You can leave the "URL" field blank.)
Or go ahead and click "Anonymous", but put your name in your comment.
* The Management reserves the right to delete comments (Moderation Certificate can be found here). You can always post it on a blog of your own.
If you run into technical difficulties, please a) accept my apologies, then b) email your comment to aherror2011 at gmail.com with "Comment for [name of this blog]" in the Subject line.
New policy re climate contrarianism comments as of 11/11/2009:
Comments questioning the climate science community's understanding of climate change (97% of active climatologists now believe that the earth is currently warming and that it's human-caused - link) will be deleted unless the commenter:
a) is local
b) uses his real name
c) provides link(s) to substantiate his claim(s)/inference(s)
d) is willing to collaborate on constructing an argument tree, to get us past the usual sterile point-counterpoint-countercounterpoint.
(For people who can't read the above, a summary:
1) Be civil;
2) Don't post w/o giving at least a pseudonym;
3) Don't espouse climate-denial crankery unless you're local and willing to stand behind it.)
Caveats:
1. Comments could be delayed: they are being moderated, and I'm sometimes away from the computer for a day or more.
2. : Perfectly legitimate comments are sometimes miscategorized (by the blogging platform) as spam, & not published. If this happens to yours, please notify me, else I might not notice for a day or two.