I’ve been revising a chapter on collaboration in science for the book-in-progress, making an analogy to team sports. And it occurred to me as I was trying to find a way to procrastinate, that while science is a highly collaborative endeavor, most of the popular stories that get told about science are not. There’s no… Continue reading Wanted: The Hoosiers of Science
Category: In the Media
On Narratives of Decline, or The Age of Denial Is Fifty
Adam Frank has an op-ed at the New York Times that tells a very familiar story: science is on the decline, and we’re living in an “Age of Denial”. IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the… Continue reading On Narratives of Decline, or The Age of Denial Is Fifty
How Deep Does Veritasium’s Bullet Go?
After a couple of very productive days where I closed my Twitter tab because it was too freakin’ annoying to read, I checked in briefly Wednesday morning, and found Rhett Allain and Frank Noschese discussing this Veritasium bullet-in-block experiment: Tom at Swans On Tea offers some analysis, and Rhett offers a video response doing out… Continue reading How Deep Does Veritasium’s Bullet Go?
We Need Scientific Thinking, Not Scientific Commentary
Thursday’s tempest-in-a-teapot was kicked off by an interview with Dan Vergano in which he suggests science reporting is a “ghetto:” The idea, and it comes from the redoubtable Tom Hayden, is that science reporting has largely become a secret garden walled off, and walling itself off, from the rest of the world. Instead of reporting… Continue reading We Need Scientific Thinking, Not Scientific Commentary
Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison
Over at Galileo’s Pendulum, Matthew Francis expresses an opinion that’s sure to get him in trouble with the Inquisition and placed under house arrest: Carl Sagan’s Cosmos isn’t all that: However, even taking into account the differences in TV between 1980 and 2013, the show is very slow-paced at times. I’m not talking about the… Continue reading Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison
Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination
A little while back, I posted about the pro-theorist bias in popular physics, and Ashutosh Jogalekar offers a long and detailed response, which of course was posted on a day when I spent six hours driving to Quebec City for a conference. Sigh. Happily, ZapperZ and Tom at Swans On Tea offer more or less… Continue reading Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination
Blogging Is Not Mandatory
I mentioned on Twitter that I was thinking of proposing a Science Online program item about the professionalization of blogging, throwing in a link to post from a couple months ago. That included a link to this SlideShare: Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters and How Social Media Can… Continue reading Blogging Is Not Mandatory
Real Scientists Have Families, Too: Photo Edition
While we’re revisiting blog topics of the recent past, another item from this weekend’s visit to the Ithaca Sciencenter, in the form of the picture above. For those with images off, or who read via RSS and won’t see the picture, it’s a photo of one of the inspirational plaques they have lining the walls… Continue reading Real Scientists Have Families, Too: Photo Edition
On Journalists and Scientists Talking
Last week’s post about communications between scientists and journalists sparked a bit of discussion, and prompted the folks at the IoP’s Physics Focus blog to ask me for a guest post advising journalists on how to talk to scientists. The post is now live, with the self-explanatory headline How Journalists Can Help the Scientists They… Continue reading On Journalists and Scientists Talking
Journosplaining 101
Over at National Geographic’s other blog network, Ed Yong offers a guide for scientists talking to journalists. Like everything Ed writes about scientists and journalists, this was immediately re-tweeted by 5000 people calling it a must-read. Also like nearly everything Ed writes about scientists and journalists, some of it kind of rubbed me the wrong… Continue reading Journosplaining 101