Media
hrynyshyn | June 2, 2010If the title of Matt Ridley's new book, The Rational Optimist, sounds a little familiar, that's because it borrows heavily from the world view of one Bjorn "The Skeptical Environmentalist" Lomborg. Both contrarians dismiss global warming as nothing to worry about, although Ridley seems even less convinced that the planet is actually experiencing anthropogenic global warming. I don't have time to read it -- but I did manage to take a look at the kind of thinking that Ridley uses at his blog.
This week, Ridley wrote about what his research in the "Holocene Optimum," uncovered. What he found, he…
hrynyshyn | May 31, 2010"Climate change is an issue that is almost designed to create apathy ..."
-- Linda Connor, Science Alert, 20 May 2010
The writer argues that the rise of climate change denialism in the face of growing scientific evidence of serious consequences of climate change can be explained by looking at basic human psychology. Essentially, we're talking about extrapolating psychology to the sociological sphere.
Negative messages about the future, such as those expressed in discourses of climate crisis, are a challenge to our cultural projects of immortality. These negative messages, connected with death…
hrynyshyn | May 28, 2010This week's Science has a lengthy review of a long list of recent books by and about climatologists. If you're interested in doing some not-so-light reading this summer (in a year predicted to be the warmest on record), the review, which Science has made freely available, should steer you in the right direction. The reviewer, Columbia University philosopher Philip Kitcher, covers a lot of territory. He puts it all in perspective by pointing out that while many of the books try to convince readers of the simple truth of climate change, the sad truth is that:
Even if American public opinion…
hrynyshyn | May 26, 2010Back in the winter of 1990-91, when I was a between-real-jobs freelancer hanging out in Vancouver with plenty of time on my hands to read, I would cycle down to Stanley Park each rainless day, find a quiet stretch of beach, and read. I went through dozens of books before returning to the working world, but the only book I remember in any detail is Bill McKibben's The End of Nature. It was the first full-length, popular-science take on climate change, and I've spent much of the last 20 years thinking and writing about the subject, thanks to that book. So has McKibben.
eaarth is an oddly…
hrynyshyn | May 25, 2010The appearance of an editorial in the far-right-leaning Washington Times challenging the reality of anthropogenic climate change is not particularly interesting. What is worth looking at is the width of the gap between the research cited by the editorialist and what the research is actually all about.
The editorial, which ran under the headline "Nero was hotter than Al Gore," argues that a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds the Earth was warmer in Roman times than it is today. Even if true, this would mean little, unless the ancient anomalously warm period…
clock | May 24, 2010Scientists: Don't ask what Hollywood can do for you, ask what you can do for Hollywood!
Jennifer Ouellette is the Director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange, and a popular science writer. She also writes for her blog - Cocktail Party Physics.
She spoke with The Plainspoken Scientist about how scientists can best help Hollywood.
clock | May 23, 2010
Jay Rosen talks to World Bank, about "how the powerful cope with public scrutiny." He talks for 30 minutes and the Q&A is another 30 minutes. Worth a watch.
sastyk | May 21, 2010This list popped up on my screen this morning, and I thought it was an interesting window into a worldview. The article lists ten things that despite the economy, we aren't cutting back on:
Portable computers. The iPad might be the latest must-have gizmo, but the power of computers transcends trendiness. Brianna Karp, for instance, discovered lots of homeless people online, many logging in through their own laptops, like her. Shipments of notebooks have skyrocketed over the last three years, with sales in 2010 likely to be double what they were in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics…
hrynyshyn | May 13, 2010... is actually good news for those holding down the scientific fort.
Last week, Science published a letter from 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences pleading for "an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues" in the climatology community. The letter laid bare (not bear) the scientific basis for the theory of anthropogenic climate change, a theory the authors said belongs in the same category as the theories of evolution and the Big Bang. So far so good. It was accompanied by a collage image of polar bear isolated on a single ice floe (at…
clock | May 10, 2010Last week I attended the WWW2010 conference in Raleigh. I posted my summary of the event over on Science In The Triangle blog so check it out.
clock | May 9, 2010One difference between reading Open Laboratory anthologies and reading the original posts included in them is that the printed versions are slightly edited and polished. Another difference is that the Prefaces and Introductions can be found only in the books. They have never been placed online.
But now that four books are out and we are halfway through collecting entries for the fifth one, when only the 2009 book is still selling, I think it is perfectly OK to place Prefaces and Introductions that I wrote myself online. I wrote Prefaces for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 book, as well as the…
clock | May 9, 2010Get all the information about people and concepts mentioned in the video here:
Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.
clock | May 7, 2010Last week, at the SigmaXi pizza lunch (well, really dinner), organized by SCONC, we were served a delicious dish - a lively presentation by Dennis Meredith about Explaining Research, the topic of his excellent new book - in my humble opinion the best recent book on this topic.
His presentation was almost identical to what he presented on our panel at the AAAS meeting in February in San Diego, and you can check out the slideshow (with the audio of his presentation going on with the slides) here.
Dennis and I are friends, and he attended 3-4 of the four ScienceOnline conferences to date and you…
scientificactivist | May 6, 2010Remember that strikingly inept poll analysis about the Tea Party movement from The New York Times last month? Well, the new Washington Post-ABC News poll addresses the same topic, and the Post's analysis seems to actually be rooted in reality:
The conservative "tea party" movement appeals almost exclusively to supporters of the Republican Party, bolstering the view that the tea party divides the GOP even as it has energized its base.
That conclusion, backed by numbers from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, also suggests that the tea party may have little room for growth. Most Americans --…
cagapakis | April 29, 2010I got the chance to attend a panel discussion about science and the media presented by the UK-based charity Sense About Science. The audience was primarily scientists, many of whom were angry about how science is presented in the media: the outlandish claims, the hype, presenting "both sides" of stories where there is clear scientific consensus. The panel included a professional scientist who teaches about communicating with the public, an editor at the journal Cell, and a science reporter for the Boston Globe.
The panel was mostly about "traditional" media, with a little shout-out to blogs…
drorzel | April 27, 2010Dennis Overbye has a piece on "The Big Bang Theory" in today's New York Times, taking the "Is this good or bad for science?" angle:
Three years later some scientists still say that although the series, "The Big Bang Theory" (Monday nights on CBS), is funny and scientifically accurate, they are put off by it.
"Makes me cringe," said Bruce Margon, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explaining, "The terrible stereotyping of the nerd plus the dumb blond are steps backwards for science literacy."
But other scientists are lining up for guest slots on the show, which has…
clock | April 25, 2010WWW2010 is starting tonight. Interested to know more about it? Sure, here's the brief history:
The World Wide Web was first conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The first conference of the series, WWW1, was held at CERN in 1994 and organized by Robert Cailliau. The IW3C2 was founded by Joseph Hardin and Robert Cailliau later in 1994 and has been responsible for the conference series ever since. Except for 1994 and 1995 when two conferences were held each year, WWWn became an annual event held in late April or early May. The location of the conference rotates…
clock | April 24, 2010Andy Carvin (@acarvin) - Senior strategist at NPR;
Eric Kuhn (@CNN) - Audience Interaction Producer, CNN;
Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston) - Social-Media Editor of The New York Times;
Ryan Osborn (@todayshow) - Producer, NBC's TODAY:
revere | April 23, 2010Everyone knows that people commonly use the internet for health information. "Commonly" means almost half (45.6%) of adults over 18 who were interviewed by the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) during the first 9 months of 2009. The estimate is made from household interviews of a national sample of adults who don't live in institutions, like a nursing home, school or prison (euphemistically called a correctional facility). The question asked by the NHIS was: "Did you look up health information on the Internet in the past 12 months?"
The percentage by age group is fairly even, except for…