Assignment 6

Francis Bacon believed that the senses deceived us in two distinct ways. They either alter our perception of what is actually occurring or they completely fail us. When he wrote the New Organon, which is the foundation of modern science, he wanted us to abandon our dependency on the senses and instead use experimentation to acquire knowledge. Basically, he started the argument between trusting our instincts and disregarding them.
A lot of conventional wisdom revolves around going with our gut feeling. It is said that on a multiple-choice test the first answer you circle is typically the right one. And when it comes to taking a risk we are supposed to "not think about it; just do it." But is all this gut-trusting really something we should welcome into the scientific community? Yes and no. Basing an experiment on a hunch is what science is all about. We think that maybe X is true so we test it, but instinct should never make it into the laboratory. When we are in the lab and a suddenly gas Y is seen evaporating off the reaction we should not just assume it is hydrogen and move on. Maybe it's nitrogen and that could change everything.
Instinct also has a place after we perform the experiment. That's basically what a theory is. We have all this data and our gut says, "This data seems to insinuate that X causes Y." Granted, we have something to back up our gut with, i.e. scientific data, but even with numbers our idea may not be true. Just because one guy figured something out does not mean it is correct.
Which brings me to the science writer. Is it their place to use their gut when writing a story? No. Not at all. First of all, as a journalist they should not be reporting on anything except what is factual or what is stated in interviews. Secondly, to include educated guesses or gut feelings from you, the writer, is not accurate. You are not an expert and have no place to be making such an assessment.
Things become a little less clear when we are quoting our sources. If a doctor lays out three possible theories for why X causes Y then all three should be included. Even though all three possibilities are based on the gut feeling of a scientist, they are educated proposals.
What if the whole subject matter is based on a gut-feeling, though? Is it fair to write about it? Is it fair to call it science journalism? To talk about something that we are not sure is true is to propagate falsehoods and animosity towards science. Take the bees for instance. It seems there are millions of different reasons why people seem to think that the bees are disappearing from their hives. It's global warming, pesticides, diseases, parasites, loss of habitat, genetically modified pollen, cell phone towers, industrialization of the bee industry, and so on and so on. Some of these allegations seem to have more merit than others, but every time we see an article about the bees it is hard to tell if this is an article based on a hunch or research.
As discussed in my last post, the propagation of misinformation is awful for the public. It is damaging to our perception of truth and science. It is possible that a hunch is correct, but a science writer should never state a hunch as fact. If they do want to include an expert's speculation the comment should be labelled as such.
And it is easy to understand why a science writer wants to write a sensationalist piece about a hunch. For one, if it is a really juicy story then that means they can get their name out there. Also, it is understandable that maybe we feel obligated to publish a gut-feeling before the research has moved forward because if people believe it and the gut-feeling turns out to be correct then you saved a lot of people from a lot of trouble.
But it is still important to wait for the data and to only report on data. It is also important to label all speculation as such. When writing about science it feels right to stay grounded in research because you are being honest with the reader. So when writing an article, just go with your gut: stick to the facts.

Assignment 5

People like patterns. This is a simple part of our cognitive process that made living as hunter-gatherers easier. We eat a mushroom. We have an upset stomach. We throw-up. That means the mushroom caused our stomach problems so we should avoided it in the future. Learning through correlation is what makes living possible, but unfortunately, correlation- as the saying goes- does not mean causation. Maybe there was a bacteria on the fungus that made us sick. The mushroom may be perfectly edible if we just wash it. In order to find causation science takes our impulse to jump to conclusions and throws it out the window.
We have a very particular method in science that aims to remove as much human bias as possible, but unfortunately some methods designed by scientists are inadequate and fail to do this. In 1998, Wakefield et al famously published a paper that was ethically and methodologically flawed. They determined vaccines may cause autism in toddlers. Their conclusions were unfounded and the paper was retracted 12 years later. But the damage was done. There is a large portion of our population that still believes vaccines cause autism.
Does this mean that these people are scientifically illiterate? Yes. Just as people who refuse to acknowledge climate change ignore the majority of evidence supporting its existence, people believing in the autism-vaccine link latch on to one or two pieces of evidence contrary to the overwhelming majority of research findings. Science is based on consensus. If one study says A and twenty thousand studies say B it is typically the case that B is correct. Now this is not always so. Copernicus said the earth revolved around the sun and he was outnumbered. But people tested his theory and found he was correct. Reproducibility of results is key to science's claim to being declared as truth. Denial of the majority of evidence directly contradicts science's foundations.
That is not to say it is unacceptable to question results. We must always double check findings in science because verification is also important to the scientific process.
So what does the above information mean for the writer of science. First of all, basing your writing on one study is a mistake. Always check to see if others agree with the results of the particular paper you are studying. Also, the previous information tells us that debunking theories (whether true or false) is very difficult. People like to take what makes sense because of correlation and accept it as true. In fact, we do more than accept these correlations. We become married to ideas and emotionally invested in what we believe is true. Challenging peoples perceptions of truth can often be an construed as an attack on them, personally. When writing for science it is important to carefully lay out why one theory is incorrect and why another is true. Instead, of bulldozing someone's perception of reality, it is better to deconstruct it carefully and then rebuild it.
Correlation and causation are at the heart of this argument  As scientists and science writers we must be very careful to differentiate between the two and base our research on the latter, because basing it on the former can be devastating for the public's perception of truth.

Assignment 4

The science journalist is certainly in the best position to "give science away." Giving science to the public is easy when you have a large audience, access to top scientists, and good writing technique. It is the torch that the science writer carries. The scientist can be thought of as the fire giver. These Promethean figures have this knowledge and light, but their ways of disseminating to the public are poor. They publish papers that are intensely boring to anyone not already interested in the subject matter you study. The public is left in the dark about most science. It is the job of the science journalist to get that information out. When we think of a world with no science reporting most people in this country would know nothing beyond what they can remember from high school biology.

But there is still this issue of scientific illiteracy. Our biggest issue as science writers is the distribution problem. How on earth do we get people to read an article in a section of the paper they simply skip over? I think one way is to insert science into articles in other sections of the paper or online newspaper. By adding science into stories related to other topics of news we can expose a larger audience to the wonderful field of science. For example,  If an article on water wars is printed in the international section then a section of the writing should consider why there are water shortages and how we can resolve these issues scientifically, as well as politically.

What about the people who do not read the news? Television media does not seem to be a great substitute. There is some science reporting, but on television you cannot enter the kind of depth you can in text. To reach the non-news reading public it is not necessary to abandon science writing as a tool. I tutor K-5 children and part of my job is to teach science lessons. When I do this I use science writing as a way of getting predigested information, images, and ideas. Science writing can still be useful even when it is not being read. It is possible to take the torch from science writers and carry it yourself for a little while.

So, written above are several ways to give science away to the public, but does this dissemination of information have a large impact on the common good. Yes, it does. A more informed scientific public may lead to more scientists. My chief concern is not to increase scientific literacy, but rather inspire some children (or maybe even adults) to work in the sciences. If we can inspire some people to get into science then we have done a good job as the torch carriers.

Assignment 3

Why do people lose interest in science? I think the answer to that is pretty easy: math. When I learned science in second grade I learned about birds and mammals and dinosaurs and planets and oceans and other incredible concepts. They are concepts that captured my imagination and feed into my imagination. I loved planes and trains as a little kid. I still do. They are massive hunks of metal that can carry thousands of tons of cargo or break the sound barrier or drop bombs on targets the size of a 55-gallon drum from several thousand feet. What isn't incredible about those things?

The answer lies in how we learn science. By the time we reach high school the magic is taken away from science and broken down into meaningless numbers. Yes, sound travels at 340 m/s, but when in physics class do we discuss how absolutely incredible it is that a sound traveling through a fluid can reach our ears and be distinguishable as a syllable or word? Sure, a strong acid has a pH of 1, but can we discuss what that kind of acid can do to metal or your hand? That's what people want to hear. Nobody cares about numbers unless they are given context (except mathematicians, which is good for them, but not the point I am trying to make here).

Once kids struggle through high school chemistry it is no wonder they have an aversion to the sciences. In five years from graduation all they will remember from that class is they received a C+ and their teacher was a real jerk. They won't be able to describe a molecule or the ideal gas law because those concepts were broken down and spoon-fed to them as definitions and numbers. It's a shame. Numbers can be interesting when we take the time to understand what they mean.

As science writers it is our job to get people re-interested in science. We can't just bring science to people. They need incredible science; the kind of science that makes you take a moment and say, "Holy shit, they can do that?" In my opinion nobody does this better than Radio Lab on NPR. They take cutting edge science and make an hour of easily-understood, yet shocking, break through science. We need to make it clear as science writers that sea floor spreading is not just a calculable rate of rock movement across the ocean floor. No, we need to tell them that the very living rock of this planet is not stationary. Even the earth, our most solid and unmoving of objects, is not static. That's amazing.

So as a writer of science we cannot report on boring crap, nor can we report on exciting things and turn them into boring crap. It is our job as writers of science to take the unfathomable world of science and make it enthralling. We need to make it great, make it fun, and make it interesting. Our education system and textbooks have done enough damage to science so we must take great caution to not cause any further aversions to the incredible discoveries that our scientists make. Our job is to make science interesting by removing the numbers and formulas and, instead, illuminate the incredible discoveries of our scientific discoveries.

Assignment 2

The ASR findings came to a few major conclusions. One is that on average public trust in science has not declined in this country over the last 40 years. Only two groups have had drops in there trust in science: conservatives and church-goers. Other groups have stayed fairly level in their trust in science. The other finding is that education does not correlate to trust in science. A more educated public does not mean that public trust in science will increase.

Essentially, this report is a very long way of saying, "People are stubborn." I do not understand why any of us should be surprised by any of the results of this finding. The conservative base is so far removed from science that is scary at times (the opposite is also true, however, where liberals are sometimes too married to it).

We have long known that people are stubborn. Very rarely do people have epiphanies about religion or science and change their whole way of thinking. Sure there are born-agains and people who lose faith, but there are a slim margin of the population. The decline in trust in science among conservatives is likely not due to a bunch of "science-believers"  suddenly denying its veracity, but rather people switching parties or becoming independents or moderates.

So, how does this information make me become better science writers? It doesn't. It can't. My audience is now more partisan, more biased, more one-sided.. The audience of science readers is moving left and that means we do not need to worry much about alienating our conservative readership because they are already being alienated. The report tells me some people, no matter how educated they are, do not trust science. Will they even read the articles I write if they are outright rejecting the subject matter? No matter how much evidence I present I cannot reach that particular part of the audience if they never even read past the title.

Does this information make me become a better scientist? Probably not. My job as a scientist is to perform scientific experiments and increase our understanding of the natural world. Whether a minority of people wish to accept that information or not is up to them. As a scientist and student of the physical world I need to be concerned with performing experiments. It is not my role to interfere politically and socially in an attempt to make my work more appreciated or trusted.

Does this information make me a better citizen? It can or it can't. With this information I have the power to say, "Those darn conservatives/Charlie-churchers will never get science so this is all the more reason not to try to talk with them about it" or it is my opportunity to try and show them that science is something they should trust. I hope I can make the latter choice. Most people take medicine and use computers. That is science that they have put their trust in so why should other science be different. It is all done the same way. It is my job as a citizen, more than as a scientist or science writer, to talk with them and try to make them see that science is not trying to lie to them and dissuade them from their beliefs or principles. By reasoning logically with people and starting to convince them that science is not only trustworthy, but also their friend, I hope at least a small fraction of people will come to believe that that is true.

Assignment 1 Prompt 1

Science has the potential to make or break the United States and the world. It has the power to cure cancer and the power to blow up whole countries. For these reasons it is safe to assume that knowledge of the sciences is of the utmost importance in modern society. Jon D. Miller warns us in his article "What Colleges and Universities Need to Do to Advance Civic Scientific Literacy and Preserve American Democracy" that around the developed world scientific literacy is abysmally low with a mere 24% of Americans being satisfactorily literate. Scientific progress moves at an ever increasing rate and numbers like those presented by Miller should tell us that we are all doomed. But then again, maybe not.

Scientific literacy is important to me because I am intensely curious about science, but whether or not it is important to keep a functioning democracy is arguable. I agree that politicians need to be scientifically literate. It is definitely important that they understand the science behind the issues because there are several important debates being argued right now that are highly technical in nature. We depend on our elected officials to educate themselves (or have there interns do it, at least) and look at the data to make an informed decision.

Here is where you say, "But politicians don't always do that. They refute solid scientific evidence frequently and end up basing there decisions on moral, religious, or partisan affiliations." An excellent point, which in fact supports the idea that scientific literacy is hardly important at all. There are many politicians that seem to be able to look at a mountain of data saying global warming is real and then throw it in a landfill somewhere while they go off and start a tire fire at an endangered species hunting party. So, who cares about what the science says? I do! ... but my elected official doesn't and neither do most Americans according to the most recent Gallup poll which came out at the beginning of the month. It is a poll that asks which issues are most important to them. A mere 1% said the environment, which is probably one of the greatest existential threats facing our species besides nuclear proliferation. Another 4% said healthcare, while nobody said energy or lack of resources or overpopulation. These issues are scientifically driven and few people seem worried.

The issues topping the poll are things like governmental dissatisfaction, the economy in general, the national deficit, unemployment, and other such issues. And who can blame the American public for being concerned about those things? These are issues that affect us every single day. Does that make them the most important? Absolutely not, but they are the most pressing and the ones that hit the closest to home. Unless rising sea levels are carrying your house out to sea (which they may do one day) then global warming probably seems a pretty distant and unimportant issue.

So, how do we make people care about science? How do we make them understand that it could save them? Or destroy them? Simply, we cannot. Not by writing about it, anyway. The only way science will ever interest anyone is by making it personal. Talk to people going working in medical research, for instance, and you will likely find someone who knew a friend or family member affected by cancer, ALS, or Downs syndrome, which has pushed them to do their research. I love science because my father loves it and he taught me to enjoy it, too. If my parents hadn't encouraged my scientific curiosity I am sure I wouldn't be studying chemistry at all.

So the final question is: can we increase scientific literacy and save our our democracy? No, for two reasons.   One, people don't care about science. It isn't at the forefront and it may not be for a long time. Two, we aren't going to magically breed an interest in science among the general public by writing articles in an often skipped over "Science" section of a dying media outlet. Scientific literacy can only be fostered within schools and homes where people can have role models who love science. Scientific literacy is important, but only to some of us, and it is certainly not important in maintaining our democracy... at least not yet.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx
This is the link to the Gallup poll referenced above.

Testing 1... 2... 3...

The large intestine is quite large... or so I have heard.