Final Exam COMM H/S/E
Noam Chosky-
machine- manufacturing consent- media acts as a check on political power, informs the public, serve the public, so we can better engage in political process, media tells us what those in power need to tell us Propaganda Press freedom Democracy is staged with the help of media that work as propaganda machines Five Filters: 1.) Media Ownership: mass media firms are big corporations or apart of even bigger conglomerates 2.) Advertising money: fills the gap of what consumers pay and how much media actually costs 3.) Media Elite: journalism can not be a check on power bc system encourages complicity 4.) Flack: when the story is inconvenient for powers at be, flack machine discredits sources, trashing stories, and diverting the conversation 5.) The common enemy: needed to manufacture consent, Communism, terrorists, immigrants, a boogie man to fear helps corral public opinion Governments, corporations, and institutions know how to play the media game and how to influence the news narrative- makes themselves crucial to the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M
Less than half of Americans talk about
science at least a few times a month 3% everyday 14% a few times a week 27% a few times a month 44% at least a few times a month- all together 55% less than often
Dialogue model
science is comm between scientists and their representatives and other groups sometimes to find out how science could be more effectively disseminated sometimes for consultation on specific applications- believes burden should not only lie on the scientists- needs to be disseminated better
Deficit Model
science is transmitted by experts to audiences perceived to be deficient in awareness and understanding- science transmitted to nonexperts by experts with assumption they are deficient in understanding science you are not a scientist don't expect you to understand everything I say- science comm assumes the audience is deficient- the audience does not care/ they are incapable of understanding/ do not have the resources to understand- they don't care if we don't speak to them now they really don't care so now we for real don't talk to them
Health food and technology are
science news topics with highest level of interest
Media structure, not just outlets
skewed coverage of science is a result of media ownership structures and not particularly ideological stances of channels Have to understand the landscape of media ownership today
Rabid Atheism
term used for a new "third culture" that claims to be carving out new intellectual territory for Darwin, while denigrating spirituality en masse Exemplifed by individuals like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. For instance, Dawkins' idea of religion being a "virus of the mind" Reified the false dichotomy set up by the Creationists
Faith and/or Science:
the history of a flawed binary Don't pay much attention to faith and the seeming gap on how scientists discount or account for faith
strength of evidence
the strength of ones evidence is not always proportional to the strength of that belief
Illusion of Choice
there is only 6 companies that own 90% of media corporations- comes from GE, Disney, Viacom, TimeWarner, CBS, News Corp Media consolidation is the biggest threat to scientific consumption- ownership threatens science perception in society 232 media executives control what information 277 million people receive
Agent Orange and the Limits of Scientific Pride
¡Agent Orange, so-called because of the orange stripe on the drums in which it was stored, contained dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals known. Agent Orange was manufactured by the Dow Corporation ¡An estimated 80 million liters of the defoliant, containing 386kg of dioxin, were sprayed on Vietnam. Today, dioxin is present in almost every American home as the product "Roundup". ¡One millionth of a gram per kilo of body weight is enough to induce cancers, birth defects and other diseases when exposure persists over a long period - as the US veterans discovered in the years after the war. ¡Cancers, birth defects and other diseases struck the returning veterans in unexpected numbers. Those who had had contact with the chemical sued the manufacturers and in 1984 won what was then the largest ever settlement of $180m against seven of the world's biggest chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto. ¡But more than 20 years on, while the Americans who did the spraying have been compensated, the Vietnamese who had the toxic chemical sprayed on them are still waiting for redress.
The 1970s
¡Creation of EPA (1970) dragged science into contested decision-making ¡First Earth Day April 22, 1970 ¡Beginning of decrease in science-related coverage in the media ¡Emergence of Religious Right in politics would change the public conversation around science
Philosophical Naturalism
¡Idea that all of existence consists of natural laws and causes, period Scientific Method
The late 1960s: End of an era
¡Questioning of authority §Environmental & consumer movements §"Corporate science" skepticism ¡ ¡Anti-nuclear movements ¡ ¡Vietnam War ¡ ¡Protests against the "military industrial complex" ¡ ¡The use of scientific technology in war, and in particular nuclear and biochemical weapons formed some of the strongest voices against the use of science for human destruction. ¡ This was exemplified by the outrage against the use of Napalm and "Agent Orange" in Vietnam
Post WWII: The heyday of science
¡Scientists enjoyed considerable cultural and political authority ¡Top scientists fled from Europe ¡ ¡American Science Institutions started flourishing: Budgets increased about 14% per year on average. ¡ ¡Soviet launch of Sputnik 1957: Major catalyst in making science "public" ¡ ¡Marriage of politics and science, First presidential science advisor § ¡Start of Space Age (NASA) ¡ ¡NSF budget from $34 mil(1958)à $500 mil in 10 ten years (1968)
caveats
¡So it is clear that a population's "science literacy" is not consistent across the spectrum of knowledge, but influenced by specific knowledge and conditions. ¡ ¡The questions do not exhaustively cover the breadth of scientific inquiry. Consider that there is not a single question pertaining to biology or climate science. ¡ But Pew states that this test is a reliable instrument to test "scientific literacy" among a given adult population
Meat issue continued
¡The IARC classification evaluates the potential "hazard" caused by a behavior as it relates to cancer ¡Group 1 includes things that "definitely cause cancer": §Red and processed meats §Tobacco ¡But what it doesn't tell us is how potent a factor is in causing cancer, but only whether it does so or not. ¡The strength of the evidence that links cigarettes and processed meat to cancer is equivalent, but the magnitude of risk is different
Scientific Literacy
¡The public opinion agency Pew Research conducts regular public surveys on the state of scientific literacy in the U.S. In a recent survey, they used 12 questions to test public knowledge of science. ¡ ¡ These findings come from Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. The survey of 3,278 adults (including 2,923 adults online and 355 respondents by mail) was conducted Aug. 11-Sept. 3, 2014.
Communicating Science
¡This is symptomatic of a larger cultural phenomenon: of a decreasing affinity for scientific information ¡As a culture, our attitudes to science have changed dramatically in the last two decades. ¡ ¡Understanding, appreciating and communicating the importance of scientific information is a (fast-vanishing) key skill.
scientific illiteracy threatens our future
¡science and American society have become sharply disconnected in the modern era ¡ ¡To describe the present state and consequences of this disconnect ¡ ¡To suggest potential solutions to bridge the divide
"Sense of place" refers to
•" . . .rich and often powerful emotional sentiments that influence how people perceive, experience and value the environment" (p. 17) •"At home feeling" or attachment to a physical landscape or space •Feeling of security, belonging, stability •"Rootedness"
Restorative/ Rejuvenating effects
•(Robert Frost's famous lines)
Instrumental/Utilitarian Reasons
•(i.e. what the land/place "is good for") (e.g. escape, hunting, fishing, ATVing)
Age of enlightenment/scientific revolutions
•16th & 17th c.-late 18th c. (approximately) • •Fundamental transformations in math, physics, biology, astronomy (e.g. earth no longer center of universe) • •Established foundations of modern science • •Knowledge and reason superseded religion, superstition and fear • •The basis of human enlightenment was human rationality: that sought the "extirpation of animisms" and the control over nature.
Review: environmental beliefs
•A complex, evolving system of beliefs about the natural world • •Our environmental beliefs are both individual and cultural products • •Three main sources •Childhood experiences •A sense of place •Historical and cultural contexts
History of Colonization
•Colonizers of America brought along medieval Europe track record: •Massive deforestation, erosion, siltation, exhaustion, pollution, extermination •Hostile and antagonistic regard for nature •Nature=storehouse of commodities •Absence of restraint (e.g. it was our "manifest destiny" to conquer and tame wilderness) •60 million beavers (among other species killed) •90% of trees in upper Midwest harvested by 1900
Preservationism
•Conserve resources for current & future use •Preserve resources for reasons beyond instrumental/economic value for humans •Natural resources have a scientific, ecological, aesthetic or religious value •Environment as a site of wonder, awe and beauty, or a site of escape, solitude, therapy •Only slightly more ecocentric: Value is still defined by what humans understand as "value"
Unrestrained Instrumentalism
•Decisions about resources should be based on immediate human desires • •Resources are instruments to serve human ends • •Calls for few restraints or limitations • •Most human centered & anti-environmental ideology • •The Wise Use Movement of late 1980s & 1990s
Science at the End of World War II
•Franklin Delano Roosevelt was interested in how science could continue to serve the nation in the "days of peace ahead", having helped in the war (through the nuclear bomb, of course, but also technologies like radar) • •Commissioned a report called "Science: The Endless Frontier", laying out the Postwar consensus on the importance of science in American life. • •Government should invest heavily in basic scientific research conducted at U.S. universities, and in turn, the knowledge would lead to technological enrichment of American people's lives --improving health and medicine, spurring growth, creating jobs and strengthening national defense . • •Development of the "Pioneer" metaphor for Science
What is an environmental ideology
•Fully formed environmental belief system or way of thinking about the natural world (often taken for granted) that a person uses to justify actions towards it: • •Informs where humans "fit" in relation to the nonhuman world • •Have deep roots, are slow to develop and generally difficult to change • •Become lens through which we interpret the world, words & behavior
Environmental beliefs: Where do they come from?
•How one regards the environment is a product of both individual and a cultural experiences. •Corbett highlights three experiences that are crucial to the development of environmental beliefs •Childhood experiences with/in nature •A "sense of place" •Historical and cultural contexts
Anthropocentrism
•Human-centered • •Natural resources are only for human welfare • •As humans, we are •Superior & top of hierarchy •Separate from nature • •Detour of last 1000 years • •Linked to ideologies of fundamentalist religion and capitalism
Ideology
•Ideology-Set of ideas (often taken for granted) or way of thinking, often proposed by the dominant class of society and learned through socialization (i.e. a "received consciousness"/worldview/way of being in the world) • •Reflects the needs, aspirations and priorities of a culture, class, group and/or individual • •Justifies behavior and actions. • •Ideology often moves through irony: Ideologies exist in their own negation. • •Ideologies work in a way to shape our perception of reality, a way of organizing the world "as it is".
Direct Experiences
•Involves actual physical contact with natural settings & nonhuman species • •Largely unplanned and non-directed • •(e.g. building forts in wooded areas, wading streams, exploring an overgrown city gully)
Conservationism
•Less human-centered than instrumentalism • •Origins in 1900s with the development of national parks & forests • •Using natural resources "wisely" for greatest good for greatest number" • •Recognizes need for some restraints on natural resource use • •Protect land & its ability to serve future generations • •Dominant ideology of mainstream environmental movement • •"Sustainable Development" Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Put on brakes
Indirect Experiences
•More restricted, programmed & managed contexts • •Result from regulated or contrived human activity/ manipulation • •Largely controlled by adults (e.g. zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, contact with domesticated animals, gardens, parks)
Colonialism and the environment
•Native American ways of relating to land became "mumbo-jumbo"; their "primitive" views were used to construct them as being inferior, and presented a rationality for their annihilation. • •The genocide of native populations in America was also a genocide of a way of life/of relating to the environment •100 million in 1492 •10-12 million by the time other European settlers arrived in early 17th century •"The greatest mortality in history"
Ecocentrism
•No single species rules, all (non) living elements are valuable & important • •As humans we are: •Interdependent, integral part of the biological world but no more or less important • •Inherent in ancient eastern and Native American traditions
Historical and cultural influences
•The impact of historical and cultural influences on the environmental beliefs of most Americans, according to Corbett, can be attributed to three broad factors: •Age of Enlightenment/Scientific Revolution •History of colonization •Religious Traditions
Conservationism Critiques
•Very conservative ideology • •"Sustainable Development" • •Reformist, not radical • •No drastic reformulating of -Institutions within social system -Individual lifestyles -(e.g. Buy a Hybrid that gets good gas mileage, but don't question car lifestyle or the lack of access to public transportation)
Private property as ideology•
•We come to believe that land can be "owned" by individuals, and that we can "exploit" our land and resources based on our "ownership" • •How do we come to learn about private property as an ideology? • •Once we understand the ideology, it justifies behavior: we have a right to "defend" our private property: either at the individual level, or at the level of the "country"
Intangible Reasons
•e.g. belongingness, beauty, spirituality)
Place-
•not just the biophysical characteristics of a setting, but also the social and political processes (rules & norms) and cultural meanings that define a space, give it value and help determine how we use it • •Our meanings of places give them power (or make them powerless)
Political-Religious Nexus
"Intelligent Design" propagated as a rejuvenated criticism of evolution. Proposals to teach intelligent design as an alternative to, or alongside evolution in high-school science first began during this period
Group/collective identity
(e.g. Anglers, ranchers, hikers, "Cincinnatians")
Where do ppl get science info from?
1 in 6 Americans both actively seek out and frequently consume science news 36% @ least a few times a week, 30% get science news because they look for it, tv, 17% are active science news consumers 30% get sciences news because they are looking for it
Social Media Shaping News
70% gets news from Facebook or 13% from news org/journalists 36% from twitter and 27% from news orgs/jouranlists
Science Communication Models
A map of science communication activities prepared for the Wellcome Trust in Britain identified three models of communication in relations between science and the media: The deficit model The dialogue model The participation model
The myth of the "atheist" scientists
A recent poll showed that only 52 percent of scientists in at the leading academic institutions in the US claimed to have no religious affiliation ¡48% that do are as good evidence as any that this divide is not as fundamental as it is made out to be
Third Culture + Humanists = Science Wars
A series of exchanges between: Gross (biologist) and Levitt (mathematician) vs. Those who think "reality" and "truth" are subjective ideologies of social constructions http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf E.O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge Addressed the gap between science and the humanities Indicated that social science and the humanities would reduce the scientific principles For example, neuroscience explains some aspects of the brain, but human thought may not be able to neural firing
Pastafarianism
A social movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion and opposes the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools based on the church of flying spaghetti monster has now evolved into a world phenomenon with followers now claiming religious exemptions on things like governments IDs
Ethics & Values-Driven Ideologies
Add moral & ethical dimension to human behavior with natural world (i.e. moral extensionism) We are members of biotic community and have duties to sentient nonhuman natural entities (e.g. creatures that can feel pain) Use legal and political institutions to ensure that non-human things are valued. Save the tigers or "Adopt, don't shop"
relevance of science communication
After a thorough review of the literature, they found that the "crisis" of science denialism and scientific illiteracy was not simply a fault of an uncaring public, but saturated media environments, rapid developments in the sciences, political and corporate sponsorship of scientific research, lack of scientific training and education all influenced how people made sense of science Mooney and Kirschenbaum attribute the crises to issues of scientific literacy and public perception of scientists.
Animal Rights
Animals experience undue discrimination by privileged group (humans) Humans=unjustifiably superior in sentience (i.e. species-ism •Not really environmental per se, only cares about animal-human relationships • •"zoo-centric"=whole ecosystems not concern
Third Culture and Humanities
At some point, the idea emerged that the biggest threat to the scientific community was within the academy, specifically the humanities. Criticism of the dominant paradigm within the humanities in the nineties: Postmodernism. Fields like literature, cultural studies, communication and film studies invested in postmodern and post-structuralist thought. PoMo's seeming ambiguous intent and opaque language made it an easy point of critique.
Impact on Science
Cable television and the Internet allows individuals to disengage from "serious" news Consequence: People who "don't like" science can avoid it altogether Less disagreement, less coverage of scientific issues in the media. Erosion of the "watchdog" role of the media.
Childhood experiences with/in nature
Children's experiences with nature: Have crucial & irreplaceable effects on physical, cognitive & emotional development Act like baggage a child carries that helps shape the present & future Have Influence on future career choices/lifestyles (e.g. environmental activists' relationships with outdoors & adult mentors/tour guides) Our childhood experiences can be direct, indirect or even symbolic
Flying Spaghetti Monster
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a reaction to the Kansas school board voting to introduce intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution Bobby Henderson a 24- year old Oregon state university physics grad wrote a letter to Kansas school board arguing inclusion of his religion into school curricula The satriarcall religion This is one example- but we historically have seen that scientists are atheists- there isn't much correlation with religion- not as clearly demarcated
Scientists can be religious
Climate Change Evangelist
Science-related coverage in the mainstream news media
Data from the Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that from 1989 to 2005 showed that: Featured weekly science-related sections shrank by 2/3 In 2008, CNN shut down science, space, technology & environment unit In 2009, the reputed science section of the Boston Globe killed off Fox news had 72% misleading information about climate science Analysis of cable news shows that every five hours of news content included: 1 minute of science & technology 10 minutes of celebrity & entertainment 12 minutes of accidents & disasters 26 minutes or more of crime
Media Homogenization
Deregulation and consolidation of the media has led to the development of content that can be duplicated, replicated without any local variation. Cost-cutting measure that makes it unnecessary and unviable for local content providers to create own content. Creation of a "global consensus": across the globe, TV watchers are viewing just about the same thing. Even if there cultural and linguistic differences American Idol- singapore idol and so on
How might we bridge the divide between science and religion?
Different, more sympathetic scientific public outreach More opportunities for open debate between scientists and people of faith: Is this a recognition by scientists that we can learn from religious movements, or a failure on the part of the scientific community?
The problems with abrasive Atheism
Exacerbates tensions between scientific community and faith-based communities Provides justification for religious fundamentalists to be suspicious about mainstream science Encourages confusion and misdirected apathy Confrontational & believes religious faith should not be tolerated, but rather countered, exposed and intellectually devastated
1980s science renaissance/ Carl Sagan
Famous multi-disciplinary scientist and generalist (1950s and 1960s) "Showman" of science Master at connecting with ordinary people & explaining complicated science terms Emmy-winning series "Cosmos" (1980s)** Increase in new magazines, newspaper sections & TV shows Denied tenure & acceptance into National Academy of Sciences (1992) because of his "popular" persona: seemed to go against the academic grain of "serious science"
Political Battles over Science: The 1990s and 2000s
Government support for science was dwindling since the end of the cold war Research funding in basic science seemed vulnerable Project for building the Hadron Supercollider shelved Newt Gingrich's rise, and the war on science Scientific Advisory Office of Congress disposed off. Proposals to slash research budgets, challenge established scientific positions, and do away with agencies (U.S. Geological Survey)
Outline of Unscientific America
I.Summarizes historical context & presents a short history of the rise and fall of the institution of American science ● II.Identifies the main sources of the current problems facing science (i.e. the disconnects between the "culture" of science and political, media, entertainment and religious cultures ) ● III.Lays out some potential solutions for how to move forward
science communication
In 2017, a panel of scholars across multiple disciplines produced a report for National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that reviewed the relevance and need for science communication today. ¡In their report, they defined the practice of science communication as "the exchange of information and viewpoints about science to achieve a goal or objective such as fostering greater understanding of science and scientific methods or gaining greater insight into diverse public views and concerns about the science related to a contentious issue."
Ineffectiveness of the Science Wars
In the end, while humanities and scientists may differ on the conditions of the production of knowledge, they both considered knowledge to be important In some senses, this was a diversion that the scientific community could have done without, given the political climate around science OUTSIDE the academy. Made the issues muddled: what/who are we fighting?
Science vs. the Humanities: Academic Battles
In the light of the attacks on science from various angles, you would assume that the scientific community would, in a concerted voice, protest against this attack. Instead, what followed was a strange period of increasing scientific orthodoxy and an attack on the "neighbors" opposite the quadrangle: the humanities Instead of a battle around the importance of knowledge, the science vs. humanities debates became a turf war...
A sense of place
Influences our relationship to the environment and the way which we understand the meanings of a place
Pluto: A case for the rift between science and society
Intl Astronomical Union (IAU) Prague meeting 2006 Pluto "excommunicated" Public outcry about "underdog" FB group=1.5 million friends March 13, 2007=Pluto Planet Day Less than 5% of astronomers voted Made science/society divide apparent Hurt science's public image
Environmental communication
Is not just about climate change, or the ecological crisis A broader, more fundamental approach to understanding how our meanings, beliefs around the environment are shaped, formed, and expressed Interesting in the role of individuals, cultures and historical contexts in shaping environmental outlooks For instance, even the term "environment", as we saw in the exercise, is a political, contested, contingent term. Some communication theorists postulate that "all communication is environmental communication": that thinking about the environment is a disposition, not a subject
Postmodernism and Post-Structuralism
Jean-Francois Lyotard: "Incredulity towards Metanarratives" Questioning the nature of "objective" reality: "small-t" truths Objective "truth" used as a way of enacting social control and authority; used to create relationships of power. "Truth" and "Reality" are products of particular ideologies, social conditions and power structur
Vicarious SYMBOLIC/ VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES IN NATURE
Lacks physical contact with nature Takes place via representation that are not realistic Can be metaphorical stylized and symbolic Avatar movie
REVIEW
Media coverage of science can be organized into deficit, dialogue and participation models of communication But the broader point is that within a profit-maximizing, unregulated media landscape, the role of public science will constantly shrink, and so media ownership/consolidation is an important aspect.
scope of scientific inquiry
Methodological naturalism Philosophical Naturalism
The in-house debates
Momentary triumphalism for the scientific community "Science will provide the means of tying all academic fields together: other disciplines would gradually accede to its disciplinary power" New fields such as the cognitive sciences and complexity theory promised sweeping new "grand theories" about human behavior
Methodological naturalism
Natural reason for everything that happens in the world Stipulates scientific hypotheses are tested and explained solely by reference to natural causes & real-world events Does not rule out possibility of entities outside of nature Entities outside of nature =not considered in scientific framework Constrains/limits what counts as scientific explanation
TRAPPIST-1
Possible inhabitable neighboring planets May 2016, scientists announced the discovery of three dwarf exoplanets roughly the sizes of Earth and Venus orbiting around an ultracool star in the region of Alpha Centauri, only 12 parsecs away from Earth. There is a lot of excitement about these planets given their proximity and their similarity to Earth. Some people wonder if this star system, now called TRAPPIST-1, will be the best chance to discover extraterrestrial biology.
Science vs. Society
Problem today regarding public perception of science and society and how scientists dont necessarily know how to communicate to the publicOf the differences between the scientific community Scientists are "walled off" in their own world, don't relate to the needs and concerns of the larger community Don't relate to political, media and entertainment and religious cultures. For people who believe science interferes with the wonder of the world
processed meat issue
Recently, the IARC (International Association of Research on Cancer) issued guidelines that re-established the cancer risk attributed to processed meats (bacon, sausages and hot dogs) and red meats (beef and pork) These guidelines represented a meta-analysis (a combination of several studies) that explored the association of cancer with processed meat consumption. Processed meats were placed in the same risk category as cigarettes in their association with cancer!
Public Perceptions of Science in the 80-90s.
Science momentum nearly vanished by 1986 Growing anti-science mindset of Republican Party and the religious right. Science media "bubble burst" FCC deregulation of media (Cancelation of science shows that were not considered "entertaining") Worst decade for science in postwar era Reagan's "Star Wars" versus Sagan's "Nuclear Winter"
Snow's Solution for Two Cultures
Snow believed that a nationalized science program was the key to national and international development, and that once the Western countries gained from such programs, the knowledge would "trickle down" to the rest. As a recent NYT op-ed reads.. " We have spent recent decades convincing ourselves that technological progress occurs in unpredictable entrepreneurial floods, allowing us to surf the waves of creative destruction. In this light, a fussy British technocrat touting a massive government aid project appears distinctly uncool." ¡Snow was in favor of a nationalized science program to help build scientific temper for all students
Religion and nature in colonial times
Some early settlers believed that it was their Christian duty to impose control, tame & subdue nature God created man to have "dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air . . . And over all the earth (Gen 1:26) "Be fruitful and multiple, and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (Gen 1:28) Man should use (not worship) nature, since it was clear that the Creator and his creation were "radically distinct", and worshipping nature was idolatory. Since then, we have seen numerous interpretations and re-interpretations of how Christianity has reconfigured itself towards the environment: "Christian stewardship."
Media Consolidation: A growing concern for environmental/science communication
Starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a series of "deregulation" measures for the media sector have led to an environment of media "consolidation" Deregulation of the media has the most significant impact of public consumption of scientific media
Why is it so hard for us to imagine an ecocentric world ?
The dominant ideology of our time is completely human-centered. Difficult to remove human face from our P.O.V. Current global technology & culture prohibits pure forms of ecocentrism Existing social structures & dominant institutions (e.g. legal system, religion) work as social controls & encourage conformity It's not easy "being green": you may agree with an ideology, but not be able to be consistent with it, especially if you think against the dominant ideology
Debating the "Deficit Model"
The dominant model of understanding the relationship between scientists and society Today, most popular and academic understanding of science outreach uses this "deficit" model to explain the communication between science and society: that the public is deficient "I can't believe the general public is stupid enough to believe X!" Doesn't help address the rift between the "two cultures" Scientific literacy should not just be about being able to read and decipher technical, scientific information, but also about realizing the importance of science. What do we do about "Denialism" in contemporary society?
Examples of Religion and Science
The philosopher Robert Pennock likes to say that science is godless in the same way as plumbing is godless. Science is an orientation to experiencing the world. Pope Francis' recent encylical, "Laudato Si", which provides a Christian imperative for human action on climate change is just one example of the fact that faith and science are not incommensurable Around the world and across the ages, there have been thousands of other examples; from the mathematical work of Musa al-Khwarizmi, which he called al-jabr (today known as algebra), to the friar Gregor Mendel, whose work formed the backbone of modern genetics. One of my personal favorites (because I'm an "early Universe" nerd) is the story of Georges LeMaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest and cosmologist who offered the first mathematical equations for cosmic inflation, or what we call "The Big Bang theory"
Two cultures today
The phrase "two cultures" has taken on a deep resonance since 1959: being cited to describe contemporary problems like the "Y2k" (non)crisis, the vaccine debates, and genetic modification of food. Even some contemporary University administrators take Snow's diagnosis to explain campus life today: We live in a society, and dare I say a university, where few would admit — and none would admit proudly — to not having read any plays by Shakespeare, and it is all too common and all too acceptable not to know a gene from a chromosome." -Excerpt from Larry Summers' 2001 inauguration speech as President of Harvard Important to note that Snow was writing about the division between scientists and humanists in England in the 1950s, and although his diagnosis has been taken up by scientists, his remedy has found less popularity.
Third Culture
The third culture consists of scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world, who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meaning of our lives. A clique of cutting-edge intermediaries between the academic elite and the "general population" (C.P. Snow's two-culture model) Primary targets were Faith Communities and Humanities new culture that two or more individuals from different cultures can share which is not merely the fusion of the separate cultures but a new coherent whole
CP Snow's "Two Cultures" Model
This idea that "scientists" live in a separate social and political reality than the "public" was first documented in a landmark speech by CP Snow. Snow was a scientifically trained British novelist, who delivered this speech in 1959 Later formalized into an book called " The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" His main thesis was that scientists and humanists failed to communicate; causing a rift between science and "culture" He said that the two cultures were caught in a "gulf of mutual incomprehension"
Media
Truth •Episodic •Event-driven Story lines •Deductive: •Angles, frames •Familiar narratives Balance •Reporters want give equal time to different "sides": the "vaccine" debate •Partisan media
Science
Truth: Ongoing, developing Incremental Story Lines: Inductive: survey available data and then move to theory Balance: •There is no scientific equivalent to the notion of "balance".
Postmodernism
a condition characterized by a questioning of the notion of progress and history, the replacement of narrative within pastiche, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from disjointed affiliations
Carl Sagan
an American astronomer and author
Participation model:
comm about science takes place between diverse groups on the basis that all can contribute and that all have a stake in the outcomes of the deliberations and discussion most ideal form of communication- comm about science takes place between diverse groups- disagree in fundamental opinion, but can converse and debate feelings- all have a stake- what is the risk?- not harmonious happy group- meant to underscore the fact that ppl come into engagement for science for many different reasons
"strength of association vs. magnitude of risk"
elaborate what literacy means
Science Communication
experts believe science literacy is a specific, strategic objective towards bringing back science into the national conversation.
Self identity
identity and defining who we are as individuals
