There's a very interesting write-up of a talk fellow ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet, of Framing Science, just gave at Illinois State. The write up comes from the student paper over there. Here's an excerpt:
Through a theory called "Framing," Nisbet displayed how the media can affect people's views on politics.
"Framing," Nisbet said, "gives certain dimensions of a complex topic greater apparent relevance." In other words, framing emphasizes different aspects of a topic and what gets emphasized is all based on the writer's opinion. The whole thing, as Nisbet said, is "reference dependent."
Nisbet said he believes that current generations have a problem of choice.
"If people want to avoid news about politics or news about science, they have many options to do so." He calls this idea fragmentation and describes the concept as how people can make choices on what they wish to watch because there are so many options.
This also led to a subject Nisbet referred to as an information shortcut. He said people who do not know a lot about the issues tend to make decisions more based on a candidate's background. "If you look at the choice of who to vote for president, they don't necessarily pay close attention to the details of the candidates' policy issues, but they look for shortcuts," Nisbet.
Okay, admittedly this is kinda cub journalism, but the point Nisbet is making is clear: People don't educate themselves about scientific topics in the same way that scientists do. They look for shortcuts, and are susceptible to strategic framing techniques.
Without a doubt, this calls into question scientists' traditional "get the facts out there" approach to communicating their knowledge.
I'm drawing attention to this because Nisbet and I are actually giving a joint talk along these lines this May at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. So, look to hear more from us about all of this soon....
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Interesting! Thanks.
Framing science? Home economics science? Freudian science?
Football science? Golf? Selling? No marketing?
The burden is on scientists to frame correctly? Hire Nisbet? Pay Lakoff? Pay plenty to Luntz? Get two lawyers?
But whatever you do - Watch out for the schmuckery taking shortcuts.
Well, Gerald, thanks for proving my and Matt's point...when it comes to explaining themselves--framing--too many defenders of science just don't get it.
The last thing we need is less of the traditional "get the facts out there" approach. I think you might put this better by saying we need more people framing science appropriately for the non-scientist, people like Mooney fellow for example.
....again, people don't seem to get what Matt and I mean by framing. Don't worry, you all will soon enough...In the meantime, start by checking out Matt's talk (PDF) at the American Meteorological Society Environmental Science Seminar Series in November.
"Without a doubt, this calls into question scientists' traditional "get the facts out there" approach to communicating their knowledge."
The simple fact is, there is no method of "getting the facts out" that does not involve "framing" of one sort or another . Any science teacher know this (though he/she may not know that some academic somewhere has coined a term for -- and spend all his waking hours studying -- it).
And scientists don't all use the same approach to "get the facts out". Anyone familiar with Carl Sagan's or Isaac Asimov's work knows this.
So what you (and Nisbet) are really talking about is a particular kind of framing, no? ("all framing is not created equal")
Implicit in Nisbet's plea for better framing is the idea that the approach that scientists have taken to date to get the facts out has somehow failed.
I am curious, where have they failed? -- ie, in which specific cases?
There are a number of reasons why the public may not buy into particular scientific findings (on evolution, for example). I am dubious that it is all (or even mostly) simply a matter of framing.
Dark Tent,
In a somewhat trivial sense, yeah, any attempt to "get the facts out there" does involve framing of one sort or another. But the scientific community doesn't generally frame strategically, and that's what we're talking about. Instead scientists too often pretend that they're just "stating the facts" and then after that the facts will speak for themselves.
As for cases of failure, gosh: evolution, climate change...
Trivial sense?
Carl Sagan was very successful at teaching people about science precisely because he was able to make science relevant and interesting for the average person.
But Carl Sagan was hardly the only one who knows this secret. Many science teachers do. Having spent several years as a science teacher myself, I think I understand a little about the issue of making science relevant -- though when I was teaching, no one was calling it "framing".
On evolution?
As I indicated above, it's doubtful that this is merely a matter of framing. Many people have religious reasons for rejecting evolution (they believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, etc) and in that case, there is little that scientists can say that will change their minds.
Climate change?
Actually, most Americans believe global warming is a real problem that should be addressed. As you pointed out in your book, the problem there is not that the American public are not on board, it's that their leaders are not. No amount of framing is going to change that.
Before you convince me that framing is going to solve the problem, you must clearly define it, which you have not done -- at least not that I can see.
I'll be saying more about this soon enough but for now the Nisbet talk that I linked certainly defines framing, and his framing science blog does too.