Scientist/layperson relations
jstemwedel | March 1, 2006Yesterday I flailed vaguely in the direction of a case we could make for funding basic research with public monies. I was trying to find an alternative to the standard argument usually advanced for funding such research (namely, that basic research frequently brings about all manner of practical applications that were completely unforeseen when the basic research was envisioned and conducted). The standard argument makes a reasonable point -- we can't usually tell ahead of time what basic knowledge will be "good for" -- but it strikes me that this strategy boils down to saying "basic…
jstemwedel | February 28, 2006My ScienceBlogs sibling Kevin Vranes asks an interesting question (and provides some useful facts for thinking about the answer):
Why do we even spend taxpayer money on basic science research? Is it to fund science for discovery's sake alone? Or to meet an array of identified societal needs?
The original post-WWII Vannevar Bush model was that the feds give money to the scientists for basic research, the scientists decide how to allocate that money, and society gets innumerable benefits, even if a direct link can't be made between individual projects and economic growth.
But it turns out that…
jstemwedel | February 27, 2006A friend who has been lurking here sent me an email the other day to get my take on the apparent attitude of American scientists toward stem cell research and toward the American public. My friend writes that he has been struck by the reaction of scientists in discussion of stem cell research that
"Gee, I just can't understand what all the fuss is about -- this is just research! The scientists in Europe are all laughing at us, because they just don't understand what all the controversy is about! We're losing ground and falling behind!" and so on.
Now, I don't have a settled view about the…
jstemwedel | February 22, 2006Can't blog ... grading papers. But, to honor Lawrence Summers' retirement from fair Harvard, here's a musing from one year ago today:
Purely hypothetical case. All the names are made up. SInce it's my thought experiment, I stipulate the facts. Of course, you are encouraged to disagree with me about what follows from those facts.
Consider an economist named Barry Winters. Barry is giving a talk at a conference about what can be done to attract more women to the study of math and science, and to keep them in the field long enough to become full professors. In his talk, Barry suggests as a…
jstemwedel | February 20, 2006Commenting on my last post, Karl thinks PZ and I have missed the boat:
Janet said
"Science isn't just putting forward a point of view, it's inviting the audience to check it out and see how it holds up. Nothing for sale -- the audience already has the critical faculties that are needed."
no! No! and NO!
They do not. You and PZ are extremely intelligent people. You seem not to be able to accept how much less intelligent most of the populace is. After all, if they had critical faculties, they would be college graduates. They don't know and don't want to know how to "check it out". They need to…
jstemwedel | February 19, 2006By now, no doubt, you've seen Randy Olson's advice for evolutionary biologists trying to communicate more effectively with members of the general public. While a number of his suggestions are common sense (e.g., try not to be boring), there was something about the ten suggestions, taken together, that bugged me. Not just me, either. John Lynch notes:
Randy Olson, following an MFA in filmmaking from USC, has decided that the way to improve evolution education is basically to engage in sort of dumbed-down glossiness that anti-evolutionists specialize in; all surface flash with little real…