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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Scientists are from Mars, the public is from Earth

19 Oct

The American Geophysical Union blog has a link up to a very interesting table, and I feel strongly enough about this topic that I want to share it with you. It’s a list of words scientists use when writing or otherwise communicating science, what the scientists mean when they use that word, and most importantly what the public hears.

[Click to enverbumnate.]

I’ll admit, when I read it I laughed. But then my chuckle dried up when I realized just how dead accurate this is. And the smile pretty much left my face when I read that this table is from an article called "Communicating the Science of Climate Change," by Richard C. J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol, from the October 2011 issue of Physics Today.

Yup. I think they have a pretty good point.

My career at the moment could pretty much be called "Science Communicator". I do it here on this blog, I do it on Blastr and in Discover magazine, and when I give talks. Before that (and I guess it’s an occupation that never really leaves you) I was a professional scientist for many years. My training ran deep: 4 years undergrad, 6-7 in grad school, then a decade or so of research after that. I could toss around the phrase "Don’t over-iterate the Lucy-Richardson deconvolution algorithm or else you’ll amplify the noise and get spurious data spikes" with the best of ‘em.

As a science writer, though, I can’t use that! I have to say, "Cleaning up a digital image means using sophisticated mathematical techniques that can sometimes mess the image up and fool you into thinking something’s there that really isn’t."

I hope you can appreciate the difference.

So when I write, I try pretty hard to make the science topic accessible without "dumbing it down". I assume my reader is intelligent, but unfamiliar with the concepts I might be discussing. I try to define words if a reader might not know them, or link to someplace they can get more info if they need it.

But as that table shows, there are plenty of words I use all the time that someone else might know, and think means something else. And this is incredibly important, especially if a science writer — as happens more and more often these days — needs to defuse some sort of political spin thrust upon a topic. A classic example in the wholly-manufactured Climategate "controversy". A lot of hot air was generated over the use of the word "trick" in the stolen emails — which most people interpreted as meaning the scientists did something underhanded and sneaky to hide something important. In reality, we use that word to just mean a method of doing something that’s clever. It’s like saying, "The trick in never losing your car keys is to always hang them on a hook by the door that leads outside." See the difference?

But over that, political battles are won or lost.

There are times I fret over a word in a post. It took me a while to start using the word "denier" instead of "skeptic", for example, but the difference is important. I’ve fought for years to teach people that skepticism is not cynicism or denial; it’s asking for and looking at evidence logically and rationally (in a nutshell). What’s funny is that now the media uses phrases like "climate skeptic" when talking about some people who are not skeptics, in that they are not looking at the evidence logically and rationally. They look at evidence so they can figure out how to spin it, cast doubt in the mind of the public over something that is actually a fact.

That’s why I call it "denial". The word fits, and I intend to continue using it when it does.

I could go on and on.

But here’s the point: communication isn’t simply casting out information from atop a tower. There are two parts to it: presenting an idea to someone, and them understanding it. Sometimes we have to change the way we word things to make that second half happen. Otherwise we’re shouting all the facts in the Universe to an empty room.

Tip o’ the thesaurus to Joanne Manaster.

 

Scientists are from Mars, the public is from Earth

19 Oct

The American Geophysical Union blog has a link up to a very interesting table, and I feel strongly enough about this topic that I want to share it with you. It’s a list of words scientists use when writing or otherwise communicating science, what the scientists mean when they use that word, and most importantly what the public hears.

[Click to enverbumnate.]

I’ll admit, when I read it I laughed. But then my chuckle dried up when I realized just how dead accurate this is. And the smile pretty much left my face when I read that this table is from an article called "Communicating the Science of Climate Change," by Richard C. J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol, from the October 2011 issue of Physics Today.

Yup. I think they have a pretty good point.

My career at the moment could pretty much be called "Science Communicator". I do it here on this blog, I do it on Blastr and in Discover magazine, and when I give talks. Before that (and I guess it’s an occupation that never really leaves you) I was a professional scientist for many years. My training ran deep: 4 years undergrad, 6-7 in grad school, then a decade or so of research after that. I could toss around the phrase "Don’t over-iterate the Lucy-Richardson deconvolution algorithm or else you’ll amplify the noise and get spurious data spikes" with the best of ‘em.

As a science writer, though, I can’t use that! I have to say, "Cleaning up a digital image means using sophisticated mathematical techniques that can sometimes mess the image up and fool you into thinking something’s there that really isn’t."

I hope you can appreciate the difference.

So when I write, I try pretty hard to make the science topic accessible without "dumbing it down". I assume my reader is intelligent, but unfamiliar with the concepts I might be discussing. I try to define words if a reader might not know them, or link to someplace they can get more info if they need it.

But as that table shows, there are plenty of words I use all the time that someone else might know, and think means something else. And this is incredibly important, especially if a science writer — as happens more and more often these days — needs to defuse some sort of political spin thrust upon a topic. A classic example in the wholly-manufactured Climategate "controversy". A lot of hot air was generated over the use of the word "trick" in the stolen emails — which most people interpreted as meaning the scientists did something underhanded and sneaky to hide something important. In reality, we use that word to just mean a method of doing something that’s clever. It’s like saying, "The trick in never losing your car keys is to always hang them on a hook by the door that leads outside." See the difference?

But over that, political battles are won or lost.

There are times I fret over a word in a post. It took me a while to start using the word "denier" instead of "skeptic", for example, but the difference is important. I’ve fought for years to teach people that skepticism is not cynicism or denial; it’s asking for and looking at evidence logically and rationally (in a nutshell). What’s funny is that now the media uses phrases like "climate skeptic" when talking about some people who are not skeptics, in that they are not looking at the evidence logically and rationally. They look at evidence so they can figure out how to spin it, cast doubt in the mind of the public over something that is actually a fact.

That’s why I call it "denial". The word fits, and I intend to continue using it when it does.

I could go on and on.

But here’s the point: communication isn’t simply casting out information from atop a tower. There are two parts to it: presenting an idea to someone, and them understanding it. Sometimes we have to change the way we word things to make that second half happen. Otherwise we’re shouting all the facts in the Universe to an empty room.

Tip o’ the thesaurus to Joanne Manaster.

 

Government logo fail of the day

07 Aug

This is like an Onion parody on steroids. Only it’s 100 percent real.

Inspired by President Obama’s “Sputnik moment” speech back in January, the government-sponsored Smithsonian Institute has launched a new blog called “Department of Innovation”. As they describe it:

Seems a long time ago, but it was only back in January when Barack Obama told us that America had reached a “Sputnik moment.” He was referring to the competition with China to be the Big Dog of the 21st century global economy, but the subtext was that the country needs an attitude adjustment, that we need to start channeling Silicon Valley, a place where people may pledge to “Do no evil” but the true religion is innovation.

It made for one fine sound bite. But it hasn’t exactly inspired a bunch of innovation rallies and bake sales. So in the spirit of banging the drum for new ideas and fresh thinking, this blog will track all things innovative, not just in science and technology, but also in how we live, how we learn, how we entertain ourselves.

Sharp-eyed reader Rob M. certainly found the “Department of Innovation”s logo entertaining. You will, too.

Take a closer look:

As Rob wrote me this morning: “Check out the logo. 3 interlocking gears arranged in this fashion will not move in any direction. They are essentially locked in place. Which when you think about it, is a perfect analogy of today’s government!”

Also a perfect analogy for a hapless administration’s pretense of entrepreneurial expertise: Total non-starter.

And that, my friends, is your government logo fail of the day…

***

Another commenter at the Smithsonian blog also noticed: “I love this feature. I thought, however, that I would comment on the Department of Innovation meshing gears logo. The gears can’t turn. Perhaps that was the intended effect?”

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Our commenter Cynosura adds: “Not to pick at nits, but the position of the gears (interlocking, thus unable to turn) is not the only problem with the logo. The gear pitch (space between tooth centers) is not consistent. I realize that it’s a logo and not a technical drawing, but it hurts my eyes to look at it. Even if the small gears were separated, the gears would likely jam during the first revolution…”

Snortalicious!

 

Inbox Influence shows political contributions by the people in your email

21 Jun

While browser plugins like Rapportive tell you the social networks that people in your email belong to, Inbox Influence, from the Sunlight Foundation, uses their data from Influence Explorer, Transparency Data, and Party Time to show a different type of network in your inbox.

Inbox Influence is a new tool from the Sunlight Foundation that allows you to see the political contributions of the people and organizations that are mentioned in emails you receive. This easy-to-use tool can be used for researching influence background on corporate correspondence, adding context to newspaper headlines or discovering who is behind political fundraising solicitations.

Available for major browsers, the plugin is straightforward to use. Just install it like you would any other plugin, and then open Gmail in your browser. In the sidebar (where the ads usually are), you'll see contribution information for people in your inbox.

How much political influence is in your inbox?

[Inbox Influence]

 

What Obama Isn’t Saying Now

17 Mar

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war….A war
based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear –
I suffer no illusions about Muammar Gaddafi . He is a brutal man….He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Gaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or
to his neighbors, that the Libyan economy is in shambles, that the Libyan military a fraction of
its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be
contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

That’s what Obama might have said in response to the Libyan civil war, and he would have been right. It’s remarkable how little one has to change this part of Obama’s 2002 speech against the Iraq war to fit the current situation. I would say that it’s surprising that Obama’s response to Libya has so little in common with his criticism of invading Iraq, but I know that it isn’t. When there was political pressure in Chicago to speak out against a new war, that was what he did, and now that the pressure in Washington has been building to start a new war that is what he intends to do.

 

The richness of nothingness

15 Dec

Statisticians investigate data, and it may seem like missing data should be ignored since no data means no analysis, right? Well, in practice, it turns out that the knowledge that data is missing is very powerful, and statisticians are, in fact, always wary of missingness.

Dailykosbloomberg A reader pointed me to Daily Kos for another chart which I'll eventually talk about -- but I got waylaid by this one (shown on the right), depicting the relative proportions of favorable and unfavorable ratings for a set of political players.

The data is simple, and the chart is sufficient although I'd avoid the blue/red coloring which connotes party affiliation in American politics. The graph also fails our self-sufficiency test.

But really, the big problem with this chart is not on the page. Alert readers might realize that very few people (in fact, only just over half) have an opinion of John Boehner.

In the following version, the proportion of missing/no opinion/don't know is plotted right beside favorables and unfavorables, revealing that this proportion ranges wildly from only 4% for Obama and Bush to 48% for Boehner.

Redo_fav1 This is one data set which makes stacked bar charts look better than they typically are. The two main categories of favorable and unfavorable can be stacked to the sides so that they can individually be compared. The middle part, which represents missing data, will usually not provide much information but in this dataset, the gaping blank space makes us think about how we should treat the missing data.

In this chart, we give equal weight to those who have an opinion and those who don't.

***

Alternatively, we could ignore the people with no opinion, and look at the proportion of favorables and unfavorables among those who have an opinion. There is a danger in doing this because as seen above, the large proportion of don't knows would be hidden from view, and in the case of Boehner, and even for Pelosi and Tea Party, the amount of missing raises interesting questions: have people not heard of these players? are they afraid of providing an opinion? are they conflicted? etc.

Here is the alternative view, in which I have added a couple of comments to highlight things that otherwise would have been missed. One notable feature is that the respondents in this survey essentially view most of these players in similar light (40-50% favorable), as I don't see the differences in the center of the chart as meaningful.

Redo_fav2

 

 

Palin: America’s “gotta stand with our North Korean allies”

24 Nov
Transcript snip from Glenn Beck's radio show:

CO-HOST: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea?
PALIN: But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty—
CO-HOST: South Korean.
PALIN: Eh, Yeah. And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

More at ThinkProgress.

 

Republicans Are Really Weird, Chapter CCVII

09 Nov

Ben Armbruster:

In 2008, Bush Said He ‘Probably Won’t Vote For’ McCain: With stories about President Bush’s new memoir dominating the headlines this week, Financial Times Westminster correspondent Alex Barker reports on his “favourite Bush anecdote,” which he writes, “for various reasons we couldn’t publish at the time. Some of the witnesses still dine out on it“:

The venue was the Oval Office. A group of British dignitaries, including Gordon Brown, were paying a visit. It was at the height of the 2008 presidential election campaign, not long after Bush publicly endorsed John McCain as his successor.

Naturally the election came up in conversation. Trying to be even-handed and polite, the Brits said something diplomatic about McCain’s campaign, expecting Bush to express some warm words of support for the Republican candidate.

Not a chance. “I probably won’t even vote for the guy,” Bush told the group, according to two people present.“I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me.”

Barker said that British officials looked “dumbfounded” and that Brown’s “poker face gave way to a flash of astonishment.”

 

Privatized prisons in Arizona helped draft laws to send people to prison

28 Oct
news-releases.jpg The story of industries paying lobbyists to influence legislation that benefits their business is nothing new—but what about when that industry is a privately-owned and operated prison system?

NPR reports that Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (PDF), the immigration bill that requires anyone who can't produce papers proving they are in the country legally to be arrested, was drafted with the help and influence of Arizona's private prison companies.

"According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants."
Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law - NPR

 

Chamomile Tea Party Posters

05 Jul

Boing Boing reader Jeff says, "I'm so sick of the rancor and party politics in Washington, so I created a series of posters under the moniker of the 'Chamomile Tea Party,' advocating for putting the country first and parties last. The posters are based on WWII-era propaganda posters."