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Continue reading Links for the week of November 15th, 2009
Tag: science
Links for the week of November 6th, 2009
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Links for the week of October 22nd, 2009
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Links for the week of September 25th, 2009
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Links for the week of September 11th, 2009
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Links for the week of September 4th, 2009
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Links for the week of August 20th, 2009
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Links for the week of Jul 23rd
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Continue reading Links for the week of Jul 23rd
Framing Embeds Values in Scientific Facts
At the Sustainability Symposium last night (which was nominally about water footprints (PDF) and this paper on the international trade in virtual water) we ended up “off topic” and talking about science communication, public outreach, and how policy gets made. Inevitably it seems like these conversations end up coming back to the issues from Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet‘s Speaking Science workshop that SASS sponsored last summer.
There is huge discomfort for scientists in the fact that the way in which information is conveyed impacts how it is interpreted. The idea is at odds with the scientific ideal of objective facts and communication, but nevertheless it is true. A one liter glass plus 500 ml of water equals what? The glass is half empty. The glass is half full. The glass is twice as big as necessary to hold that much water. The same objective facts, different connotations. Different implications. Different frames. And sometimes, the frame ends up being a more important determinant of the listener’s reaction than the information the speaker intended to convey.
Links for the week of Jul 16th
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- Wal-Mart To Become Green Umpire – Wal-Mart arguably has more control over and insight into its supply chain than any other company on earth. The information they need in order to be able to force their suppliers to produce the goods as cheaply as humanly possible overlaps substantially with the information required to provide transparent information about the environmental impacts of those same products. Wal-Mart says they want to use this power for good… for telling, in condensed form, the sustainability back-story for their products. But will they tell the truth? Will it be transparent? Will it be verifiable? And even if it is… will their customers care? Might it change their customer base?
- Howtoons – A series of comics which both tell stories, and inspire kids to build their own toys and tools. Wonderful hacker propaganda.
- Where's the Real Bottleneck in Scientific Computing? – A story about a computer scientist talking to physicists who have hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and don't know what version control or unit testing is. Hmm. I guess I don't really know what unit testing is either.
- Software Carpentry – A Python based tutorial for scientists and engineers who need to learn how to (actually) program. How could it have taken this long to appear?