Archive for the 'science in the media' Category

Shocked Reaction

Published
by
Clifford
on November 29, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 2 Comments

For a refreshingly straightforward point of view from a young person in the field who just wants to get on with doing some good physics with what seems like a promising approach, read Jonathan Shock’s description of his recent attendance of meetings (including the one to which I earlier referred) on heavy ion collisions and related physics. (See also an interesting comment by Xin-Nian Wang on the comment thread of my earlier post.) Jonathan gives some useful links to presentations on some of the attempts to model some of the new physics using string theory models.

The title? Oh, yes, he gets beaten up a bit by those around him for working on strings. Continue reading ‘Shocked Reaction’

Nuclear Guy Goes Nuclear

Published
by
Clifford
on November 23, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 6 Comments

star rhic goldFollowing on from her earlier post (with Stefan) on the research effort to understand Brookhaven’s RHIC physics with string theory, Bee reports some things she heard about a nuclear physics conference in Shanghai (Quark Matter ‘06). Apparently Larry McLerran -who is at Brookhaven- did a 20 minute anti-string (and anti-Brian Greene) rant. You can see some slides, etc, over there.

(Note for the non-expert:- RHIC means “Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider”. Picture on right (click for larger): Tracks from collision of two beams of gold nuclei -the heavy ions- recorded by the STAR detector at the RHIC experiment. More here. In a sense, a new form of matter is formed in these conditions - the issue is how to understand its properties.)

This sort of thing is rather funny, so far (apparently Brian Greene was given a “Pinocchio award” in the talk?! ). Let’s hope it does not turn into something serious.

In moving forward:

Continue reading ‘Nuclear Guy Goes Nuclear’

Will People Please Stop Saying God Particle?

Published
by
Clifford
on November 21, 2006
in science and science in the media
. 58 Comments

LHC OverheadWhile looking for something else I’ll blog about in a short while, I stumbled upon one of the most annoying of the articles on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (or any other particle physics experiment) that I’ve read in a long time. This is because of this utterly ridiculous business of calling the Higgs particle the “God particle”. Who started this? It really is so misleading and annoying. The title of the Guardian article is “In the beginning: scientists get ready to hunt for God particle”, and it is by Ian Sample. Some random bits:

It should certainly discover what some call the “God particle”, finally answering the embarrassingly simple but elusive question of why things have mass.

and…

Finding the Higgs boson will confirm scientists’ most complete theory of the universe and the matter from which it is created. “It’s probably the closest to God that we’ll get,” said Jos Engelen, Cern’s chief scientist.

Aaaaargh!!!

Some?! Who are these people who call it the “God particle”?! If you know anybody in the field who calls it the “God particle” (or even out of the field, for that matter) please Continue reading ‘Will People Please Stop Saying God Particle?’

Poincaré In Our Time

Published
by
Clifford
on November 20, 2006
in mathematics, science and science in the media
. 6 Comments

I don’t know whether you caught this already, but if not, do consider listening to the 2nd November edition of BBC Radio 4’s “In Our Time”. It is about Poincaré, his work, and the famous conjecture. From their website’s page on the programme:

The great French mathematician Henri Poincaré declared: “The scientist does not study mathematics because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing and life would not be worth living. And it is because simplicity, because grandeur, is beautiful that we preferably seek simple facts, sublime facts, and that we delight now to follow the majestic course of the stars.”
Poincaré’s ground-breaking work in the 19th and early 20th century has indeed led us to the stars and the consideration of the shape of the universe itself. He is known as the father of topology – the study of the properties of shapes and how they can be deformed. His famous Conjecture in this field has been causing mathematicians sleepless nights ever since. He is also credited as the Father of Chaos Theory.

So how did this great polymath change the way we understand the world and indeed the universe? Why did his conjecture remain unproved for almost a century? And has it finally been cracked?

It is a particulalry good programme this time. This is a programme that focuses mostly on philosophy, and is often accused of being only rather superficial when it comes to covering the more hardcore and up-to-date science, but not this time. The guests are Continue reading ‘Poincaré In Our Time’

Tales From The Industry, IX

Published
by
Clifford
on November 19, 2006
in Los Angeles, fun, science, science and society, science education, science in the media and work
. 8 Comments

Friday saw me involved in the shooting of two more segments for a television show. Seems that the ones from last time did not work out too badly, so the program makers wanted to do more. Hurrah!

Friday shoot

This session was also a lot of fun, and one of the segments (especially) could end up being a particularly good example of getting a good chunk of a whole science story - showing the actual processes involved in doing science - on TV, er, depending upon how it is edited, of course. This is one of the major reasons that I do this sort of thing. At least as important (in my opinion) as talking, as I also sometimes do, to the press about the fancier things we do (perhaps involving the origin of mass, and whether the universe may or may not have extra dimensions, etc) is the process of getting involved with people in the media (the “Industry”) to help them bring the foundations and cornerstones of science to a general audience. No fancy stuff, just the basic but ever so important connection between the physical world around them and simple scientific reasoning. This achieves some very important things, which I bet will last longer in a person’s mind and everyday life than Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry, IX’

Further Information on Dark Energy

Published
by
Clifford
on November 16, 2006
in astronomy, cosmology, dark energy, science and science in the media
. 59 Comments

So the press conference is over. I did not listen to it, but the gist of it, from the press release, seems to be that they’ve observed several more supernovae to pin down even more accurately what the universe’s expansion rate was at very early times (up to nine or ten billion years ago). Image below from their site:

supernovae from hubble

From the site, we learn (for background):

Continue reading ‘Further Information on Dark Energy’

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, VI

Published
by
Clifford
on November 10, 2006
in science, science education, science in the media and string theory
. 326 Comments

A quick update:

  • There was a second installment of the discussion led by George Johnson about press coverage of string theory. He went back to look to see what exactly some of those early articles said… How much coverage was there to start with? When did it start? When did it begin get out of hand? Did it get out of hand? Is this all just part of a standard bubble that happens for any field that the press decides to cover, a sort of manufactured (my word not his) boom and bust cycle? All issues that were touched upon in the discussion. Note also that the discussion broadens out considerably -as it should, (finally!)- to talk about the broader issue of coverage of topics in physics and science in general. The positive and negative effects of press coverage on attracting the next generation of students was also discussed. The discussion (this aspect in particular) was especially interesting because of the remarks by a number of senior people in the audience who were able to talk about their experiences over the years having seen the cycles recruitment of students in their own departments. Worth a listen/look at the archive here.
  • Lee Smolin has written a “Dear Friends” letter in response to some of the things that have been pointed out about his book, and about other points he’s made publicly in various discussions*. He’s given over some time to write quite a bit, which in general is a good thing to have done. You can find it here.

I’ll leave it to you to form your own opinion about Smolin’s remarks (I’ve not had time to read it in detail yet), and start a discussion here. Maybe ask him some followup questions here, for example. To help with context and build a more complete picture, do read some of the earlier comments and discussions involving him -and questions put directly to him- on the threads that share the name of this post. (e.g., Here and here.) Put those alongside the discussion with Peter Woit and of the central thesis of Woit’s book too. They are inseparable.

My set of opinions on the issue is the same as it was before. Even though I’ve said it all so many times here, since blogs seem to have no memory, I will summarize a bit:

Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, VI’

A Man Out Standing In His Field

Published
by
Clifford
on November 8, 2006
in Los Angeles, academia, mathematics, science and science in the media
. 6 Comments

Two of our colloquia this semester were concerned with work very much in the public eye this year. The first was from Francis Bonahan of the Mathematics Department here at USC.

F bonahan colloquium

He talked about the work that won the Fields medal - the proof, by Grigori Perelman, of the Poincaré conjecture. Or better, I should say the work toward the proof, since the citation does not explicitly mention the conjecture, but his larger body of work. (MathWorld link, Wikipedia link.) In fact, Francis spoke about a lot more than just the Poincaré conjecture.

F bonahan colloquium

He talked about the larger setting in which that work fits, something mathematicians call the “geometrization conjecture”, which Mathematicians care a lot more about. Perelman’s work does more than just prove the Poincaré, it addresses the whole (3-)ball of wax, so to speak. He told us quite a bit about that in the talk, spending most Continue reading ‘A Man Out Standing In His Field’

Government Gets Stern

Published
by
Clifford
on October 30, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment, global warming, science, science and society and science in the media
. 21 Comments

Well, as you can tell by looking in the “environment” category here, I’m likely to be pleased to hear about the Stern report, released yesterday (Guardian article and links to report here) and also pleased to hear that the UK government is taking the report seriously…. more or less.

I’d have a lot more to say, but I’ve said so much about this already, and I’m not really up to a long post on this right now. But I could not let this excellent (and hopefully landmark) event go unmarked. The point, as has been said before:- Nobody is going to get going on this because it is “the right thing to do”, since it is difficult for individuals and businesses to act in a way that makes things less than convenient for yourself for a cause that seems so abstract. Pure market forces will not do it either. We need actual leadership from the scientists -which has more or less happened for a while now (see my earlier reports on the UCS here and here for example)- and action and structure put in place by the people who will really get things going: economists and then governments (because they follow the money).

Well, Stern is a major figure in the “economists” group, and so this is good news. I must admit though that it really did make me cringe every time I heard the announcers on BBC Radio 4, while trying to emphasise how significant the report’s findings were, saying things like “this is not a report from an environmentalist, it is a Continue reading ‘Government Gets Stern’

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, V

Published
by
Clifford
on October 27, 2006
in science, science and society, science education, science in the media and string theory
. 91 Comments

At the (K)ITP the other day there was a journalist-led discussion/presentation on the largely-media-driven “controversy” about string theory. You know my opinion on this -it’s a largely made up story based on two inaccurate chariacatures (in book form) of research in the field- told by the same journalists and editors who some time earlier brought you the glossy stories about string theory that played up the excitement and promise, and played down the often-said but often-ignored cautionary remarks. The irony of all of this seems to have been lost on most. (I’m not saying that string theorists are entirely blameless in this, but I’ve seen how hard it is to get a balanced remark -about the basic process of seeing a complex scientific program through to its end- to survive next to a glossy one-liner).

The point is that the story being told now in the press is simply the one that journalists and editors want to tell now - a David vs Goliath story. It has little or nothing to do with what is actually going on in the science research. The journalist -George Johnson- does a good job of pointing out supporting evidence for this by going through a Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, V’

Brown and Nerdy

Published
by
Clifford
on October 17, 2006
in humour, minorities in science, science and society and science in the media
. 11 Comments

Well, here’s an amusing response to Weird Al Yankovic’s video* (see my earlier post on the issues I had with it). He makes his point with charming clumsiness, but… he makes the point.

Still here:

brown and nerdy

…and YouTube links here, and here. (Watch them in order for maximum hilarity.)

-cvj

(*Thanks CS Guy!)

Manifold Yau

Published
by
Clifford
on October 16, 2006
in academia, mathematics and science in the media
. 24 Comments

calabi-yau sliceWell, here’s yet another discussion of Yau to gobble up. It is a New York Times article by Dennis Overbye on Yau, his life and work*. I’ve no idea why this was written, or what the timing was. I’d like to believe that it was just because it is a good subject -because it is- and that it is worthwhile to do an article about a Mathematician of considerable stature in the field, and about the ins and outs of the world of Mathematics -because it is. But I can’t help but wonder if this would have seen the light of day if there was not the big argument going on about the New Yorker article and Yau’s displeasure with its contents. (Image on the right -click for larger- was taken from this site. It is a slice of a Calabi-Yau manifold. There’s more in the article about Yau’s work on those.)

Well, I don’t care what the reason is. I love to see articles of this type written about this Continue reading ‘Manifold Yau’

The Letters Keep Coming

Published
by
Clifford
on October 15, 2006
in mathematics and science in the media
. 12 Comments

I just checked the website of Yau just now, for more developments on the argument with the New Yorker. It seems that since Hamilton’s strong letter, there have been several more, from various luminaries in the field. You can find them all on the site.

-cvj

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, IV

Published
by
Clifford
on October 5, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 165 Comments

Finally we get to some real substance in the program! (See earlier notes, and thoughts.) Jeff actually mentions all the effort going on string theory and experiments at Brookhaven, and asks that question I keep asking everyone… “why oh why is this never mentioned by the press in these discussions?” I’ve asked this of Peter Woit on his blog a lot too, for example, and have never got much of an answer. Peter and Lee want the world to believe -by reading their books- that the entire field of string theory is just people sitting around discussing the Anthropic Principle and lots of different universes, and blah blah blah… It serves the purpose of the books in question to completely distort the view of what is actually going on in the field. They claim that there is no experimental support (true) or hope for experimental support (how can they know that?) for string theory… but they ignore the fact -they intentionally don’t tell you, dear reader- about the interesting work going on by a huge percentage of the field to use string theory to study the structure of nuclear matter. It is still in its early stages, and may not work, but it is rather interesting. As Jeff put it, about the new form of matter that is constructed in these experiments, string theory is “the only approach that I know of” that currently seems to be able to explain the observed properties….

Lee, about the omission of this huge effort in string theory research from his book: “At least it is alluded to…”

That’s just lame.

He then proceeds to rather poorly attempt to claim that such contact with experiment Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, IV’

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, III

Published
by
Clifford
on October 5, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 8 Comments

Poor Jeff!

I’m listening to the program now, and 40 minutes into it, there’s been long sections of completely pointless waffle by Lee and the presenter (the latter keeps reading long and largely peripherally relevant quotes from philosophers), broken up by breaks to shout the name of the station at you…. then long musical ditties… then back to more waffle…. and then the few times Jeff gets to come in, he is interrupted again by the presenter with more irrelevant stuff about philosophy. Jeff managed to say at one point “I’d rather talk about what can be measured, what we can calculate…”, but this seems to have been ignored. (Here and later I am not giving the exact words of what was said… you should listen to the archive.) He is given a little time to start to explain what strings is about….

A bit later…. Lee is just going on and on and on and on about…. uh…. crap and utter irrelevance. The battle between Liebniz and Newton. Relational vs absolute. Sigh. I just don’t get it. Why is this happening? Another music/station reminder break…

A bit later…. Jeff finally manages to get a bit of a word in. He has to jump in at one point when Lee starts actually redefining on the spot what his book is about… Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, III’

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, II

Published
by
Clifford
on October 5, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 18 Comments

I just heard* that at 9:00pm Chicago time, there will be a discussion between Lee Smolin and Jeff Harvey, presumably about string theory, and you can listen to it live on radio station WGN, here.

Thinks:

  • I wonder if it will be as utterly content-free and pointless as the one that took place between Lee Smolin and Brian Greene on Science Friday some weeks back? That one was so annoying in places that I never finished the blog post I was writing about it. It was mostly of the following structure (I paraphrase):

    Lee says wise and learned things like “there should be a diversity of effort in approaching problems in fundamental physics”.

    The host, Ira Flatow, turns to Brian (on telephone link) and says “what do you think of that, Brian Greene?”

    Brian says, “Yes, I agree. I have several students working on things outside of string theory.”

    …thus blowing a bit of a hole in the claim that string theory is this cult/monolith that somehow blinds us all to other great ideas.

  • I wonder if Lee will bring out what I consider to be one of the most ridiculous Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, II’

SEA On Colbert Report

Published
by
Clifford
on October 3, 2006
in entertainment, science, science and society, science education and science in the media
. 1 Comment

Believe it or not, the SEA (Scientists and Engineers for America), about which I blogged recently, was on the Colbert Report last night! Video here.

SEA on Colbert Report

What a way to bring global attention to a new organisation about science!

-cvj

(Via SEA’s blog.)

Looking for a SEA Change?

Published
by
Clifford
on October 1, 2006
in energy, energy policy, environment, politics, science and society, science education and science in the media
. 13 Comments

SEA BannerI’ve previously mentioned examples of the manipulation or suppression of scientific information by organisations such as the Bush Administration. See for example a recent post on hurricanes and global warming. Various scientists have made it their business to speak out against these types of wrongs, either as individuals in the line of fire, as individuals noticing it in the news and blogging about it to as many as care to read, and as part of organisations here and abroad.

Well I’d like to point out a new organisation I heard about* called “Scientists and Engineers for America”, and I am pleased to share with you that their website says:

…a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.

America needs your help. Will you join us?

(Personally, I don’t see why it is necessary to be so America-centric about it, but there you have it. It’s their choice, of course.) Their Bill of Rights is linked here. Here are the points they list: Continue reading ‘Looking for a SEA Change?’

Hamiltonian Support

Published
by
Clifford
on September 27, 2006
in mathematics and science in the media
. 6 Comments

In the continued public discussion of the treatment of Yau’s reputation by the New Yorker article (by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber), to which I earlier referred (see here, and see the post about Yau’s response here), there has been a recent significant development. I don’t mean the press conference of last week, held by Yau’s entourage (…did anyone see that? I could not log on… there is archived video avaialble here. I still can’t view it…reports are welcome).

No, I’m talking about the public letter attributed to Richard Hamilton, the mathematician at Columbia University who is another major player in the story of proving the Poincare conjecture. He does a great job of supporting Yau, and setting the record straight about his numerous contributions to the field in general, and to the proof of the Poincare conjecture in particular. You can see the whole letter here.

It starts:

I am very disturbed by the unfair manner in which Yau Shing-Tung has been portrayed in the New Yorker article.

and there are detailed descriptions of Yau’s early recognition of the importance of Hamilton’s Ricci flow technique, ending in:

Without Yau’s guidance and support at this early stage, there would have been no Ricci Flow program for Perelman to finish.

He then goes on to describe Yau’s contributions to the field through his encouragement and support of several young researchers in the Ricci flow program, and other key work that he and Yau did in the area, in addition to other key Continue reading ‘Hamiltonian Support’

Yau Fights Back?

Published
by
Clifford
on September 18, 2006
in academia, mathematics and science in the media
. 26 Comments

Well… yikes! Remember my article on the New Yorker piece on the Fields Medal, the Poincare Conjecture, and the mathematicians Perelman and Yau? Remember that I said:

I cannot comment upon whether the hero of the story (Grigory Perelman) is as heroic as painted, or whether the villian of the piece (Shing-Tung Yau) is really as villainous. The anecdotes that are used to do the painting may well be able to be supplemented by other anecdotes that tell another story, as is sometimes the case. I simply don’t know.

Well, it seems that Yau is quite sure that it is not going to stop there. There was a letter sent to the New Yorker and the authors of the article (apparently) on his behalf by legal counsel. It is discussed and can be found on a web page under Yau’s name. The page is in the form of a press release, and I quote:
Continue reading ‘Yau Fights Back?’

Nerdium Perpetuus

Published
by
Clifford
on September 11, 2006
in entertainment, science in drama and science in the media
. 8 Comments

In view of the discussion here and here, I feel I ought to remind readers of an earlier post entitled “The Rise of the Nerd” I wrote on the subject of nerds, geeks, the terminology, and the media portrayals. Somewhere in there is a serious point, which keeps getting missed in all of this jolly fun:

(1) Nerdiness is in decline, you would think, since everybody ends up being a nerd (by at least one main popular definition) after a while by adopting their practices (the fact that you are reading this or any blog is just one of myriad examples).

(2) Nerdiness will likely continue forever, though (at least for a very long time), because -frankly- people feel threatened by, inferior to, and are afraid of people who have technical knowledge, especially (but not only) in the scientific realm. The response is to paint them as outsiders, to marginalise them, undermining the perceived threat. This, sadly, will continue for a while. The process is to continually redefine what is the province of the nerd, and what is not. So while, for example, it is no longer nerdy to blog (or even know about blogs), it is still nerdy to, let’s say, know how to significantly change the appearance of your blog, or know about technorati tags. That will continue…. until everybody learns how easy those things are. Etc, etc.

A big extract from my earlier post:

For years, action movies stuck to a very specific division of labour. Your action hero did the “action” stuff…you know, shooting and hitting and the getting of the girl (yes, the action hero was most often male). Meanwhile, from time to time there would be a point in the plot where some technical knowledge was needed. Then the socially awkward technical person (Geek, Nerd, whatever) would be on the set for a while, and they would hack into the computer, make the modifications to the car, shut down the reactor, etc.

Then several years ago things began to change. Did you notice it? Action heroes began to start learning our skills the skills of the nerd. It became ok - cool even- for the muscle-bound hero to know some technical stuff! I remember one key movie that for me at least represented the high-visibility turning point. It was the 1996 movie “Eraser”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the time he was sort of the CEO of Action Heroes, Inc, right? There’s some scene in which he’s fresh from shooting up everything in sight, with a cannon on each arm, etc, etc, and then at a climatic moment (I forgot the plot details which led to this), he sits down at a computer to do some crucial task or other! [ ... ]

And here’s the point: Continue reading ‘Nerdium Perpetuus’

Epic Struggles in Mathematics

Published
by
Clifford
on September 9, 2006
in mathematics and science in the media
. 9 Comments

fields medal frontI have this problem: I don’t really have enough hours in each day. One of the symptoms of this problem is a huge pile of unread or partially read issues of the New Yorker. Sometimes I try to catch up. This catching up is incomplete, of course, and sometimes I miss articles of direct relevance to my field. Sometimes I miss them even when they are in an issue I skimmed through, promising to read later more thoroughly. This time, I missed the August 28th article called “Manifold Destiny” (by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber), about the quest of some mathematicians to understand the Poincare conjecture. The subtitle of the article in the table of contents is “Who really solved the Poincare conjecture?”. The story starts out with a report on a talk at the Strings 2006 conference in Beijing.

[Update: After reading the below, do read this post about the letter (apparently from Yau's lawyer) about the issue. His being painted in the role of villain may have been rather over the top, and the writers may have not behaved very well at all... so the word "masterpiece" I used below may well be totally wrong. I'm so glad that I wrote the cautionary remarks at the end now.]

As a piece of writing for the non-mathematician’s consumption, it is another New Yorker masterpiece. It is of course several pages long, and so there’s plenty of meat Continue reading ‘Epic Struggles in Mathematics’

Very Superstitious, Ladders ’bout To Fall

Published
by
Clifford
on September 6, 2006
in science and science in the media
. 4 Comments

Apparently, we are hard-wired for superstition and religion. This is according to Bruce Hood, of Bristol University, in the UK. I learned this from an article in the Guardian by James Randerson, which you can read here. The good professor:

suggests that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force.

He goes on to say (in a speech at the British Association Festival of Science in Norwich, or, more probably the press conference after his session):

“I think it is pointless to think that we can get people to abandon their belief systems because they are operating at such a fundamental level,” …. “No amount of rational evidence is going to be taken on board to get people to abandon those ideas.”

And what is being called “irrational”, by the way? Another quote:

But almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious.

“For example, many people would be reluctant to part with a wedding ring for an identical ring because of the personal significance it holds.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see why that is irrational. Since when is preferring objects of emotional significance actually irrational? All this seems to do is reinforce for the reader the stereotype that scientists regard emotions as “illogical”. This is of course utter crap, if you’ll pardon my French.

“No amount of rational evidence…” Really? I actually have found that there are a lot of things that people are willing to abandon as “irrational beliefs” if you take the time to Continue reading ‘Very Superstitious, Ladders ’bout To Fall’

The Cosmic Hunters

Published
by
Clifford
on September 6, 2006
in astronomy, science and science in the media
. 1 Comment

nasa's hubbleThe BBC’s Radio 4 starts a new programme about astronomy tonight. Called “The Cosmic Hunters”, it sounds as though it will be rather good, so do tune in. It will be on Wednesdays at 9:00pm. It will be discussing various areas of recent research, using some of the optical telescopes that we’ve come to know and love (like the Hubble) and will also talk about future telescopes, such as the Webb.

There’s a little article written by the presenter, Chris Riley, here. It is as a sort of preview of the radio show in which he talks about the search for extrasolar planets and the hunt for the oldest galaxies, among other things. Of course, if you don’t get a chance to hear the broadcast, you can always go to the programme’s website to hear archived programs (for a short period).

-cvj

Spinach Blogging

Published
by
Clifford
on August 24, 2006
in astronomy, dark matter, planets, science, science education and science in the media
. 8 Comments

I learned a new term from a producer at a television studio the other day (in a context I do not know if I’m allowed to blog about yet): “Spinach TV”. I love it. This is a term expressing the idea of television programming that is supposed to be “good for you” since it is educational in some way. Some of us are doing this sort of thing in the blogging world, for better or worse. See my about page.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer some words about this week’s science coverage of the two big Astronomy/Astrophysics stories. I’ve heard the issue raised a number of times today (including by my colleague Sean over on CV) that it is somehow to be thought of as a bad thing that there’s more coverage in the press of the Pluto demotion than there is of the new results giving new direct evidence of Dark Matter. The former is supposed to be all about the politics of science while the latter is supposed to be covered more since it is a profound new result.

With all due respect to my friends and colleagues who have expressed that opinion, I would say that such a view is somewhat short-sighted and has more than a whiff of elitism about it. They’re just missing the big picture. I completely agree that the Dark Matter result is vastly more important new science than the simple fact of Pluto’s demotion, but from the perspective of science education, the value of the Pluto coverage is immensely important, and maybe at least as important as the Dark Matter coverage. I can think of several reasons, and here are some:

Continue reading ‘Spinach Blogging’

Bleep Bleep Yet Again

Published
by
Clifford
on August 24, 2006
in science education and science in the media
. 8 Comments

If, like I am, you’re tired of people getting ensnared by the nonsense in the “What the Bleep…” movie, and asking you to explain it….(I scared myself just now by looking at the technorati tags for and …yikes)… please please help out Jennifer Saylor, a blogger who is a freelance writer with a passion for science. She wrote a post about the movie recently, which you can read here. She let me (and my colleagues over on CV) know about it, and -more importantly- let us know that she’d like to do something more than just blog about it expressing her annoyance. Let me reproduce some of her email:

Continue reading ‘Bleep Bleep Yet Again’

More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, I

Published
by
Clifford
on August 21, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 4 Comments

Aaron Bergman has written an extensive review of Peter Woit’s attack-book on string theory. I’ll let you read the thoughtfully written 11-page pdf document linked there. I think that Aaron deserves some sort of medal or other award for making the effort. Peter responded here.

Note from the title that this post is part I of II. Part I was to be a quick rundown of my thoughts on the recent Science Friday program featuring a head-to-head between Brian Greene and Lee Smolin over string theory research. I never finished writing it. I’ll try again in a day or two, and make it part II of this.

You can pretty much tell from the title of this post what I’m going to say. This is all just mostly media-inflated nonsense, which will continue for some time. In case it is not obvious why, I’ll summarise my reasons for saying this (again) in that post.

Summer has ended for me. Tons of stuff to do during first day of semester tomorrow.

-cvj

(Spotted at Uncertain Principles.)

Talking Heads On Strings

Published
by
Clifford
on August 15, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 2 Comments

Well, I had the “Aspen Physics Preview” interview for the station called “Grassroots TV” this afternoon. It was a pleasant chat with host Sy Coleman about aspects of research into fundamental physics and string theory. I don’t have a good sense of what it was like since I was focusing on answering questions, but I do believe that I was able to get across some of the key ideas that I mentioned earlier, although we ran out of time before we got into the details of the Landscape “controversy”, but it was mentioned as a sort of teaser for the main talk. We just talked for 27 minutes non-stop, and it will be broadcast as recorded -unedited- warts and all.

My main mission in a lot of this discussion is to point out that:

Continue reading ‘Talking Heads On Strings’

Punch and Judy Science Coverage

Published
by
Clifford
on July 30, 2006
in science, science in the media and string theory
. 3 Comments

Punch and Judy

(Since I took the image from their site, and since they are making available lovely examples of the traditional puppets, I’ll make sure you can link to the punch and judy company I found.)

There is a style of coverage of issues which the media in the UK uses a lot, which is really loved by the viewers and listeners. I think it has to do with the tradition of Punch and Judy, which is deeply ingrained into the psyche of a child growing up in the UK. Basically, there’s a fair amount of conflict between two puppets -Punch and Judy- (sometimes coming down to beatings with a bat or truncheon, and yelling of “oh yes it is!” vs “oh no it isn’t!”) and the kids and adults sit and watch this and have a good laugh. Occasionally there are other traditional characters, like the crocodile, and the policeman, but it’s basically just an entertaining conflict between two traditional puppets with funny voices done by the person behind the screen.

Often, it is a lot of fun, actually.

What the BBC’s Radio 4 (especially) likes to do, is use this formula to sustain the listenership of their morning show called “Today”. Basically, a huge percentage of the population all listens to this show every morning. It is a pretty excellent source of news and current affairs that you listen to as you get ready for the day, and/or on your way to work/school/etc. There’s a bit of chatter in the studio, and a lot of reports from around the country and the world on various things, sent in by journalists.

At certain points in the programme, they have the Punch and Judy format. The primary one is the big interview just after 8:00am. These are most enjoyed when they have someone like the journalist John Humphrys to do the interview with some senior politician of the day. This is basically a blood sport that is appreciated by one and all, which has a useful primary output: You get real information about political positions, the unvarnished story behing matters of policy, etc., as a result of a skilled interviewer breaking past the fascade. Actual political decisions at the highest levels have been changed as a result of what has been brought out in such interviews. As an example of the style, see this post that I did about one example a while back.

When applied in certain other areas, the Punch and Judy style has serious shortcomings as a means of getting across real information. One constraint is that they are very mindful of appearing “unbalanced” and so oftentimes they will inappropriate put together two representatives to bring the argument for each “side” of the debate, producing a pairing which does no favours to either side, and ends up confusing or trivialising the issue in the name of, essentially, entertainment. (I’ve witnessed them use a popular comedian in a supposedly serious debate about an environmental issue, for example. Or pair a “research scientist” (male, of course) with a “worried mum” on a debate about immunization. I know what you’re thinking about this latter example: Seems like a reasonable choice of representatives, right? Not if the debate comes down to dryly digested facts and figures about trials and the history of immunization on the one hand, and “but will my Binky get autism?” on the other. Both valid concerns, but a useless set-piece debate to set up.)

One of those issues poorly served by this is science. It is not that the format fails in and of itself, but rather, the editors of the programme often simply give up on trying to do a good job of getting across good science information in favour of having a good Continue reading ‘Punch and Judy Science Coverage’