Science communication links
The need for science communication:
Stephen Curry, writing at The Guardian
Even so, I think we need to work on our relationship. Approval ratings may be high and over two-thirds of you may also be happy to leave it to the ‘experts’ to advise the government on science, but a similar proportion still believe that scientists don’t try hard enough to listen to what ordinary people think or to inform them about their work.
Robert Finn, writing at Scientific American
The journalist reached out to Dr. A and also to two other researchers (Drs. X and Y), who work in related fields, to get independent comment. Boy oh boy did Dr. X and Dr. Y comment, and those comments surely were independent, which is what any journalist wants. But in the same emails in which they eviscerated the study they also insisted that their comments remain off the record.
…
Because our sources said that their comments were off the record, we couldn’t use them in any way, and I can’t quote them here, not even anonymously. At this writing, the journalist has been unsuccessful in finding sources willing to offer on-the-record comments or criticisms of the study.
And, for some promising news, there is a new science column in the ChCh Press, that gives brief summaries of science stories over the week. It’s written by Sarah-Jane O’Connor, who is both a scientist with a PhD in Ecology and a journalist.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »