science communication

Taking the bait, chopping up tankers, the calamari comeback, and some #scicomm advice– What’s up with the Ocean this week?

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

August 26, 2020

Don’t take the bait. Baiting fish for the sake of tourists has always engendered a fair bit of criticism. New research out of the Cook Islands demonstrates that frequent baiting at popular snorkeling sites alters fish behavior and causes harm to the reef ecosystem. Just don’t do it.

Etat-major des Armees/EPAhandout

More trouble in Mauritius. The government of Mauritius has begun the process of scuttling the bulk carrier that ran aground and spilled thousands of gallons of fuel oil in one of the worst environmental disasters for this small island nation. Though the cleanup is underway, the impacts will be felt for generations. Local reports are already showing a 5-fold increase in the level of arsenic found in fish near the wreck site.

All hail the Calamari Comeback State. Why is Rhode Island the Calamari Comeback state? Climate change and overfishing. Squid are moving north into Rhode Island’s waters and all their other major seafood products are becoming increasingly depleted due to overfishing and environmental degradation. What a comeback!

Upwelling (the part where Andrew gets on his soapbox)

Last week on Twitter I did a little a little briefing on competence laundering and how science communication can lend credibility to un-credible individuals by over-analyzing inane statements. Edited and reprinted below.

Sometimes, the current POTUS will go off on a weird nonsense ramble about a topic your have expertise in. There is a huge, natural desire to contextualize those statements and find the nuggets of reality in them.

This is competence laundering.

I’m guilty of it too. It’s so hard to resist talking about the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act when the President says we should buy Greenland. I was more vigilant during yesterday’s shark nonsense. Trying to contextualize what he’s really talking about is to ascribe a level of understanding to a topic that he clearly does not have.

Maybe he saw a thing about great whites on Fox News. Maybe he got a briefing about seal and salmon conflict in the Pacific Northwest. Or maybe he saw the Shark Week Mike Tyson Special and can’t tell the difference between the heavyweight champion of the world and the man who sung Kiss from a Rose because he’s an unrepentant racist.

You don’t know which it is. Trying to contextualize the inane ramblings of an incurious man does nothing but obscure the profound incompetence. It’s competence laundering. We don’t have to be complicit. The answer to what the heck he was talking about [last week] is “I don’t know and he doesn’t either.”

SciComm Infuses Science with Soul

Posted on by Michelle Jewell

Every scientist I work with spends most of the day communicating, whether that’s preparing grants, manuscripts, theses, outreach talks, emails to colleagues/students… the list goes on.  However, most of these outlets share fairly strict formatting rules. Grants comes with pages of guidelines. Talks have defined who I am, what I did, found, next, thank you slide.  While this sterile approach is arguably fundamental to science’s critical tenant of replication, it makes for terrible communication.

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OceansOnline is now accepting abstracts! Lead a discussion, teach a skill, and join us!

Posted on by David Shiffman

OceansOnline is now accepting abstracts! OceansOnline is an optional one-day add-on to the International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC5).This year’s IMCC (including OceansOnline) will take place in Kuching, Malaysia. IMCC5 is June 22-29th, 2018 with OceansOnline on the 2018.

OceansOnline focuses on using online tools for marine science and conservation, including advocacy, public education, research, and collaboration! Anyone is welcome, including scientists, conservation advocates, educators, natural resource managers, journalists, and communicators. OceansOnline content is suitable for beginners or professionals.

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Ocean Outreach in an Evolving Online Ecosystem: Transforming the Narrative

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

This is the transcript of the keynote I delivered at the Fourth International Marine Conservation Congress in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It has been lightly modified for flow.

Read Act I: Science is Storytelling. 

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In Act I I discussed the underlying structure that frames narrative storytelling, but now I want to talk about how we can use the tools available to us on the internet to transform that narrative into something even more potent.

But before we can do that I have to tilt at some windmills.

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When we talk about good outreach, we often look to people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, like Bill Nye, like David Attenborough, and like Carl Sagan. These are the paragons of scientific outreach, the icons that we often hold up as examples for what constitutes good outreach. We talk about things like Cosmos, both Sagan’s and deGrasse Tyson’s, Bill Nye the Science Guy and his more recent work combating climate change, or David Attenborough and his astounding Nature Documentaries. Read More

Ocean Outreach in an Evolving Online Ecosystem: Science is Storytelling

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

This is the transcript of the keynote I delivered at the Fourth International Marine Conservation Congress in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It has been lightly modified for flow. 

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Good morning and thank you all for coming, especially this early after a long week of conferencing. What I want to do today is talk a little bit about the history of online outreach, talk about how to build effective outreach campaigns, and look towards the future to think about how new technologies are shaping and reshaping the ways in which we think about public engagement with science and conservation.

Picture3So science is storytelling. Sometimes that story an adventure. Sometimes it’s a mystery. Sometimes it’s the dense and weighty exposition of Ulysses and sometimes it’s the absurdity of Finnegan’s Wake, but it is always a story. Read More

The Importance of Scientific Discovery and Communication for a General Science Audience

Posted on by Kersey Sturdivant

The impetus for this piece was an essay I wrote for iBiology a year or so ago discussing the importance of scientific discovery for a a general science audience (i.e., our science peers who are not in our respective field). I was excited to write the piece because a lot of the Science FRIEDay articles I write focus on relatively recent scientific discoveries, and this article is more of an opinion piece. So why is scientific discovery important for an audience of science peers who do not explicitly work in our specific field?

It is easy to marvel at the wonders that exist on our planet and in the surrounding universe, the known discoveries. As a natural scientist, I also appreciate the beauty in the hidden mysteries of the natural world, those processes, behaviors, and functions that we have yet to elucidate. The notion and concept of scientific discovery is romanticized as a purist’s deed. Edwin Hubble said it best, “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls that adventure Science.” A scientist’s basal desire is to further the state of knowledge, but equally we crave information about the fields of knowledge that are expanding around us, of which we are not explicitly involved. We aspire to understand the “99%”, at the very least surficially. The importance of this desire explains why scientific conferences play a major role in our profession, and journals such as Science and Nature are so popular. Yes, we as scientist want to share our new discoveries, but we are also equally as intrigued about what others have accomplished; we want to know how science is progressing outside of our bubble, especially those really groundbreaking feats. These coupled characteristics are a necessary component of science. Hearing and learning about the work of others fuels one’s own scientific passions to go and do more, and can often challenge an individual to think more creatively about their own research ideas and approaches. To a general audience of our scientific peers, sharing scientific discovery temporarily satiates the yearning that scientists have about the progression of knowledge, but also can serve as motivation and inspiration.
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Ready, set, speak!  Tips for effectively communicating your science with public audiences

Posted on by Guest Writer

About the author – Dr. Allison Coffin is Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Washington State University Vancouver studying acoustic communication and hearing loss. Over the past 10 years she’s taught communication workshops to a variety of scientific and professional audiences and was the Audience Choice winner at the 2014 U.S. FameLab Finals, a science communication competition hosted by NASA and National Geographic.  She runs the science communication website communicatalyst.com and am a long-time member (junkie?) of Toastmasters International.

Why communicate your science?

You’re a scientist doing important and interesting work in conservation biology, right? You probably publish your research in reputable journals and give departmental seminars, but these reach a limited (and self-selected!) audience. Do you want your research to have a broader impact?  Head the call of recent editorials by Chris Parsons and Andrew Wright, and learn to advocate for your science – get out and communicate!

Between online forums, public scientific discussions such as Science Cafés, and interactions with the 24-hr media cycle, there are more venues than ever for us to communicate our science to lay audiences. However, being willing to communicate isn’t enough. To quote a recent JCom article by van der Wurff and colleagues, “Scientists…supposedly aim for a serious and scientific style in which complex matters are unraveled and accurately explained, remaining uncertainties acknowledged, and ideas not too quickly taken for granted.” Does this sound familiar?  For many scientists, our natural inclination (or perhaps, our training) makes it difficult to step out of this “information transfer” mode to connect with our audience.  At its heart, communication is about connection.  How can scientists connect with lay audiences, so that our message is both heard and received? This article is for all scientists who want to speak to the public, advocate for their science, and build their skills so that they can connect effectively.

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