tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post2958576229176591504..comments2023-09-28T08:13:11.489-07:00Comments on Only In It For The Gold: "Bad Media Advice"Michael Tobishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-46194048517522157142011-03-08T05:17:51.441-08:002011-03-08T05:17:51.441-08:00Not the first to say so:
http://scienceblogs.com/...Not the first to say so:<br /><br />http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/02/zero_tolerance_for_pseudo-scie.phpMartin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-88187003148615926492011-03-07T15:18:33.279-08:002011-03-07T15:18:33.279-08:00Identifying and communicating a set of problems is...Identifying and communicating a set of problems is my interest. I am relatively unideological about how to handle it.<br /><br />Most scientists, myself among them, are happy to accept nuclear power as part of the mix; most environmentalists are not. <br /><br />Advocating reason and numeracy in public policy is not the same as having a policy agenda. These are distinct objectives. <br /><br />I prefer when people actually take account of the evidence, whether they are "green" or not.<br /><br />I myself an an unabashed liberal and globalist of the Pierre Trudeau school, and I understand what you are complaining about. I hate that people have made a dirty word of "liberal".<br /><br />I am just trying to make the point that the interests of climate science (and climate science driven advocacy) are not identical with the interests of environmentalists.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-54642720909441312992011-03-07T15:10:30.767-08:002011-03-07T15:10:30.767-08:00Mr Tobis,
Why do you feel compelled to proclaim: ...Mr Tobis,<br /><br />Why do you feel compelled to proclaim: "Dude, first of all, we are not "environmentalists". (bold and italics not reproduced.)<br /><br />Correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to be deflecting an otherwise neutral title/description only made unacceptable by the immense disinformation machine you are trying to determine how to combat.<br /><br />Again, if I'm correct, I'd say start by refusing to cringe when they say "cringe."<br /><br />John PumaJohnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12479974040070719985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-20497910891345219982011-03-05T23:52:01.172-08:002011-03-05T23:52:01.172-08:00Another interesting data point is Glenn Beck recen...Another interesting data point is Glenn Beck recently apologizing (being _made_ to apologize) for comparing a group (of which I know next to nothing, but who appear to be decent people and good citizens) of Jews to al-Qaeda.<br /><br />Same Beck has made similarly outrageous statements about climate scientists, and never apologized.<br /><br />Folks that can make Glenn Beck apologize, are worth chatting up to, don't you think? They offer _proof of principle_: it can be done. Stop despairing, start finding out how.Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-42796094014339825452011-03-05T23:47:51.946-08:002011-03-05T23:47:51.946-08:00Figures. It all being so easy to wire, why not wir...<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/05/952830/-Paid-callers-for-RW-radio-means-free-speech-is-a-joke" rel="nofollow">Figures</a>. It all being so easy to wire, why not wire it?<br /><br />Of course a willing audience is still a requirement.Steve Bloomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12943109973917998380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-22927364246002992162011-03-05T12:42:33.403-08:002011-03-05T12:42:33.403-08:00Michael, let me add still that at this point, one ...Michael, let me add still that at this point, one (1) climatologist is suing for libel, a Canadian; and one (1) climatology blogger is bringing, in his free time, an academic fraudster to justice, also a Canadian. Nobody (0) is organizing an advertisers' boycott against the Wall Street Journal -- or any other paper giving comfort to the enemy, like the Australian or the Daily Telegraph, among many others.<br /><br />There's a lot of monetary resources you can add into this picture before something else places itself on the critical path.Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-20693407994408755362011-03-05T11:48:06.073-08:002011-03-05T11:48:06.073-08:00Michael, hire the best people. They exist, you jus...Michael, hire the best people. They exist, you just have to find them. _Not_ scientists, that much I know. Top lawyers. Top lobbyists. Top communication strategists (_not_ communicators!). That's how you start. Note that money isn't the lacking resource: people is another. You need to form a network of knowledgable, motivated citizens throughout society that you can call upon, and that are positioned to do the leveraging of consumer or advertising revenue. I didn't claim it would be easy or quick...<br /><br />...and, as anti-intellectualism and antisemitism have a thing or two in common, you could do a lot worse than chat up with some folks at AIPAC or the Anti-Defamation League :-)Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-64469843962762533452011-03-05T07:44:16.631-08:002011-03-05T07:44:16.631-08:00Martin, when people blame resource constraints I g...Martin, when people blame resource constraints I generally propose a gendanken experiment. <br /><br />Suppose that the resource constraint were lifted: Somebody (Boone Pickens, George Soros, Al Gore's foundation, Steve Jobs, Leonardo diCaprio, whoever) offered you a billion dollars, no strings attached, to attempt to achieve your goal of making mendacity in climate issues socially unacceptable. How then would you proceed?Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-54082950604392506642011-03-05T06:28:51.337-08:002011-03-05T06:28:51.337-08:00Michael, Frank is referring to almost (though not ...Michael, Frank is referring to almost (though not exactly precisely) the same thing. And certainly to the same attitude.<br /><br />Instead of answering directly, I'll answer with an example. There is this little booklet originating over a century ago called 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', of which you may have heard. You could try to buy it from an American bookshop, and you would fail. You could try to find it advertised in any American paper or magazine or other mainstream media product, and you would come up empty. That in a country calling itself, mostly deservedly, the home of free speech. Why? Think about it.<br /><br />We have to work to create a similar situation for climate lies. Yes, the usual suspects will still continue telling them, but mainstream journalism won't offer them a forum: the price for them would be too high.<br /><br />How to create that price tag is the interesting question, and not easy. Without generous resourcing, likely impossible.Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-8189885479813470602011-03-04T19:04:08.351-08:002011-03-04T19:04:08.351-08:00So far I haven't enjoyed this century very muc...So far I haven't enjoyed this century very much and the situation doesn't appear to have a positive slope; the opposite in fact.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-90144886166655454212011-03-04T12:03:01.628-08:002011-03-04T12:03:01.628-08:00MT, I think the crux of the problem isn't PR, ...MT, I think <a href="http://ijish.livejournal.com/33527.html" rel="nofollow">the crux of the problem isn't PR, but rather it's the rule of law</a>.<br /><br />-- <a href="http://climategate.tk/" rel="nofollow">frank</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-31345882663859643642011-03-04T12:00:56.343-08:002011-03-04T12:00:56.343-08:00Moe, with all due respect and gratitude for your p...Moe, with all due respect and gratitude for your participation, the swipe at people who aren't present is only likely to bring them around, don't you think? If they do show up, the person who derailed the topic would be you, not them...<br /><br />Otherwise, yes, we are at a disadvantage in the short game, and mustn't be distracted by it. <br /><br />It's the long game we must win, and that's not just convincing everybody that we are discussing real problems, but also that there are real costs we should incur sooner rather than later.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-3328610533528812882011-03-04T11:50:08.810-08:002011-03-04T11:50:08.810-08:00Martin Vermeer's post is very good.
"We ...Martin Vermeer's post is very good.<br /><br />"We have won the argument, resoundingly; only, the losing party hasn't conceded, and the public never noticed..."<br /><br />"What we should be doing is<br />putting a price on mendacity..."<br /><br />I think the answer to MT's reply is that "putting a price on mendacity" starts off, at first, as very personal and very localized. How could it be otherwise?<br /><br />Moving forward, beyond the very personal and very localized, "putting a price on mendacity" will be enabled by social structures for honest workers where the price of admission is honoring the truth and honoring the moral responsibility - arguments and persuasion about these fundamental "first day of kindergarten" type of things is best left elsewhere.<br /><br />[Notice here, in this thread, the progress made in developing thoughts, enabled by the absence of Fuller and Kloor and other concern trolls.]<br /><br />I am glad, even acknowledging the very low probability of success when implementing honest forms of communication, that MT hasn't entertained cheap techniques of persuasion.<br /><br />Dishonest communication and "framing": maybe deceptively quicker in the very short term, but fatal in the long term, because you have thrown away exactly what you claim to hold dear.manuel moe ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04878149837118503541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-14815262062627561052011-03-04T11:06:10.512-08:002011-03-04T11:06:10.512-08:00"What we should be doing is
putting a price o..."What we should be doing is<br />putting a price on mendacity; this requires resources, leverage and discipline"<br /><br />A very elegant suggestion of which I wholeheartedly approve. <br /><br />Any recommendations as to how to begin?Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-79602626216913678582011-03-04T10:02:20.859-08:002011-03-04T10:02:20.859-08:00I think that the focus on argumentation is misplac...I think that the focus on argumentation is misplaced. Yes, I know that's what scientists do; but it's the hammer calling everything a nail.<br /><br />In fact, we have won the argument, resoundingly; only, the losing party hasn't conceded, and the public never noticed :-(<br /><br />It's not about arguments but about interests. What we should be doing is<br />putting a price on mendacity; this requires resources, leverage and discipline. In a society like the American one with profit-based media it works by denying advertising revenue; or by denying sales revenue from advertisers that don't listen. E.g., ethic pressure groups do this quite successfully, giving them<br />leverage way in excess of their numbers.<br /><br />(There are other ways of doing this: I like what DeepClimate is doing with<br />Wegman, as either Wegman, or -- as it looks more and more, George Mason<br />University -- will end up paying a price. I like that: if you cannot outlaw it, tax it :-) )<br /><br />Truth doesn't come into it, except in being the glue of our community; we<br />shouldn't be arguing, we should be sculpting the reward landscape on which<br />free speech lives. A landscape already heavily sculpted by vested interests. Was it Nixon who said: grab them by the balls, and their hearts<br />and minds will follow?Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-78271184035592127792011-03-04T05:02:26.125-08:002011-03-04T05:02:26.125-08:00Olson had a good reputation for his film on evolut...Olson had a good reputation for his film on evolution/ creationism stuff a few years ago. <br />The problem that i see is that scientists are damned if they say things with certainty and damned if they don't say things with certainty. There are situations where it works, and where it doesn't work, and ideally I suppose the pr people would be able to tell which, and be able to articulate proper responses when denialists take, say, blog posts as being statements of scientific position, or a page in a textbook as somehow representing the IPCC. <br /><br />Nisbet appears totally clueless when it actually comes to communicating, see his spats with P Z Myers.guthriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17992984293423290387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-80978919431177523172011-03-04T04:09:42.533-08:002011-03-04T04:09:42.533-08:00What we really need are resources. The reason we&#...What we really need are resources. The reason we're not managing is simply the vast resource disparity. Sad but true, in this sense justice can be bought.<br /><br />I'm dreaming of a world in which a scientist can write an email, or anything, without having to think how it will look on the Internet after having been professionally distorted and misrepresented. And where a journalist can write something for publication while ignoring the distorters and misrepresenters, without even having to think about it.Martin Vermeerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04537045395760606324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-3244478774250754582011-03-04T03:29:43.352-08:002011-03-04T03:29:43.352-08:00Hearing you have some wildfires about. What do you...Hearing you have some wildfires about. What do you think, with the rising solar activity, what does this mean for any rains coming your way (if any?)? 800 square km of burnt ground is starting to sound quite large. Is there a possibility of a repetition of conditions during the 'dust bowl'?Oalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14032383453035968859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-74618543594298786682011-03-04T02:45:39.041-08:002011-03-04T02:45:39.041-08:00Brilliant post. But why do we constantly bang on a...Brilliant post. But why do we constantly bang on about uncertainty when the key issue is risk - and how we handle the risk? And how do we communicate risk?IAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00874083083899737494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-88242697693602211322011-03-04T01:50:35.135-08:002011-03-04T01:50:35.135-08:00Here's another contributing factor, why GWB wa...Here's another contributing factor, why GWB was reelected.<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-44811175486929563862011-03-04T01:39:57.263-08:002011-03-04T01:39:57.263-08:00I think the dark side of PR is more important than...I think the dark side of PR is more important than the side of PR that you are describing.<br /><br />Swiftboating is easier by far than being productive and honest. A swiftboat needs to deliver one hit only that can be spun to the public to <i>look</i> damaging. Heck, a hit with a gotcha marker on a battle ship can be painted as fatal by a skilled spin doctor. If that fails, send another. And another. And another. And another. And ....<br /><br />I'd say, not W. happened, but Rove et. al. happened. It's negative PR that brought us into this mess, IMHO. And as you noted, unlike other folks lying is not an option for real scientists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-12194055442255268462011-03-04T01:36:36.432-08:002011-03-04T01:36:36.432-08:00Swiftboating is easier by far than being productiv...Swiftboating is easier by far than being productive and honest. A swiftboat needs to deliver one hit only that can be spun to the public to <i>look</i> damaging. Heck, a hit with a gotcha marker on a battle ship can be painted as fatal by a skilled spin doctor. If that fails, send another. And another. And another. And another. And ....<br /><br />I'd say, not W. happened, but Rove et. al. happened. It's negative PR that brought us into this mess, IMHO. And as you noted, lying is not an option for scientists, unlike other folks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-46878761813195079152011-03-04T01:35:55.038-08:002011-03-04T01:35:55.038-08:00I think it boils down to two questions:
1) Is som...I think it boils down to two questions:<br /><br />1) Is someone who knows what they're talking about who has also learned how to be good at PR going to be more persuasive than someone who is blowing smoke who has also learned to be good at PR?<br />2) Is there a style of communication where those who have learned that style and know what they're talking about have an advantage over others who have learned that style?<br /><br />I don't think there is necessarily one inherently superior, most persuasive style of communication. Cultures change, right now we glorify PR/marketing more than we should, and getting everyone to speak that way only reinforces the cultural attitudes. But if there is a less truth-neutral style, then people can learn to be suspicious of slick PR types and more trusting of people who speak like people who know what they're talking about.<br /><br />The overreliance on PR bugs me too, though. I'm amazed at how much TV news turns to political advisers for commentary -- whether Karl Rove or James Carville, I just never understood why they get TV time. I get what must be going through booker's heads -- these guys teach politicians to state their views in soundbytes, but why not get the soundbytes straight from the source from the people who are best at giving them? Because I have no reason to care. When I get soundbytes from politicians, I at least have reason to believe that those politicians might believe and act on those views, which is useful information. It isn't useful to know what James Carville would do if he were a Senator, even if he has a better command on the issues than anyone he advises. Interview politicians because we need to know where they stand, and interview subject matter experts because it might better inform us on where to stand, and let the political advisers stick to coaching the politicians.<br /><br /> - Eric LAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-57527792933293985702011-03-04T01:11:40.127-08:002011-03-04T01:11:40.127-08:00Here's Feynman on the 'terrible uncomforta...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lytxafTXg6c" rel="nofollow">Here's Feynman on</a> the 'terrible uncomfortable feeling called confusion'. And <a href="http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/11/1771" rel="nofollow">here's a great little paper</a> on 'the importance of stupidity in scientific research' - "actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid."Dolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17110810881843699172noreply@blogger.com