Bringing values and deliberation to science communication

A PNAS paper by UVM/GIEE colleague Thomas Dietz, where he proposed to use public participation as a mode of science communication. 

Some excerpts from the great paper:

1. Good decision-making should be factually competent, value-competent and adaptive.
2. Adaptive risk management, sometimes called adaptive risk governance, is a response to the challenges of uncertainty we face.  The core idea is that decision should take explicit account of uncertainty, facilitate social learning, maintain some flexibility, and revisit the decision periodically.  The idea is appealing, but implementing it will require careful thought about  how to engage both uncertain facts and uncertain values, and how to learn as we move forward.
3.  It is useful to distinguished three types of expertise we need or making decisions under uncertainty:  scientific, community and political.  Community expertise is what most members of he public develop in their day-to-day lives.  It is also the expertise on what the public cares about: expertise about values.  Political expertise is not only in values, but in what might work and what might not, given the stance of other political actors and the capacities of local organizations and institutions.  We have to meld these forms of expertise into an alloy that is better at informing decisions than any one form of expertise would be acting alone. 
4. "Policy analysis tools, such as benefit–cost analysis, assume agreement both on the values we assign to decision outcomes and on the appropriate process for reconciling value differences to reach a decision. However, people may differ not only in what they value but in how they believe value differences should be resolved."
5. When we acknowledge value differences, we are also accepting that our differences are going to be more difficult to reconcile than if they were based solely on different beliefs about the facts.
6.  Policy relevant but not policy prescriptive!  science cannot tell us what we should care about: Science has no privilege with regard to values.
7.  Get the science right + Get the right science.  Dialogue with those who carry political and community expertise can help scientists understand the constraints on decision making, the local context to which scientific analysis must be applied, and the issues of concern to those who will influence a decision and those who will be affected by it.

One paper = 40 paragraphs = 20 hours of work

Thomas, the writing consultant who gave advices on how to structure the sections of introduction and conclusion, had a new post about the overall structure of a paper and the time we should spend on it.  According to him,

"Scholars demonstrate that they know something by writing articles; and knowledge, I usually say, is the ability to write a coherent prose paragraph in 27 minutes. An article consists of about 40 paragraphs, so the problem of writing an article—or at least the first draft of an article—is solved during 20 hours of work...As a rough estimate, I normally say that an article is 3 parts introduction, 2 parts conclusion, 5 parts background, 5 parts theory, 5 parts method, 15 parts analysis, and 5 parts implications."

He also emphasized the importance of knowing your reader by quoting Virginia Woolf's saying, "To know whom to write for is to know how to write."

I understand the importance of identifying readers, because I always ask who would be the audience before preparing my presentations. But I have a hard time imagining potential readers of my papers.  I do normally identify an ideal journal for a paper before I start writing it, and I also have pretty good ideas when being asked to suggest potential reviewers.  Is that good enough? 

P.S.  I actually left my question in the last paragraph on Thomas' blog, and he kindly replied as follows:

"Yes, your "reader" is certainly represented by your reviewers. If you can suggest potential reviewers by name, then you have a good basis for forming an image of your reader.

Your ideal journal, however, will often not tell you very much about your reader. Most journals are read by a wide range of readers, many of whom do not (are are not required to) take an interest in your work.

Your readership will normally frequent a range of journals and the important thing is to understand the community of scholarship that you are working within, again, not confined to any single journal.

One important thing your comment touches on is learning which journals (i.e., which editors) understand your paper well enough to send it to the right reviewers.

Paragraph for paragraph, however, you're writing, not for an editor, but for a reader. The reviewer represents your reader in the editor's decision."

How to structure the sections of introduction and conclusion of a paper

Below is the advice from a writing consultant and language editor.  It makes a lot of sense for me, but I am not sure his suggestion of writing each paragraphs in 27 minutes. 

" Introduction

1. Describe the current state of our world.
"We live in an age of increased global competition." It should not be that boring, but it should that sort of thing. You are here establishing a "common place" for you and your reader, a point of departure. You should say something that is interesting, and of course true, but not very controversial (or at least not in a way your reader will find controversial). It's what everyone who is familiar with this topic knows, even people who are not professional scholars.

2. Describe the current state of your field.
What is the overarching consensus or characteristic dispute (about the world you've just described) that defines research in your area? This is basically a short statement of your literature review or, better, a summary of your theory section. The paragraph should identify the key concepts in your analysis. It should re-describe the world of paragraph 1 in theoretical terms. This paragraph, that is, describes what the experts know about your topic.

3. Describe your paper.
"This paper shows that..." Feel free to use exactly those four words to begin this paragraph followed by a clear statement of your conclusion. Now, don't argue for the conclusion, but describe instead a paper that argues for it. You've already said what your theory is, so you don't need to say too much more about that for now. But do present your method. (Did you do interviews? If so, how many? With whom?) Summarize your results in one or two sentences, i.e., elaborate on the conclusion you've already stated. Also, summarize the theoretical or practical implications of your research in a sentence or two. What are you recommending? A reform of practices? A rethinking of concepts? New research? Let the reader know what your research implies for theirs.


Conclusion

4. State your conclusion.
This is the first paragraph of your conclusion. You can construct the key sentence here simply by removing the first four words ("This paper shows that...") from the key sentence of paragraph 3. Then support it. It offers you an opportunity to make the strongest possible argument, to the most well-informed reader you can imagine. Remember, this reader has just read—and presumably understood—your whole paper. State the results of your empirical analysis with authority (you've presumably earned it by now) and use theoretical terms without explaining their meaning (the reader gets it by now).

5. How does the world look now?
As a parting word to your reader, re-describe the world you presented in paragraph 1 in the light of your research results. It may be a world that calls for more research. It may be one that calls for new policies or managerial action. Whatever it is, it's a world that is now better understood than before we read your paper. The whole point of your paper was to make us smarter. The difference between paragraph 1 and paragraph 5 should subtly indicate the difference of outlook that this improvement implies. (If you read only paragraph 1 and 5 you wouldn't actually get smarter, but you'd get a sense of how much smarter you would get if you read your whole paper. They're like "before and after" pictures.)"

Communicate science in a brave new online world

A perspective piece in Today's Science talks about the challenges in communicating complex and sometimes controversial science in the online environments. 

1) Science journalism.   "Today, audiences turn more and more to blogs and other online-only media sources for information about specific scientific issues and much less to online versions of traditional news outlets. Almost half of Americans currently rely on nontraditional online sources, and only 12% turn to science news from online content provided by traditional print newspapers and magazines".

2) The effect of algorithms and/or audience metrics (such as how often an online story is “clicked on” (viewed), forwarded to others via email, or posted on social media).  "there are often clear discrepancies between what people search for online, which specific areas are suggested to them by search engines, and what people ultimately find. As a result, someone's initial question about a scientific topic, the search results offered by a search engine, and the algorithms that a search provider uses to tailor retrieved content to a search may all be linked in a self-reinforcing informational spiral in which search queries and the resulting Web traffic drive algorithms and vice versa".

3) The effect on how information and spreads among citizens.   E.g. "Exposure to uncivil comments (which included name calling and other non–content-specific expressions of incivility) polarized the views among proponents and opponents of the technology with respect to its potential risks. In other words, just the tone of the comments following balanced science stories in Web 2.0 environments can significantly alter how audiences think about the technology itself."

Prefer to be green than greedy?

Which of the following message will pomp you to check the pressure of your tyres? 

1) Want to protect the environment? Check your car’s tire pressure.
2) Want to save money? Check your car’s tire pressure.

A paper in Nature Climate Change found that an economic tyre-check appeal (the first one) elicited significantly less compliance than parallel biospheric one.  The authors argued that economic self-interest aside, people also care about maintaining a favorable image of themselves and may prefer to see themselves as green rather than greedy.

The implication of this study is that the dominant reliance on economic appeals to promote environmentally-friendly behaviors might not be so productive.  "Social marketers change behaviour may thus benefit from also considering another, basic source of human motivation: the need to maintain a favourable view of oneself".

I am not surprised by the results of the study.  The study was conducted in the Netherlands, a country with bike culture and 40% of people in Amsterdam ride their bike on a daily basis. 

Guide to citizen science

A UK report reviewed more than 230 citizen science projects and offered advice on how to develop, implement and evaluate them.

Why climate disasters might not increase concern about cimate change

A post by George Marshall, who founded Britain’s Climate Outreach and Information Network.  

His main argument was that "Disasters encourage powerful and compelling survival narratives (that can overwhelm weaker and more complex climate change narratives)."  Basically, at the time of crisis, people stick to their community and stick to what they have believed, and there might be no room for new messages.  

 

Climate change: communication and behavioral science

Two open-access libraries on research about climate communication and behavioral science,  The former is from a UK-based partnership called Talking Climate, and the latter is a product of Garrison Institute's Climate, Mind and Behavior Initiative. 

Climate models at their limit?

A Nature comment argued that we have to act even though the climate models IPCC is working on are likely to produce wider rather than smaller ranges of uncertainty in their predictions.

Lies, dam lies and water plans

The wicked problem of managing the MDB is in the national and international media again lately. 

In his recent "The conversation" article, professor Lin Crase commented,

"Now that this first phase has passed, the public will be treated to the traditional jousting between states and the federal government. Sifting through fact and fiction in this jurisdictional debate will be no easier than judging the fairly simplistic cases presented by irrigators and environmentalists over the past five years. What both debates share in common are a predilection to communicate with little reference to history, scant regard to the role of uncertainty and even less attention to the cost-effectiveness of choices (referring to "the renewed enthusiasm for spending taxpayers’ money on irrigation infrastructure")."

Another economist, John Quiggin also said the infrastructure investments, which appeared to be what the government locked in to, are the most expensive way of reducing water use in irrigation.  In addition, "The big problem lies with the proposal that, instead of continuing to buy water rights irrigators who are willing to sell their entitlements, future policy should focus on engineering works designed to save water. This policy is bad for farmers, bad for the environment and bad for the community in general...."  Also, "The release of the revised proposed basin plan for the Murray-Darling brings us one step closer to the end of one of the most disastrously misconceived and mismanaged policy processes in Australian history (more details).."

How Reliable Are the Social Sciences?

It was an opinion piece in NYT, the article itself is pretty boring but there are plenty of jewels in the 300+ comments.

Understaning uncertainty

A cool website with blogs, articles, videos and even animations about understanding uncertainty, produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. 

Four steps for risk communication

This is a figure from a classical paper published 20 years ago in Environmental Science & Technology. 

Scientists, Policymakers, and a Climate of Uncertainty

A paper in BisoScience asked can research gain a foothold in the politics of climate change.  Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs. 

In practically all of the heavyweight studies of climate change, including those in the National Academies quartet, the panelists assumed that the federal government is the logical leader in climate policymaking, if only because climate does not respect local boundaries (or international ones either). But there are scant signs of leadership from federal officials, and there is active opposition to any climate action (or even the notion that climate change exists) among some national legislators.


“It all depends on how you describe it,” she said. “If you are describing the problem as a water-availability issue—if we are going to face a major issue with water available for irrigation; for municipal, for our fish, the salmon—you get people to listen. If you talk about it as global warming, it's immediately, ‘go away’.  “It's kind of sad to not call it by what it is, but it's much easier to communicate with the public and with the policymaker if you put it in these terms.”

Visualising sustainability

A very cool website with over 280 figures related to different aspects of sustainability, and this is my favorite:


HT: T Hudspeth via GIEE list.