Search for "science communication"
Blogs, publics and controversies: climate change lectures in February
January 14, 2014
Time to unveil three four FIVE! exciting climate change lectures hosted by Making Science Public in February. Superb speakers examining different perspectives on one of the defining issues of modern public life. All are welcome to these lectures, all held on University Park campus. Thursday, February 6th: 1-2pm, Law & Social Sciences (West Wing), A100 Amelia Sharman …
Tools for thinking about an increasingly complex world
December 15, 2013
A few weeks ago I had to write a seminar talk about epigenetics in the media. In the course of investigating the historical background to that emerging discipline, I looked at Conrad Hal Waddington’s work on embryology and development and his creation of the metaphor ‘epigenetic landscape’. But this is not what this blog post …
Dark energy in Westminster
December 12, 2013
This is a guest blog by Dr Clare Burrage who works at the Particle Theory Group within the School of Physics and Astronomy. It complements the post by Professor Philip Moriarty that I cross-posted recently. Here is Clare’s story about her experience of Westminster: When I told friends and colleagues that I was going to …
Extreme weather talk: Making climate public?
June 19, 2013
This is yet another in a series of blog posts where I try to show how one can use publicly available data (newspaper databases or Google Insight for Search) to observe patterns and shifts in public attention to climate change. Other posts have dealt with some first reflections on extreme weather, Hurricane Sandy, alarmism, carbon …
Mitigation, adaptation, geoengineering: Patterns of discourse, patterns of mystery
June 5, 2013
This blog relates more to an ESRC project on climate change than to the Leverhulme project on climate change and scepticism, but I think there is a tangential link. As part of the ESRC project, we are interested in finding patterns in climate change communication and policy over time and across countries. In that context …
Debating empty chairs: creationism, climate and public engagement
May 17, 2013
This week, Making Science Public has been very proud to welcome US film director Jeff Tamblyn during his UK visit. On Wednesday we screened his amazing film, Kansas vs Darwin, a documentary charting the attempts by members of the Kansas School Board to introduce creationism and intelligent design into high school science teaching. The film …
Public understanding of climate change: The deficit fallacy
April 7, 2013
At the end of February the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee launched an inquiry into public understanding of climate change and its implications for policy. The STSC asks for written submissions on various questions, such as: What is the current state of public understanding of what is meant by climate change? How …
The opaqueness of seeing: expertise and guidance in clinical interventions
February 19, 2013
One of the benefits and, perhaps, risks of calling our research programme ‘Making Science Public’ is that it lends itself to a great many interpretations, something which came out very strongly from our launch event last week. One of these ‘ways of seeing’ Making Science Public is through studying the role of expertise in translating …