FOLSOM, California, August 12 ION-Publications
FOLSOM, California, August 12 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, August 17th at
1:30PM in Hensill Hall 113, attendees of the 90th Annual Pacific Division
Meeting of the AAAS in San Francisco will get to learn about the latest
efforts in science communication from some of the brightest minds in the
field."
The symposium is called "Good Science is Only Part of the Job:
Communicating Science to the Public." (Online link:
http://www.sou.edu/aaaspd/2009SANFRANCISCO/Symposia09.html#15).
As science has become a larger part of the cultural landscape,
researchers have frequently found themselves navigating the difficult waters
of policies and politics. It has become increasingly necessary for scientists
to work with the media to insure accurate portrayals of science issues so
there can be better understanding by the public and therefore better
decisions by policy makers. Each of the presentations will address how
scientists can be better equipped to manage different media when sharing
research and information with the public.
Hank Campbell, founder of ScientificBlogging.com, (
http://www.scientificblogging.com/) the world's largest independent online
science community and a place where world-class scientists, professionals and
science enthusiasts alike contribute to writing science articles and blogs,
will chair the symposium and present "Why Communicating Science Is Important."
Greg Critser, science and health book author, long time science and
medical journalist, will discuss how to use journalistic methods to transform
research into compelling media discourse--from newspapers and magazines to
the Internet and the blogo-sphere, in "Interacting with science journalists."
Prof. Michael Eisen, Department of Molecular Biology, University of
California, Berkeley, will discuss efforts to reinvent scientific
communication and how they are often met with a common refrain like, 'But
what will this do to journals?' as if the maintenance of the existing journal
hierarchy must be an irreducible first principle of any publishing reform.
But do we really need journals? What role do they really serve? In "Journals?
We Dont Need No Stinking Journals."
Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director for the National Center for Science
Education, (http://ncseweb.org/) will discuss how science is a product of
human beings, which means it is affected by human institutions including
politics. The education system in the United States is highly politicized as
a result of the nation's history, and because the teaching of evolution is
socially (if not scientifically) controversial, politics enters into whether
and how evolution will be taught, in "Constructive Debates When Science and
Politics Mix."
Dr. Michael White, Department of Genetics and Center for Genome Sciences,
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, will discuss science
communication misfires and how science bloggers deflated the hype over the
Ida fossil, exposed a stealth creationist paper in a peer-reviewed journal,
and have relentlessly pummeled dubious claims about vaccines, stem cells,
climate change, and personalized medicine, in "Blazing Your Own Trail:
Writing Directly to the Public."
About ION Publications
ION Publications, publisher of ScientificBlogging.com, is the world's
largest online science community and among the top science sites on the
Internet. Members and writers can create feature articles, chat, collaborate,
interact, use the forums or host their own science blogs and get paid to do
it. Founded in 2006, ION Publications is privately held and based in Folsom,
CA. For more information, please visit http://www.ScientificBlogging.com.
Contact:
Henry J. Campbell
Publisher
1024 Iron Point Road
Folsom, CA 95630
Phone: +1-916-357-6569
Fax: +1-916-357-6541
email: hank@scientificblogging.com
http://www.scientificblogging.com
SOURCE ION Publications
