If I was 20 years younger and participated in a certain body art trend, I might have a tattoo inscribed on my forearm that said something like this: Confirmation bias MT @jayphilips: “The assumptions you start with dictate the conclusions you arrive at.” @james_christie #CAST2014 — Josh Meier (@moshjeier) August 12, 2014 As the Skeptics…Continue Reading…
My recent Washington Post magazine piece on Robert Kennedy Jr. has prompted numerous reactions in media outlets, on Twitter, and in the blogosphere. Generally speaking, readers have found the story both compelling and maddening. What folks seem to be divided on is how Kennedy comes off in the story. Laura Helmuth at Slate says I…Continue Reading…
Regular readers of Collide-a-Scape know that I’m interested in popular narratives that shape public discourse. I’m specifically interested in how science and environment-related topics are covered in the media, and how this coverage tends to create dominant narratives. Along these lines, I’ve explored the genesis and amplification of varied media narratives, from Jared Diamond’s collapse…Continue Reading…
The London Based SciDevNet, which is “committed to putting science at the heart of global development,” has an interesting post up today entitled, “Is science journalism ignoring censorship?” The questions raised by the author, Nick Ishmael Perkins, are first discussed in the context of traditional censorship issues, such as when governments restrict access to information. This is fairly straightforward. What is…Continue Reading…
It is not unusual for public figures to be unhappy with how they are portrayed in the media. Sometimes their complaints are understandable, other times not so much. What is unusual is for a public figure to take legal action against a journalist. That’s because in the United States there is a very high bar…Continue Reading…
The end of the world, like everything worth knowing these days, will be tweeted: NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? | Nafeez Ahmed http://t.co/nWqOcD3UkB — Guardian Environment (@guardianeco) March 14, 2014 If a study with the imprimatur of a major U.S. government agency thinks civilization may soon be destined to fall apart, I…Continue Reading…
The fundamentally flawed and distorted climate reporting by David Rose in the UK’s Daily Mail is often called out by science journalists and bloggers. His repeated misrepresentation of climate scientists has prompted the UK’s Met office to publicly respond on numerous occasions. It’s unfortunate that one reporter continues to flout basic journalistic principles on an…Continue Reading…
The politicized and polarized nature of the climate debate is well established. Those who track the testy, emotionally-charged conversation on agricultural biotechnology wonder if the GMO discourse is heading down that road. I’ve argued that the rhetorical tactics of GMO skeptics and climate skeptics are similar. Others have also come to see these commonalities (cherry-picking…Continue Reading…