There’s nothing like a journey abroad, to turn the problems of one’s own country into a cold, wet, washcloth smack across the face. As is my habit on Sundays, I was listening to To the Best of Our Knowledge on the radio, while driving Smaug out to the ranch this morning. The episode today was entitled Dumbing Down, Smartening Up, and its themes, anti-intellectualism and the internet age in the US, were precisely those of my recent washcloth smack. These themes have been gnawing at my hippocampus and frontal cortices for awhile, but my recent travels in England brought them to the surface. In many cases it was simply small cultural observations about the UK vs. the US: the controversy surrounding Gail Trimble and University Challenge, the repeated sights of so many people reading books and newspapers on public transportation, museum plaques and lectures on art history, the level of discussion and the nature of humor on television and radio. Naturally, my attentions are focused upon, and I will selectively remember, cultural differences that support my suspicions about anti-intellectualism in the US, but apparently I’m not the only person who has noticed the trend. Not by a long shot.
Old gravestones in a London park, or the death of American intellectual culture?
Two of today’s TTBOOK segments featured Susan Jacoby and Andrew Keen, and their books and blogs might be the subject of a subsequent post or two from me. However, the segment with George Saunders on Braindead Megaphone potentially identified a root of the dumbing down process, in the context of the internet and the blogosphere. In his essay, Saunders describes the “Megaphone Guy” at a party – he is not the smartest or funniest person, his language skills are not necessarily the best, and he is not the most experienced or knowledgeable person. Yet, he has a megaphone, and because his voice is consequently the loudest one, he will eventually dominate the conversation and the character of the party.
My questions, then, are whether there are Megaphone Guys and Gals in the science blogosphere, and, if there are, how does their domination of the internet “party” help or hinder the process of science communication?
You’re trying to stir up a fight, aren’t you?
OK, one word should answer your question: cephalopods.
[Looks innocent]
Who, me?
Megaphones? I have the entire sound system for a Rolling Stones concert!
Wow Bob – that was going to go right over my head, but then I found it it’s actually googleable.
Oh I could name a few, but I’m not about to start down that route!
Generally they hinder science communication/perception of scientists because they are mainly ‘one hit wonders’ contributing little outside their own peculiar devolutionary niche. In the worst examples, these loudmouths are ‘caricatures’ and stereotypes that do far more harm than good (except to their loyal followers of course). No time for it myself.
@ Bob and Steffi: but then I found it it’s actually googleable
Indicating, of course, that the answer to my first question is “yes”, and next Bora appears to confirm this, telling us that not only does he have a Megaphone – he’s not afraid to use it. ;-)
So then the real question is the second one … how do such blogosphere megaphones help or hinder science communication? Katherine brings up concerns that are very similar to my own, in particular the caricature and stereotype issue. I, for one, have no desire to fit some sort of biologist stereotype, or whatever. In Saunders’ essay, the outcome of Megaphone Guy (could easily be Megaphone Gal too) at the party is that people stop disagreeing with anything he has to say, only discuss topics that he initiates and expands upon, and eventually stop thinking for themselves. The loudest voice drowns out other opinions, interests, and perspectives.
I just want to quote from my very first post on NN (I put in italics to underscore the point below):
“If there is a mistake in the Wiki, and there is no editor-and the mistake is continually missed, or, more likely, an informational cascade has begun, millions of people (especially non-biologists) may be walking around thinking that the potassium channel passes uranium ions.
What if that misunderstanding of channel function by millions of casual observers is not corrected by millions more because they are not sure that the Wiki is completely wrong (or both)?
What if the casual scientific collectivists think that potassium channels somehow involve potassium ions-but because of the discussion section of the Wiki where many people are yelling “uranium!”, and stamping out small discussions about the possibility that it is potassium, they doubt themselves enough to correct the Wiki?
What if the corrections by a small minority…are “reverted” and they lose the will to keep fixing the page?
What if the “experts” and the “editors” begin to spread the word that the Wiki is wrong, that its potassium and not uranium, and the Wiki is corrected. “Ah”, you say, “the model worked, the truth did rise out of the collective”.
The direct students of the experts and editor may get the information quickly and realize the mistake, but the “myth of uranium” may prevail long enough in the non-scientific ethos to affect science and science policy. For example, how much money is given to researchers who study potassium may be affected. It may take the academic community years to right the problem and re-educate people about potassium channels.
When is casual scientific collectivism a problem? When it involves a convergence of mass distributed networks of people, being channeled and bottlenecked into faceless, anonymous, and editor-free depositories of information. This leads to massive scientific groupthink, homogeneity, imitation, centralization and a herd mentality. Don’t believe it is a problem? Go to Google (do you have many other search engine choices?) and search for something-it probably has a Wiki that you instinctively go to. Don’t think scientists are susceptible to groupthink? Ask graduate students what the important problems in neuroscience are and you will see a statistical convergence on some major categories. Who cares what grad students think? Look at what programs the funding goes to and ask yourself, why we have “trends” in scientific thought…are these trends right?
A good non-science “megaphone” example as opposed to what I just wrote is the the video Loose Change, that is a phenom here in the US…and the government here is still dealing with it years after its release.
The relevancy of our Ph.D.s I predict will be soon called into question by scientific “amateurs” who work in home labs. As with the publishing industry, the megaphones will undermine science in our lifetime. My whole blog is devoted to underscoring this point-and that it is already accelerating.
Scientific meetings and papers will eventually have to fit into Twitter format.
Oh, joy for the wonderful future!
Uranium channels. Wow.
Uranium channels. Wow.
Ack. Feeling beset upon as an intellectual. What can we do besides appeal to reason, and try to establish authority as far as education is concerned (catch ’em young, as it were)?
One suggestion is, don’t let Megaphone People™ grow and develop. Have your own voice, and use it to remind the world that human opinion is rich and diverse across the board. Support alternative news outlets.
But sometimes, it does seem like a drop in the ocean…
millions of people (especially non-biologists) may be walking around thinking that the potassium channel passes uranium ions.
If that were to happen, we’ll know that the end of civilization is just around the corner.
By the way, before we get too concerned about undue influence, I’d take a look at David Crotty’s (NN-critical) editorial here. Certainly puts things back in perspective.
@ Michael – In the TTBOOK segment with Andrew Keen, the Wiki misinformation issue was discussed. Occasionally I’ll look at Wikipedia articles on neuroscience and neuroanatomy topics; sometimes they fit with current research results, and sometimes they don’t. It’s disturbing, because I suspect that there’s an increasing trend to take Wikipedia as an authority on everything.
@ Heather – I think Crotty’s point #5, about the lack of actual science content in many science blog posts, is interesting. However, what if non-scientists, reading science blogs, then believe that most scientists aren’t spending much time doing research? Also, why should we take Crotty’s application of the 90-9-1 rule to the science blogosphere at face value? Where are the data?
We could ask Corie about this. I am sure she has or knows who can obtain data on how many people (via IP numbers) are accessing the NN site, and how many people have registered, and then the average number of comments per member per week. Although it would be difficult to tease apart the blogging participants from those who have signed up to read/participate in the fora.
However, if 90-9-1 is wrong, and the percentage of participants among readers is greater, then that only proves his point further – science blogging is not a particularly influential medium, nor one to which most of the population will turn for authoritative information.
Kristi-when you say TTBOOK, are you talking about the “Cult of The Amateur” book by Keen?
The 90-9-1 rule sounds interesting, but without statistical evidence to back it up (and maybe I missed it somewhere) it is just a theory…which underscores my previous point about how this whole blog thing twists theory and conjecture into truth without running it through the filter of scientific method, as I allude to in my last post.
Maybe we need to give high school students a clearly designed curriculum in logic, critical thinking and the scientific method before shuffling them off to the drinking/partying emporiums that our American universities have become. Then the Megaphones might be knocked down a bit by an informed public.
Kristi-when you say TTBOOK, are you talking about the “Cult of The Amateur” book by Keen?
The 90-9-1 rule sounds interesting, but without statistical evidence to back it up (and maybe I missed it somewhere) it is just a theory…which underscores my previous point about how this whole blog thing twists theory and conjecture into truth without running it through the filter of scientific method, as I allude to in my last post.
Maybe we need to give high school students a clearly designed curriculum in logic, critical thinking and the scientific method before shuffling them off to the drinking/partying emporiums that our American universities have become. Then the Megaphones might be knocked down a bit by an informed public.
@ Michael – Yes, sorry I wasn’t clear … I was using the acronym for the radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge, and Andrew Keen was interviewed and discussed “The Cult of the Amateur”. He described the Wikipedia phenomenon in particular.
This may be cynical, but I would be happier knowing for sure that science blogging is not especially influential, currently. I’m enough of an optimist that I think that science blogging could be a positive, influential medium eventually; whether it is both positive and influential right now is an arguable point.
I agree, Kristi. Let’s keep working on making it positive (and interesting). I actually doubt that it will ever be very influential, though – I am pretty sure it will only ever appeal to a relatively small subset of the population, whereas most people will get their science news…. well… at this point, who knows where.
Just wanted to make sure that nobody is citing Andrew Keen with anything but derision as he is the most famous of all journalistic curmudgeons and dinosaurs lamenting the loss of their privileged position as gatekeepers.
Also, as this was published in Nature, I am surprised that there was not more discussion here on NN – the good article about science blogging and journalism that is now spreading around the blogs.
Just wanted to make sure that nobody is citing Andrew Keen with anything but derision as he is the most famous of all journalistic curmudgeons and dinosaurs lamenting the loss of their privileged position as gatekeepers
Oh, Eru! The science blogging police have arrived at my virtual doorstep.
Also, the Magaphone Guy has, so far, been the guy with the printing press. Until the Web and blogs come along, that was the guy who determined what and how was reported – often poorly. What we can do now is introduce new topics, new ideas, new angles, a diversity of angles, including those with much greater expertise than the traditional corporate Megaphone Guys, and thus we can now start drowning out the blabbering by the said Megaphone Guy.
Oh, Eru! The science blogging police have arrived at my virtual doorstep.
I guess you sort of asked for it, Kristi…
Bora: I actually thought the most interesting part of your post on the Nature article, which you linked to via friendfeed up there, is the comment by Karen James. I think once we all relax and realize that there are good and bad science journalists as well as science bloggers, we can start discussing the issue more productively?
The title of my post was not “blogging vs. journalism” but “blogging vs/and journalism”, for a reason. And see my quote in the Nature article as well. But a longer post is forthcoming, I promise.
Which will include the thoughts on what Karen wrote – a very important point.
By the way, I particularly noticed the press release aspect of the article, which highlights a big contradiction: one of the most common arguments in support of traditional science journalism is that it serves as the ‘critic and watchdog’ of science, while many science journalists seem to complain about the quality of press releases, claiming that they need good press releases to do their job because they’re so pressed for time these days. Of course, those two don’t go together.
I’ll watch out for your post, Bora (wearing my foam earplugs).
If I were a decent blog host, I’d address the issue of whether I asked to be “policed” on my responses or thoughts to various essays and books.
But instead I have to go
play nasty gatekeeperreview brainstem anatomy and somatosensory pathways and discuss case conferences on spinal cord injuries with first-year medical students, for the next two or three hours. I’ll leave the blog enforcers to rifle through my thoughts and posts and presumed reading materials whilst I am otherwise engaged. ;-)Oh, beautiful: there it is, I am seeing the ad for this next to your post – I was so hoping for that :)
Calm down, everyone – I don’t think it’s as bad as all that. For a start, I don’t think the megaphone principle works in the blogosphere, because each user can tune his or her particular feed to suit their individual tastes. If you don’t like the loudmouths, you don’t have to subscribe to them. In fact, I’d say the very opposite is the case – that certaib people attract a coterie of like-minded individuals, which tends to gang up on any interlopers perceived as not holding the group’s often very narrow point of view.
As for Michael’s problem – the tension between collectivism and truth – well, that’s not as big a problem as it seems, at least, not in the long terms, for two reasons – one pragmatic, the other more philosophical.
The pragmatic reason is that the truth will out. It may take a moment, it may take a millennium, but we’ll get there. What, however, do we mean by ‘truth’? This is at the heart of the more philosophical reason, which is that science does not strive to achieve ‘truth’ – which is, the closer you look, a very slippery concept indeed – but only approximations of what we imagine to be truth in certain rather limited (and always changing) circumstances. In fact, there are good logical reasons why the truth is always evasive, based on undecidability and such. So, in a way, something you might read in Wikipedia is as good – as ‘true’ – as something you get from your lab or the bloke in the bar down the street. Really, science is about believing six impossible things before breakfast.
I love
Big Brotherthe science blogging police(The Room 101 post got to me)