Communicating the social sciences

This chapter reviews the sparse and somewhat scattered research literature that has specifically addressed the public communication of the social sciences (PCSS). This literature, in common with much research on the public communication of science and technology (PCST), lacks consistency or indeed clear definitions of what is meant by ‘social science’, ‘natural science’ and indeed, ‘science’. Analyses of social science media coverage indicate that the social sciences are communicated in some quite different patterns from those seen with natural science research. Some authors have suggested that this may be due to the overlap between the subject matter of social science research (people), and experiential, ‘common sense’ knowledge. Other relevant literature, on ‘self-help’ psychology books, public intellectuals, and social scientists as expert witnesses. There is an urgent need for more consistent, systematic research addressing PCSS, in order to understand better the general issues involved in communicating expertise and those faced specifically by the social sciences. Researchers in PCST should reflect on these issues in order to address reflexively how we communicate publicly about our field, just as we seek to advise other researchers on how best to communicate in the public domain

Research on quantities and concentrations of extraterrestrial matter through samplings of ocean bottoms Six-month status report, Mar. - Aug. 1965

Quantitiies and concentration of extraterrestrial matter through ocean bottom sampling

Meteorites and the Antarctic ice sheet

The majority of the meteorite finds were located in the Allan Hills site. All the expected goals involving the recovery of rare or previously unknown types of meteorites, and even the recovery of lunar ejecta, were realized. The relationship between these remarkable concentrations of meteorites and the Antarctic ice sheet itself were less well documented. Ice flow vector studies were made and concentration models were proposed. Earlier estimates of the abundances of meteorite types were based on the number of falls in the world collections. The accumulated data and the future collected data will allow more reliable estimates of the source region of most meteorites

Positronium emission from mesoporous silica studied by laser-enhanced time-of-flight spectroscopy

The use of mesoporous silica films for the production and study of positronium (Ps) atoms has become increasingly important in recent years, providing a robust source of free Ps in vacuum that may be used for a wide variety of experiments, including precision spectroscopy and the production of antihydrogen. The ability of mesoporous materials to cool and confine Ps has also been utilized to conduct measurements of Ps–Ps scattering and Ps2 molecule formation, and this approach offers the possibility of making a sufficiently dense and cold Ps ensemble to realize a Ps Bose–Einstein condensate. As a result there is great interest in studying the dynamics of Ps atoms inside such mesoporous structures, and how their morphology affects Ps cooling, diffusion and emission into vacuum. It is now well established that Ps atoms are initially created in the bulk of such materials and are subsequently ejected into the internal voids with energies of the order of 1 eV, whereupon they rapidly cool via hundreds of thousands of wall collisions. This process can lead to thermalisation to the ambient sample temperature, but will be arrested when the Ps deBroglie wavelength approaches the size of the confining mesopores. At this point diffusion through the pore network can only proceed via tunneling, at a much slower rate. An important question then becomes, how long does it take for the Ps atoms to cool and escape into vacuum? In a direct measurement of this process, conducted using laser-enhanced positronium time-of-flight spectroscopy, we show that cooling to the quantum confinement regime in a film with approximately 5 nm diameter pores is nearly complete within 5 ns, and that emission into vacuum takes ~10 ns when the incident positron beam energy is 5 keV. The observed dependence of the Ps emission time on the positron implantation energy supports the idea that quantum confined Ps does not sample all of the available pore volume, but rather is limited to a subset of the mesoporous network

Proceedings of a Workshop on Antarctic Meteorite Stranding Surfaces

The discovery of large numbers of meteorites on the Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most exciting developments in polar science in recent years. The meteorites are found on areas of ice called stranding surfaces. Because of the sudden availability of hundreds, and then thousands, of new meteorite specimens at these sites, the significance of the discovery of meteorite stranding surfaces in Antarctica had an immediate and profound impact on planetary science, but there is also in this discovery an enormous, largely unrealized potential to glaciology for records of climatic and ice sheet changes. The glaciological interest derives from the antiquity of the ice in meteorite stranding surfaces. This exposed ice covers a range of ages, probably between zero and more than 500,000 years. The Workshop on Antarctic Meteorite Stranding Surfaces was convened to explore this potential and to devise a course of action that could be recommended to granting agencies. The workshop recognized three prime functions of meteorite stranding surfaces. They provide: (1) A proxy record of climatic change (i.e., a long record of climatic change is probably preserved in the exposed ice stratigraphy); (2) A proxy record of ice volume change; and (3) A source of unique nonterrestrial material

Communicating the social sciences: A specific challenge?

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Popular evolutionary psychology in the UK: an unusual case of science in the media?

PublishedHistorical ArticleJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tThis paper presents findings from quantitative analyses of UK press and print media coverage of evolutionary psychology during the 1990s. It argues that evolutionary psychology presents an interesting case for studies of science in the media in several different ways. First, press coverage of evolutionary psychology was found to be closely linked with the publications of popular books on the subject. Secondly, when compared to coverage of other subjects, a higher proportion of academics and authors wrote about evolutionary psychology in the press, contributing to the development of a scientific controversy in the public domain. Finally, it was found that evolutionary psychology coverage appeared in different areas of the daily press, and was rarely written about by specialist science journalists. The possible reason for these features are then explored, including the boom in popular science publishing during the 1990s, evolutionary psychology's status as a new subject of study and discussion, and the nature of the subject its as theoretically based and with a human, "everyday" subject matter

Vermin, Victims and Disease: UK Framings of Badgers In and Beyond the Bovine TB Controversy

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The question of whether to cull wild badgers in order to control the spread of bovine TB (bTB) in UK cattle herds has been deeply contentious for nearly 40 years, and still shows no sign of resolution. This paper will examine the strategic framing of badgers in recent debates over bTB in the UK media, which take two opposing forms: the 'good badger' as epitomised in Kenneth Grahame's children's novel 'The Wind in the Willows'; and the less familiar 'bad badger': carnivore, digger, and carrier of disease. It will then uncover the deeper historical and cultural roots of these representations, to argue that underlying the contemporary 'badger/bTB' controversy is an older 'badger debate' about the proper relationship between these wild animals and humans. Finally, the implications of this finding for current debates over bTB policy will be explored. © 2012 The Author. Sociologia Ruralis © 2012 European Society for Rural Sociology.The research leading to this article was carried out with the support of an Interdisciplinary Early Career Fellowship from the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (grant no. RES-229-27-0007-A). I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Charlotte Kenten to the early stages of this research, and thank the various mentors for the Fellowship for their feedback and support in developing this research. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to the article referees, whose insightful and helpful comments have contributed greatly to the quality of this piece

Vermin, victims and disease: British debates over bovine tuberculosis and badgers

This is the final version. Available on open access from Palgrave Macmillan via the DOI in this recordThis open access book provides the first critical history of the controversy over whether to cull wild badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British cattle. This question has plagued several professional generations of politicians, policymakers, experts and campaigners since the early 1970s. Questions of what is known, who knows, who cares, who to trust and what to do about this complex problem have been the source of scientific, policy, and increasingly vociferous public debate ever since. This book integrates contemporary history, science and technology studies, human-animal relations, and policy research to conduct a cross-cutting analysis of the situation. It explores the worldviews of those involved with animal health, disease ecology and badger protection between the 1970s and 1990s, before reintegrating them to investigate the recent public polarisation of the controversy. Finally it asks how we might move beyond the current impasse to explore more open and sustainable approaches to the situation.Wellcome Trus

Badger-human conflict: an overlooked historical context for bovine TB debates in the UK

This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books (http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HillUnderstanding).Volume 9 of series: Studies of the Biosocial SocietyThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the link in this record.In Britain, the question of whether to cull wild badgers (Meles meles) in order to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in domestic cattle herds has been the source of scientific, public and policy controversy for over 40 years and still shows no sign of resolution. This chapter takes a step back from questions of animal health policy to focus instead on the wild animals at the centre of this debate, to ask why proposals to cull this particular wildlife species have provoked such intense and sustained controversy in this place and time. It will examine how badgers have been represented in British cultural sources as far back as the 10th century AD, and will compare these representations with the strategic framing of badgers in contemporary debates over bTB in the UK national press. Such framings take two opposing forms: the ‘good badger’ as epitomised in Kenneth Grahame’s children’s novel ‘The Wind in the Willows’; and the less familiar ‘bad badger’: carnivore, digger, and carrier of disease, and have strong commonalities with human representations of many other contested 'pest' species. Long term continuities between historical and contemporary representations of badgers suggest that underlying today's public controversy over managing bTB is an older ‘badger debate’ about the proper relationship between these wild animals and humans. The implications of this finding for current debates over bTB policy will be explored, including the potential to reframe the question away from reductive 'yes/no' debates over culling, and the potential of applying human/wildlife conflict frameworks to mitigate at least one factor driving today's highly polarised controversy