Blind track

The people of Val di Susa (Italy) blocked the construction of the new high-speed railway line that should connect Turin with Lyons (France). This project is regarded as a strategic achievement for the economic development of the European Union, but local communities have a different concept of development and are asserting their rights through ad hoc experts’ reports and the production “from the bottom” of new specialised knowledge. We shall describe these events as a case study to put ecological democracy to the test of facts, also through a comparison with the experimental actions taken in some Southern countries of the world. From Europe to Brazil, the debate on health and environmental risks resulting from modernisation is upsetting democratic societies and urging new forms of participation in the decision-making process. There is a clash between different “concepts of the world”, in which communication strategies play a crucial role and from whose outcome the society in which we wish to live in will emerge

Dialogue is bliss (Italian original version)

The practice of dialogue does not erase the conflicts that can be found upon solid diverging interests. But conflicts are not forcedly a trauma. More then an impossible abolition of diversity, it is important to promote a practice that helps everybody to express their own point of view looking for socially sustainable solution between the parts. But according to Sturloni, «Even in that case: not a dialogue meant to achieve a utopian unitary view able to level all divergences, but to allow the expression of different perspectives and of legitimate interests. The final aim should be to make a choice shared as much as possible within the legal system of a democratic country»

Preventive self-governance

No field of western society has remained untouched by the events of September 11. Lastly, science and science communication are also bearing the consequences. During the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Colorado, on February 15, 2003, the major international scientific magazines, faced with the bioterrorism alarm and the fear of seeing important information fall in the wrong hands, announced their intention to resort to an unprecedented security measure: preventive self-governance.1 They consider the Statement on Scientific Publication and Security as a manifesto of the sense of responsibility that the scientific community feels about global terror. In part four, after recalling the 9/11tragedy, the 32 publishers, scientific associations and scientists who signed the Statement (among which also the directors of Nature and Science) stated that “On occasion an editor may conclude that the potential harm of publication outweighs the potential societal benefits. Under such circumstances, the paper should be modified, or not be published

Big Data: un nuovo paradigma per le statistiche e i sondaggi di opinione?

La conferenza si svolge nell'ambito di Trieste Next 2019-Big data e Deep Science: le indagini statistiche e i sondaggi di opinione, nella loro forma tradizionale delle interviste svolte presso un campione opportunamente selezionato, sono ormai obsoleti nel nuovo mondo dei Big Data? Gli istituti di statistica devono adeguarsi per usare i dati prodotti da noi tutti nelle interazioni quotidiane con la rete o con i dispositivi digitali di cui siamo circondati? Da qualche anno questi quesiti risuonano sempre più spesso nel dibattito pubblico. Attraverso nuove tecniche, i nostri comportamenti, umori e opinioni vengono misurati direttamente dai big data tratti, ad esempio, dai social network (da Twitter a Instagram), o dai dispositivi intelligenti che fanno ormai parte della nostra vita quotidiana. Questi metodi sono destinati a sostituire oppure integrare gli strumenti tradizionali di indagine