Science & Society
Scientific institutions and organizations can improve their communication and outreach with the public by addressing people's strongly held beliefs about science and its role in society - and using less demagoguery. Or at least hiding it.
Lead author of a new paper and American University professor Matthew C. Nisbet made his name claiming that Republicans engaged in deception about science and that communicators needed to master "framing" to show how they were wrong, so a paper advocating less partisanship is important, in a sort of 'only Nixon could go to China' way.
"What divides the…
If we see or read about a child on a life-sustaining medical device, such as a ventilators or breathing or feeding tube, we naturally think about the child
And when it comes to parents, we use platitudes like 'strong' but the physical and psychological distress of juggling treatments, appointments, therapies and daily family pressures doesn't get much consideration.
Perhaps it should. Findings from a small pilot study of 22 mothers found that an intervention called "Resourcefulness," which teaches moms how to better cope, bolsters the mother's wellbeing and, in turn, benefits…
A small minority of religious and scientific communities insist the two can't get along. If you see 'scientocracy' or 'Galileo' invoked, you can be sure rationality has left the discussion.
Almost 50 percent of scientists consider themselves religious and almost 50 percent of Evangelicals, the religious demographic least likely to accept evolution, say that science and religion get along just fine.
But among the general public, only 38 percent feel that way.
How is that possible? The new survey of more than 10,000 Americans found that scientists and the general public are surprisingly similar…
While each American political party has positions that are determined to undermine science (food, medicine and energy for Democrats, evolution and global warming for Republicans) their constituents still respect scientists overall, even if they don't accept the legitimacy of some fields.
While most Americans could be a bit more knowledgeable in the ways of science, a majority are interested in hearing about the latest scientific breakthroughs and think highly of scientists.
The National Science Foundation's biannual survey of over 2,200 people is part of their Science and Engineering…
The Great Recession of 2009 deepened income inequality - except for the government, a lot more people were out of work and scholars have correlated that to county-by-county rates of child maltreatment, from sexual, physical and emotional abuse to traumatic brain injuries and death.
The income inequality-child maltreatment correlation came using all 3,142 American counties from 2005-09, and the authors say it is one of the most comprehensive of its kind and the first to target child abuse in places with the greatest gap between rich and poor. Nearly 3 million children younger than 18 are…
America has a looming cost of services crisis but in the UK it's already here; people who retire expecting a certain standard of living have overwhelmed the tax base. To keep people working longer, a professor at the University of Southampton recommends the worldwide removal of the fixed or default retirement age.
On a global scale, current pension systems are unsustainable, note professor Yehuda Baruch from the Southampton Management School, Dr. Susan Sayce from the University of East Anglia and Professor Andros Gregoriou from the University of Hull.
The UK abolished the default…
To ancient Romans, the depiction of female nudes in mosaics were meant to invoke beauty, carnality and eroticism while male bodies reflected determination, strength and power, according to work from the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (UC3M) that analyzed the cultural construction and ideological implications of artistic representations in which females predominate compared to those males.
Sometimes art isn't just art. Prior interpretations of Roman mosaics analyzed clothing as an iconographic element that was fundamental in identifying the characters and determining their status, but a…
To ancient Romans, the depiction of female nudes in mosaics were meant to invoke beauty, carnality and eroticism while male bodies reflected determination, strength and power, according to work from the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (UC3M) that analyzed the cultural construction and ideological implications of artistic representations in which females predominate compared to those males.
Sometimes art isn't just art. Prior interpretations of Roman mosaics analyzed clothing as an iconographic element that was fundamental in identifying the characters and determining their status, but a…
Wal-Mart caters to people with less money and there has long been a link between poverty and crime.
Criminologists have instead taken the additional step of implicating Wal-Mart in crime rates.
Communities across the United States saw decline in crime during the 1990s. Some said it was due to more abortions, others due to more police and a society less willing to coddle criminals. Scott Wolfe, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, and David Pyrooz, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University,…
United States dominance in science and technology declined during the last decade as several Asian nations rapidly increased their innovation capacities.
According to a new report, The 2014 volume of Science and Engineering Indicators prepared by NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), the major Asian economies, taken together, now perform a larger share of global R&D than the U.S., and China performs nearly as much of the world's high-tech manufacturing as the U.S.
Evidence in NSB's biennial report, Science and Engineering Indicators, which provides…