Category: The Public
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Bill Nye, Marketing, and the Anti-Smoking Lobby: A Challenge to Opponents of Creationism
Last week, I was lucky to have the opportunity to pick the brain of communications expert Partick Donadio. Instead of having an abstract conversation on the topic of communicating science. I decided to ask him about a concrete example: Bill Nye’s recent video called “Bill Nye: Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children”. Patrick provided for…
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Bill Nye’s “Don’t Teach Creationism…” Video Dissected by Business Communication Expert
(This article was first published in Scientific American) Have you seen the new video by Bill Nye called “Creationism is not appropriate for children”? The video simply shows Nye standing in front of a white background and speaking, for two minutes, thirty seconds. Yet almost three million people watched it on YouTube, and many discussed…
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Flame Challenge Faces Challenge: Negative Stereotypes of Scientists
(This article was originally published in Scientific American) Scientists are aloof and socially inept. That seems to be part of the message of the video that won the Flame Challenge, a science communication contest run by the Center for Communicating Science. The winning video, made by Ben Ames, was just announced on June 2 at…
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Entertainers’ Sticking Up for Science: The Help We’ve Been Pleading For?
This article was originally published in Scientific American. In magazine reporting (and maybe science blogging), they say three events suffice to indicate a trend. So let me announce a new trend: popular entertainers are sticking up for science. Here are three trendsetting entertainers turned notable science advocates. Actor Alan Alda wrote an editorial in Science last week launching…
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Interview with Science Rapper Kate McAlpine
Scientists, The summer before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came online, a key LHC press officer (Dr. Katie Yurkewicz) went on maternity leave. Kate McAlpine, who was then a science communication intern half a year out of college, stepped in to help. Her main duties were to arrange visits for U.S. journalists to the collider and…
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Interview with Chris Lintott: Providing an Entry Drug to Science
Scientists, Once upon a time, Kevin Schawinski and Chris Lintott were working with a large surveys of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, trying to classify them based on their shapes: elliptical, spiral, irregular and so on. They ran into a problem. The computer software for making these classifications kept making mistakes. The human brain, it turns out,…
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Interview with USA Today’s Dan Vergano: We Don’t Sell Thinking Lessons
Dear Scientists, Thank you for all your comments on the Marketing for Scientists Facebook group about press embargoes and their effect on scientists. Today I was lucky to get Dan Vergano from USA Today on the horn to hear his take on the matter–and get his pointed comments on the tumultuous state of science and science reporting. Before he…
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I Can’t Tell My Editor the Truth: an Interview with Science Journalist Michael Lemonick
Scientists, Last month, I blogged my interview with New York Times science writer, Dennis Overbye, about the state of science and science journalism. Almost immediately, I got a note from another major science journalism guru, Michael Lemonick, who had some strong reactions. I suggested he do an interview with me, and that’s what I have…
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An Interview With Dennis Overbye
To many scientists, Dennis Overbye needs no introduction. As science writer for the New York Times, he’s been a main bolt at the junction where science meets society. His well-read and well-written articles on physics and astronomy have helped launch many of our favorite projects and some of our careers as well. Overbye graduated from M.I.T. with a…