Reads of the week 5 May 2014

Numbers, social media and PGBS

Here is a collection of our favourite reads of the week 5 May 2014.

Julie Gould

At #SciComm14, one of the sessions was on the importance of data visualisation. One of the key messages was that scientists should start using quantitative phrases, like this is “95% likely”, rather than qualitative ones like “this is extremely likely” because words are subjective, and open to various interpretations. How scientists are inadvertently creating climate deniers, by Lindsay Abrams, highlights how the IPCC reports are reporting confusion by using words rather than numbers, and “[a]gain and again, it would seem that the IPCC’s language about uncertainty backfires, and undermines itself. It sows doubt in the minds of the public.”

Another favourite read, linked to #SciComm14, is about the 6 different social media spaces by Matt Locke from Story Things. It’s an old post (from 2007), but it highlights how communication online can vary depending on where you do it. I know this sounds obvious, but it’s about how users use different kinds of spaces, and the etiquettes associated with them.

One of my favourite reads ever, both funny and instructive, is Michelle Nijhuis’ Pocket Guide to Bulls**t. I recommend everyone prints out the post, cuts out the pocket guide, and sticks it to something they carry everywhere with them whilst reporting!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
http://speakersofscience.com/notes-from-the-editor/reads-of-the-week-5-may-2014/
speakersofscience.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-17
19622
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:J7PT6WNKT2HCMJM4E5LGEQVEFOWB7SUW
<urn:uuid:77412c41-15f2-4408-a76c-10731edca6ef>
2021-04-17T05:23:10Z
208.82.114.167
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:XGP7HWBRLOYRIXJZVTBTL2DEW4DWDL4P
<urn:uuid:9d8bfd59-2279-4e75-91f8-f03e855fdef5>
http://speakersofscience.com/notes-from-the-editor/reads-of-the-week-5-may-2014/
response
<urn:uuid:8bd9fb4c-ad87-48df-8cff-d64d75fa3d13>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-17
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-88.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/