The current issue of Science has an item by Nisbet and Mooney that has gotten a lot of attention among science bloggers. I have read it and I have to tell you: I’m going nuts here. Nisbet and Mooney have made a major goof in their application of a well known and explored key concept in Anthropology and Linguistics … Goffman’s Frame Analysis and Frame Shift theory … and it is deeply disturbing and annoying.
I’ve got to say right away, I’m sure Nisbet and Mooney are great guys and I have nothing that I know of against them. I’ve never read anything else of theirs, and for all I know it’s great stuff. But I am moved at this moment to rake the two of them over the hot coals, and I’d like to apologize in advance. At every turn I’ve re-examined this piece in Science, and my comments on it, to see if I’m over-interpreting or somehow have it wrong… going to their sources, rethinking my comments, etc. And every time I get more annoyed at these authors and at Science for letting this piece be published.
My annoyance is, it turns out, somewhat deepened by the fanfare on Mooney’s own science blog.
“I Have a Paper in Science (And No, This is Not an April Fools Joke)”
Well, yes it is… this is not a “paper” .. it’s a short commentary. It is not, as far as I can tell, published in the peer review section. If it was, then the peer reviewers should be drawn and quartered, or at least, the relevant Science editor shot. No appropriate reviewer would have allowed this embarrassing, goofy “paper” to be published as is.
In sum, here is my main problem with this piece. Nisbet and Mooney apply the concept of “frames” to the problem of science and scientists communicating with the public, and being understood in a public forum. With a little digging, it is possible to ascertain that when they speak of “frames” they are speaking of Goffman’s Frame Analysis Theory, a widely known concept in Anthropology, Education theory, etc. This is an idea that anyone writing (in a great journal like Science) about communication, etc. would know about and understand. But, what is actually happening here is that the authors are using the word “frame” in a way totally unrelated to Goffman’s ideas. This is not a modification of Goffman, or an update, or a better use. It’s just misuse and misunderstanding. It borders on being just dumb shit. Considering the value of column inches in science, it is a bit of a shame.
I’m reminded of what children do sometimes with new words. For example, a young child gets some idea of “going” somewhere and “driving” somewhere, and uses the word “drive” for everything. I’m driving to the bathroom now. Drive me my applesauce. Skippy (the cat) is driving the ball. It’s that but with the word “frame.”
OK, to the analysis.
Nisbet and Mooney lead off with a statement about “framing” science …
“Issues at the intersection of science and politics, such as climate change, evolution, and embryonic stem cell research, receive considerable public attention, which is likely to grow, especially in the United States as the 2008 presidential election heats up. Without misrepresenting scientific information on highly contested issues, scientists must learn to actively “frame” information to make it relevant to different audiences. Some in the scientific community have been receptive to this message.”
…with a reference to a web editorial by Tim Beardsley as their source for the concept of Framing. Beardsley, in turn, notes that “framing” is the “concept du jour” (not specifying in which FRAME frames are du jour in). In fact, Erving Goffman’s concept of frames n’est pas courant in any sense that it is new. It’s rather mid 20th century, in fact, though very much in use. But not faddy. But the point is taken if a bit misunderstood by the authors. (More about Beardsley’s post in a moment.)
In any event, we are, it seems, about to engage in a discussion of how understanding frames can be useful to help scientists to be better communicators. Good.
Nisbet and Mooney make the very specific claim that:
“…many scientists retain the well-intentioned belief that, if laypeople better understood technical complexities from news coverage, their viewpoints would be more like scientists’, and controversy would subside.”
A brief digression from frames here: Could this statement possibly be true? Does anyone believe that a) laypeople need to do a better job at interpreting news stories … don’t we already know that press coverage generally sucks and leaves the lay person with little hope of understanding our work?; b) that this would make the average person view the world like a scientist does, and especially, c) that this would have any kind of ameliorating effect on science? I don’t think most scientists believe most of this. To some extent, many of us may feel that if only the science would be better understood that it would be easier to get new information out. But don’t we also understand that people’s attitudes are more often shaped by their belief systems, their politics, their personal experience, and self rationalization of their own self interest? I’m pretty sure we learned that in college as well. This is an interesting point, if true, but I don’t think it is. I’m not sure why Nisbet and Mooney feel that they can make this assertion without some kind of evidence, like a poll or something.
Nisbet and Mooney understand this … in other words, we are in agreement with what people do. They claim:
“In reality, citizens do not use the news media as scientists assume. Research shows that people are rarely well enough informed or motivated to weigh competing ideas and arguments. Faced with a daily torrent of news, citizens use their value predispositions (such as political or religious beliefs) as perceptual screens, selecting news outlets and Web sites whose outlooks match their own. Such screening reduces the choices of what to pay attention to and accept as valid.”
… and they even cite a couple of dramatically out-of-date sources to back up their assertion. The part I don’t agree with is that scientists are learning anything new here … I think we already knew what the authors are saying. So when I hear “Scientists think this … but in reality…” I’m hearing the samo-samo bullshit science reporting, akin to “missing link finally found to fill out human tree” or “finally, evidence for human bipedalism reported from Africa” once every 8 or so months.
OK, so now Nisbet and Mooney get us back to frames. They tell us:
“Frames organize central ideas, defining a controversy to resonate with core values and assumptions. Frames pare down complex issues by giving some aspects greater emphasis. They allow citizens to rapidly identify why an issue matters, who might be responsible, and what should be done.”
Well, no. Frames do not organize your thoughts for you. That must be spice racks they are thinking of, and I can see why the confusion may emerge because they kind of look like framey-things. Do not rely on frames to pare down complexity or organize your ideas, or to simplify.
Let me tell you roughly what a frame is. First, think of a symbolic representation, generally. Like the word “butter.” There is nothing about the word butter that tells you the meaning. You get my meaning because you are an English language speaker/reader, and you know what butter means when you see it. If I said “Pass me the butter” or “Butter up your boss” or “that’s your bread and butter” then butter takes on different meanings, right? How do you know what these meanings are? You know from the information in the sentence the word “butter” shows up in … the other words, which are understood by convention. The sentence is the “frame” for butter that changes its meaning. When I say these different sentences, we experience a mini-frame shift.
If that was all that frames were, then I would not be starting this second paragraph on them (the very fact that I’m continuing to babble about frames is a clue … indeed, I am expanding the frame here … that I’ve got more to say about it.)
Arbitrary assignation of meaning (as in words) is akin to the arbitrary assignation of contextual modification of meaning (in these sentences above), and as we start putting together arbitrary things at more complex levels, each arbitrary (symbolic) association becomes simplified in our parlance … our conversation … so it does not take a lot of mental power on your part to get the meaning of “butter up your boss” … you know this association as automatically as you know the meaning of the word “butter” said all by itself. There is a kind of automatic “figuring out” that happens. Call it language, call it symbolic thought.
Frames are larger-scale symbolic (arbitrary) reference points, or meta-symbols, kind of like context as symbol, guiding the interpretations of meaning that we attempt to communicate.
Let me give you an example.
In the middle of writing this post, I emerged from the basement and said to my wife, a biology teacher: “Have you ever heard of Frames? You know, like as in ‘frame shifts.’” And she said “Sure, frame shifts, of course I know about that. … like when the reading frame for DNA shifts…”
But I was talking about Goffman’s Frame Analysis.
So I said: “No, like frame shifts … you know, like when you put a sign up in your classroom that says ‘this is a learning zone’ so the students .. you know, shift their frames. There’s some education theory about this.” “Right,” she replied. “Frame shifts, I know what you mean now. So what about it?”
That was an example of a) two people being in different frames and b) a frame shift, bringing the two people into the same frame.
The frame of science involves rational thought. In order for scientists to get their message across, they have to pay special attention to, and use very carefully, words like “belief,” “fact,” “conclusion,” “theory,” “observation,” “assumption” and so on. If there is a frame-related way for science to get it’s meaning across, it is helping the general public understand this framework.
How to do this? Probably not so much by putting out fliers on “how to understand a scientist” or adding footnotes to what we say, or even repeatedly re-explaining the meaning of these and other terms. Rather, some terms .. those already loaded with meaning … should be replaced with different words. For instance, we simply have to stop using the term “Evolutionary Theory” and switch it with “Evolutionary Biology” because the word “Theory” is so well understood in a widely used frame in a different way than we scientists mean it. This involves scientists adjusting their rhetoric to the common extant frames. This is not too different from the point that the authors are trying to get across. But done well. By me. You’re welcome.
But there are limits to how much we can change our own rational scientific observational probabilistic frame and still be talking science. This requires the construction of a frame into which the public can shift when they realize they are hearing a scientist talk. Listening to or reading science needs to become one of the widely used extant frames in our society. It is much more so in other societies, but poorly developed in America. How do we fix this? This probably needs to be done mainly through better science education.
And yes, this is why the Right Wing is trying their darnedest to wreck science education. This is the exact reason. They don’t want people growing up learning the rationalist scientific materialistic observational probabilistic frame. Get it? That’s why they attack us, that is why we must defend ourselves. This is the turf over which the culture war is being fought on two or more fronts.
That’s frames, and that’s why frames are important. Very important. They don’t organize your stuff. That’s pop-frameology, maybe, and I’m rather surprised this assertion made it to the pages of Science. Sorry, guys, but that’s how it looks to me.
The authors then go on to explore the example of global warming and public perception:
“Consider global climate change. With its successive assessment reports summarizing the scientific literature, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has steadily increased its confidence that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. So if science alone drove public responses, we would expect increasing public confidence in the validity of the science, and decreasing political gridlock.”
And then produce statistics showing that more Democrats “get” global warming than Republicans, and so on. They (probably correctly) state that this is likely due to “the efforts of political operatives and some Republican leaders who have emphasized the frames of either “scientific uncertainty” or “unfair economic burden.”
I agree with the basic point: Global warming is real, it is a scientific message, the public often does not get it, it is politicized. But is this because “Republican leaders … have emphasized the frames of scientific uncertainty or unfair economic burden”? … No. These things are not separate “frames.” Indeed, uncertainty is very much part of the scientific frame. (Notice my repeated mention above of probability). The IPCC’s main new contribution is their clear treatment of uncertainty/certainty. This is not adjusting to other frames, this is educating the reader on a key aspect of the frame in which science works and communicates … makes meaning. Did the authors read the IPCC report? The economic factors associated with issues like global warming is very much part of the scientific frame. Economists … a kind of scientist … do that stuff.
While the point the authors make may be important, it is also a) obvious and b) not elucidated in the way they think by frame analysis theory.
The authors go on to say:
“Recently, a coalition of Evangelical leaders have adopted a different strategy, framing the problem of climate change as a matter of religious morality. The business pages tout the economic opportunities from developing innovative technologies for climate change. Complaints about the Bush Administration’s interference with communication of climate science have led to a “public accountability” frame that has helped move the issue away from uncertainty to political wrongdoing.”
Bingo on the Evangelical bit … that is a good example of a frame shift. Well done. But these other examples are not frame shifts. The economic aspects are just aspects of the problem, and I promise you that if you step out of the scientific frame to work out the economic aspects of climate change you will get it wrong. The accountability issue, and the issue of interference with the science, are very firmly within the same frame in which the scientist works. The very fact that there is an issue at all with interference is because of the nature of this frame. So the authors hit the nail on the head once, and slammed their thumbs twice. I’m thinking this is random blabbering about frames by two guys who have never even heard of Goffman. (They certainly have not cited any literature indicating that they have.)
Then the authors discuss creationism:
“As another example, the scientific theory of evolution has been accepted within the research community for decades. Yet as a debate over “intelligent design” was launched, antievolutionists promoted “scientific uncertainty” and “teach-the-controversy” frames, which scientists countered with science-intensive responses. However, much of the public likely tunes out these technical messages. Instead, frames of “public accountability” that focus on the misuse of tax dollars, “economic development” that highlight the negative repercussions for communities embroiled in evolution battles, and “social progress” that define evolution as a building block for medical advances, are likely to engage broader support.”
No no no no no … the authors are so close to saying something smart here, but no, that’s not it! The whole point of pseudo scientific approaches (creation science, intelligent design) is to step INTO the scientific frame. This is the creationists understanding frames and frame shifts and using them very effectively. The “teach the controversy” act is also a frame shift used to exploit an existing frame, this one in the area of freedom of thought and education. These tactics are not “frames” they (the anti-evolutionists) are, however, exploiting frames and using frame shifts very effectively. More effectively than the authors of this “paper in Science” are, I’m afraid.
Yes, I do agree that some of these issues about accountability, development, progress, etc. are good strategies, but they are not frames. They are ideas, or attributes of frames, maybe. The idea of frames and frame shifts and what this is all good for is lost here.
Now, my question is, did this misunderstanding of the frame concept come from Beardsley, whose editorial they cite? In other words, did Nisbet and Mooney just find this “frame” thing on the Internet then proceed to substitute the word “frame” wherever possible in their discussion?
Beardsley references George Lakoff’s writing about frames. George Lakoff writes a lot of popular books (good for him) but is a linguist. His concept of frames is very much Goffman’s, modernized perhaps and applied, but the same thing. But I get the impression that Beardsley picked up this concept not even from Lakoff, but rather, very third hand. He says:
“Frames suggest an alternative strategy. Nisbet proposes that communicators who specialize in science and analyze ethics and policy options better than many of today’s journalists could be more effective in educating the public about scientific issues. … The frames concept recognizes that facts are not enough to win popularity; emotional responses need to be excited as well. …” [emphasis added]
Oh crap. It seems that Beardsley’s concept of frames comes from Nisbet. But Nisbet cites Beardsley’s post for what frames are. Oh dear.
This piece in Science is a lost opportunity. What a shame.
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For further discussion on this paper, see:
Framing Science … the Dialogue of the Deaf (Blog around the clock, Coturnix)
How to Communicate Science (Sandwalk, Larry Moran)
What if the right role for science is to shatter the frame? and
I like “framing” less and less … (Pharyngula, PZ Myers)
Nisbet, Mooney can’t possibly be this naive (ERV, S.A. Smith)
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References:
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. London: Harber and Row.
Nisbet, M. and C. Mooney. Policy Forum - Science and Society: Framing Science. Science. Vol. 316. no. 5821, p. 56
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Related Posts:
- Why scientists are not as good as creationists …
- Framing Science “Paper Is Deeply Flawed
- Framing Frames in the Service of Science
- Framing Nesbit: Is He Offering Us McScience?
- Can we frame something and see how it goes?
- Science is the BEST!!!
- Why we foam at the mouth
- Atheism is not the problem
- Instead of framing, let’s go camping!
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Nisbet’s thing is framing. His blog is called framing science. Is he a hack?
RPM: I don’t think he’s a hack. I think political science, generally, does not get this and has simply borrowed a theory without understanding it well. If the model has been transformed into something better or useful, I don’t see evidence of it in this paper. Nisbet’s other work does not to be so much about “frame anlysis” but rather communication and public engagement.
I feel that the Science “paper” was a knockoff not worthy of serious consideration.
Interesting analysis. I’m looking forward to hearing Nisbet and Mooney’s response to it.
This is one of the better response I have read throughout this whole storm-in-a-teacup stirred by the Mooney & Nisbet “paper” this weekend. And I applaud you, Greg, for not pulling your punches on the credibility of this “paper” - even PZ Myers and Larry Moran were surprisingly polite on the questionable scholarship behind this opinion piece, apparently taking it on face value instead. I didn’t think this piece said anything I didn’t (as a scientist and educator) already know, and found it somewhat glib. I’ve been bemused by all the talk about “frames” since Lakoff apparently brought it into its recent vogue, and have wondered what I might be missing - so I appreciate your pointer to Goffman’s analysis (which I have put on my reading list). From your assessment, it appears I might not in fact be the one missing something. I have to agree with you that this Science piece is indeed a lost opportunity, but perhaps not entirely lost given the more interesting discussion it has generated in the science blogosphere. I’ll try to organize my own thoughts and responses and contribute something soon.
I quoted a lengthy part of your post over at Respectful Insolence, and Nisbet offered up some papers:
Excellent post, Greg. I think you hit the nail on the head, in that Nisbet and Mooney probably have a useful point which is obscured by their unfortunate misuse of the term “frame”. I think their use is more closely related to the intuitive concept of picture frames, i.e. something you hang your point with, rather than the state of the reader’s mind.
I also appreciate the discussion of what “frames” really are in the technical sense. It was both clear and succint. Up until now, I’d only seen the term used in Lakoffian contexts, which made me vaguely uncomfortable. Now I see that there’s something real and useful behind the idea, just that it’s an abused idea.
Could it be that “framing” has become the political/sociological equivalent of “quantum” in the woo-world? I.e., a real field of study coopted into something unrecognisable because it sounds impressive?
The idea of framing and the mass media….hmmm…Feeling Framed? Step out of the picture, reframe it;-)
Greg: One debate in journalism is exactly in response to your question ‘ where did they get their idea of framing’, and I can tell you that if it were up to journalism instructors, it would be some vaguely cited, never tested textbook, without further elaboration, other than in lectures.Then, the word would be kicked around, and through a series of journalism classes without in depth looks at the origin of the concept.
Yes, PZ’s take on it “I blame YOU. Yeah, YOU. Why aren’t you, the consumer of media, demanding better fare?” is quite the norm of reaction in cyberspace, Indy Media, and elsewhere But Greg, PZ, Moran etc are actually reframing the frames one blog at a time, and are part of the most exciting media convergence in history-almost as exciting as the Gutenberg Bible and the printing press…well, maybe not THAT exciting;-)
The current independent media operate from the basis of ” don’t hate the media: become the media yet the current rhetoric of Jan and Joe Q. Public implies otherwise because of Jan and Joe being constituents of only five available news outlets here in the US.Which makes them prime candidates for the predation of false information about actual scientists, or scientific thinking “so yeah, I do believe that ” a) laypeople need to do a better job at interpreting news stories” but only because of the fact that they do not know how they and YOU as scientists have ben framed–and I do mean “set-up” in the classic sense– before the debates even begin .
Re: media moguls, mergers, and the selling of ideas
http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article30.html
Sad fact: it has never been in the interests of newspapers or other media outlets to educate the consumers of media, and more ogten than not, actively work to PREVENT the consumer from having access to honest factual, rhetorical, orscientific, or otherwise, debates–with this caveat: “if we can tie the selling of a product to it,” and then, this important reminder ” remember your audience”, i.e. your “subscriber, and your owner. Dove soap/soap operas/housewifes/nation under siege by commies/McCarthyism/Korean War, etc…you get the idea
The morphing definitions of Goffman’s original concept are best analyzed using “conceptual parsimony[] and clarification of the framing concept for present purposes.” because his original framing of the frame: “frames are basic cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of reality. On the whole, frames are not consciously manufactured but are unconsciously adopted in the course of communicative processes, ” is no longer applicable to media at large because of its perception of the frame as ” not CONSCIOUSLY manufactured” as well as them being ” UNCONSCIOUSLY adopted,” both of which are proven false in a media sense, because media is first of all ‘ beholden to its subscribers,” and second of all ” beholden to its advertisers,”
And, since this is a debate that does take place in the ‘normal’ mass media of television and the ol’ fish wrappers– unfortunately yes, the average news ‘consumer has a six second sound bite memory capacity, and is ;-( — and the definition of mass media framing is quite a bit different, and alot more dummied down, than one might want to expect or believe( um, for instance : we went to a war against Al Kaida and Ben Laden in Iraq, because then, the American people believed that Saddam and Al and Ben were actually relatives conspiring to hide WMD’s IN Iraq…)
The Poynter Institute ( Journalists warehouse for topics in the analysis and making of the news) has a great current event discussion about framing from a media perspective on a variety of topics here: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=114518and here, re: Bush Whitehouse use of ‘framing’ in the media sense
“The word “spin” is the most cynical synonym for framing, with the strong suggestion that truth is distorted for self interest, that black is called white if it suits the politician. “Framing” is more conceptually and morally neutral, and therefore more useful. It takes into account bias, ideology, and point of view, but reminds us that other ways of seeing and acting are also possible.”http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=6281
Here is another example, re, the Oklahoma city bombing and how it was essentially sold to the American public through framing, and the mass media concept of a news story “has a frame that is constructed by different groups engaged in a tug-of-war for media attention.” and that “The frame determines what information is presented, particularly during the brief period of intense focus known as the issue-attention cycle,” which unfortunately is determined by ratings, not rantings or educated refutations or rebutals. This process is known to be flawed and also ratings driven rather than fact based. Any one seen that mysterious “third man” from the McVeigh-Nichols-mystery man trio? Last I heard he is still at his FBI desk job in Detroit;-)
Current thoughts on classical Goffman:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/researc.....mlGoffman, Erving (1974): “Frame Analysis,” New York, NY: Harper.
Even though Goffman’s seminal work sparked the avalanche of frame analytic over the last three decades, one could reasonably argue that Goffman is today cited mainly for symbolic reasons, as current frame analytic work has little in common with Frame Analysis. One of the first reviews of Goffman’s work already anticipated the reason for this development: Frame Analysis is simply too ill-defined to be taught to graduate students. Frame Analysis Goffman-style is a “sociological art form, [&hellip] only certain talented individuals will grasp the underlying principles intuitively and [are] able to perform” ( Gamson 1975: 605) it. Consequently, frame analysis has become far more systematized, so it is now easier to learn and apply. Goffman still should be read. But to learn the actual technique, other texts are more suitable.
Key word here in quote above : systematized. Thatr can be good for parsimony, bad for factual analysis.But like it or not, Yes Virginia, the commercial Santa Clause states that consumers do indeed have a short attention span, a shorter ability to comprehend C-Span, and even less of a concept of how many opinions from how many disciplines/circles of rhetoric, media framers employ in order to ‘get us the news’;-(
Well, that was nice. Not being versed in communication theory I was in the same predicament as Madhu. Since the Science paper was unavailable I offered up a tentative definition of framing, rather closer to the post’s I think. I noted that social issues should perhaps not be the only frames, but that science would do as well. Unfortunately neither Nisbet nor Mooney commented on the difference, so I didn’t really see why I had a problem.
I’m glad the post explained this so thoroughly. Since Nisbet according to Blake’s comment is aware of a “turf battle”, it should come as no surprise to him that he has muddied the waters. Not a good start for an initiative on communication.
Also, frames seems to be used in CS, AFAIK to guide the interpretation of meaning (or “model”) for software logic. A robot would need to know if he is in the living room or the kitchen to know “which objects are hidden behind the table”, as i understand it. I think Nisbet both missed another category of frame users and that perhaps their usage is a lot closer to Goffman’s than his.
“Rather, some terms .. those already loaded with meaning … should be replaced with different words. For instance, we simply have to stop using the term “Evolutionary Theory” and switch it with “Evolutionary Biology” because the word “Theory” is so well understood in a widely used frame in a different way than we scientists mean it.”
Right! My first idea was that scientists should indeed suggest correct frames in debates, as this post does by mentioning the Goffman concept, or help build new ones as I suspect Goffman did by presenting his ideas. But scientists could also modify the prompts.
Another problem, which I see here as well, is that suitable frames or other communication methods would depend on culture. Nisbet and Mooney judge for example Dawkins methods in a US perspective.
Greg, you take Nisbet/Mooney to task for not writing a research paper even while pointing out their paper is in the Policy Forum section of Science. That doesn’t seem quite fair.
And setting aside the technical issues of this or that concept of frames, doesn’t their idea come through quite clearly? (That is, aren’t you focusing on tangential concerns?)
When you say, “This requires the construction of a frame into which the public can shift when they realize they are hearing a scientist talk” I think you are doing what scientists so often do: assume the public must change in order for the scientist to be heard because the scientist can/should/prefer to talk in only one mode. Alternatively, scientists (in some particular comminication contexts) can change the way they talk.
I’ve just posted a rather long piece of my mind on this topic over at Reconciliation Ecology, which might interest you - I hope.
Trinifar: You have a point about “fair” … But I don’t think my concern is tangential at all. The strength of their piece is the power of thier application, in this case, frame analysis.
I do have to say, however, that my critique should be taken as a more general critique of frame analysis sensu lato. This is a topic I deal with in my most recent post:
http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=669
Regarding frame shifts: I think it is essential that the public, in the 21st century, get a science frame, and fast. Or they will all suffer terribly and die horrible deaths.
There was a time when we were not allowed to pump our own gas. I figure there would be hundreds of deaths within a month or two if everyone was required to pump their own gas in, say, 1955. But now everyone pumps their own gas and hardly blows themselves up.
What has changed? People have gotten a new frame for this, AND the pumps have more safety features.
We need to do that as well. Scientist have to recognize, for instance, the fact that we are NEVER going to fix this “theory” thing … the public uses the word “theory” for stuff they don’t believe. We can much more easily change the way we speak, and to great effect, than to change the way the public speaks.
But the public has to get this science frame, because we cannot shift the dialog of science into a frame in which it is no longer science. That can’t be done, it makes no sense.
“Scientist have to recognize, for instance, the fact that we are NEVER going to fix this “theory” thing … the public uses the word “theory” for stuff they don’t believe.”
This is the primary bone of contention amongst those who frame this science/evolution thing so horribly. Another one is that we “changed’ from moneys to humans, or that the idea of “proof’ in a mathematical definitive sense versus a more …um…what? sense is needing clarification.
But the bigger idea might be that when scientists encounter media, they might need media “handlers” just like so many other professions need them. Media reps can weed through and/or anticipate some of the nonsense that scientists encounter in answering questions BEFORE they are sabotaged by fundies,righties, the ignorant,etc on live tv. A little P.R. goes along way.
Thank you for this post, on a number of fronts. 1st, I am a classicist/literary critic/autism mother & blogger who has been trying to figure out how best to write about scientific concepts on my blog, Autism Vox. 2nd, as a non-scientist trying to furnish herself with arguments against the vaccine-autism and mercury-autism theories, I think Nisbet’s and Moore’s basic motivation for the “framing” article on target: Even though there is no credible scientific evidence for the above theories of autism causation, parents really, really, really, believe them (and have filled the comments sections of my blogs with these, along with extensive “research” citations). Not enough scientists (it seems) are speaking out and much attention in the autism community is spent, and wasted, on these debates, and there are many more pressing concerns (like educating autistic children). 3rd, your point about how how “pseudo scientific approaches (creation science, intelligent design) ….. step INTO the scientific frame” is eye-opening for me. I see this as what the vaccine/mercury-autism believes have done and have convinced too many people that they are right.
So thank you. I am learning a lot.
autismvox.com
Flawed is a polite review. Is Not even wrong
“The whole point of pseudo scientific approaches (creation science, intelligent design) is to step INTO the scientific frame.”
Good point, and isn’t “tests show that this mascara makes your lashes 43 percent thicker than the competing product” another example of the same thing? The scientific frame and data-dumping can’t be all bad, sometimes they sell.
Windy: “scientific frame and data-dumping can’t be all bad, sometimes they sell.”
It is this sort of minimizing and trivializing that allows the horse blinder folks to yoke more sheep;-)
Evolution & science face a dillema of social/humanistic intentions and it is imperative that creationism $ the ID framers are not seen as mere mascara salespeople. They actively seek to destroy through deliberate misuse of info, and what they are selling is not mere beauty products.
1) I was not implying that mascara salespeople necessarily are a particularly benevolent bunch. And ‘minimizing’? Come on. Disco institute can only dream they had the annual revenues of Max Factor
2) Read more closely; the point about mascara salespeople was not about who is harmless and who is not. Simply that scientists should not try to avoid the “scientific frame” completely when talking to the public, since sometimes it inspires confidence instead of boredom.
Windy: “point about mascara salespeople was not about who is harmless and who is not. Simply that scientists should not try to avoid the “scientific frame” completely when talking to the public, since sometimes it inspires confidence instead of boredom”
I have images of dangerous mascara salespeople corrupting the minds of young women with ‘evolving lines’ of cosmetics;-)
Have you been staying in the debate here? It has indeed gotten lively. Check out the new posts!It is no longer about avoiding/not avoiding the frame, but they are actually using the hammer and nail and building one!
At the risk of repeating other comments: “framing” is one of those terms in social science that means very different things depending on context and field. In this case, they are obviously referring to the copious recent research in political psychology and communication (see Chong and Druckman 2007 in a recent issue of American Political Science Review for a review). It has become a much more brittle and specific cognitive mechanism in the field of message-based persuasion, which, to my mind, is an improvement upon the sweeping understanding of frames in sociology, which have been long on metaphor and rather short on explaining what specific and testable causal mechanisms underlie different sorts of communications effects on public and elite attitudes. In short, this has little to do with Groffman’s frame analysis theory, and while indeed, “framing” may not be the best term for what political psychologists have been studying of late, it’s what it is, and your outrage really is misplaced v-a-v their use of the “framing” terminology.