"Science Literacy" is ultimately a form of critical thinking

We need a more informed public when it comes to science, no question.
We need journalists to properly present scientific facts in context, without lending undeserved "equal weight" to unscientific or even anti-scientific sentiment. Again, no question.

But we will never have a public that thinks critically if we try to protect them from ideas we don't think they're ready to parse.

I like how Bob Garfield (of "On the Media") covered the uproar over the provocative profile of Freeman Dyson in The New York Times Magazine.

The following quotations are from the episode. Link:  On The Media: Transcript of "Getting Heated" (April 10, 2009)

• The New York Times Magazine published a cover story on Freeman Dyson, an eminent physicist who has been in residency at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies since the 1950s. The piece, titled The Global Warming Heretic, chronicles, among other things, Dyson’s unorthodox opinions on climate change, namely his belief that scientists rely too much on computer generated models and that carbon dioxide, which is contained in coal smoke, is not that bad for the environment. Of course, his thinking flies in the face of an overwhelming preponderance of scientific research. Dyson himself says that his views might be wrong and they're, quote, “more a matter of judgment than knowledge.”

  tags: science, nytimes, on the media, climate change, science literacy

  • The New York Times Magazine published a cover story on Freeman Dyson, an eminent physicist who has been in residency at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies since the 1950s. The piece, titled The Global Warming Heretic, chronicles, among other things, Dyson’s unorthodox opinions on climate change, namely his belief that scientists rely too much on computer generated models and that carbon dioxide, which is contained in coal smoke, is not that bad for the environment.

    Of course, his thinking flies in the face of an overwhelming preponderance of scientific research. Dyson himself says that his views might be wrong and they're, quote, “more a matter of judgment than knowledge.”

  • Some of the reaction to the article was severe, as bloggers and online commenters questioned the magazine’s judgment, author Nicholas Dawidoff’s credentials and Freeman Dyson’s grip on reality. Among the most vitriolic was Joe Romm, a writer for The Climate Progress blog at the Center for American Progress, who ridiculed all involved and alleged that the attention devoted to Freeman Dyson was shameful.

  • BOB GARFIELD: You know, I've got to say, back in the '70s a guy named William Shockley, who had won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on developing the transistor, started coming out with some generally crackpot theories on race and was ridiculed and attacked, but the outrageousness of his theories did not make me less want to know what led to his using his Nobel Laureate status as a bully pulpit for racist, pseudoscientific views. I wanted to know more about him, not less.

    When people say controversial things, shouldn't we want to know more about them, not less?

  • JOE ROMM: Because of the way it covers global warming and similar issues as he-said/she-said, the media guarantee that a certain fraction of the [LAUGHS] community is going to go out there and say outrageous things to be covered. I think that if there’s a fire in a theater and you are screaming, there’s no fire, don't move, then you don't deserve a cover profile in The New York Times Magazine.

    BOB GARFIELD: Don't you give the audience any credit for a story that clearly characterizes Dyson’s views as way beyond the scientific consensus? Do you credit them not at all for being able to parse the relative weight of these arguments?

  • JOE ROMM: The public is not scientifically expert, and the public’s ability to distinguish science and pseudoscience, which sound pretty much the same, is very small. So it is up to the filters, the media, to use its own judgment based on talking to many different sources and itself weighing the credibility of sources.

    What The New York Times Magazine has done is elevate Dyson to a very high degree of credibility as a highly credible source on global warming, which he isn't.

    BOB GARFIELD: Wow, I so can't believe we've read the same story. The story I read didn't promote his opinions in any fashion, such as you’re describing.

  • BOB GARFIELD: I think you’re also ignoring the preponderance of The New York Times’ reporting over the years, the extensive coverage that, for example, Andrew Revkin has given to this subject, you know, that I would say in no way sugarcoats the issue of climate change.
  • JOE ROMM: The New York Times does do some fine reporting on global warming, but the reader of this piece may or may not have read that. The media doesn't have unlimited space and certainly not in high profile places like a cover profile in The New York Times Magazine. And when they choose to write at length about a man like this, they are saying his ideas merit serious discussion.
  • BOB GARFIELD: I've got to tell you, Joe, you know, this show has been right out in front of criticizing the way the media have covered global warming on precisely the false equivalency issues that we've discussed, but I just didn't see this story as having done that. It seems to me that you’re not even angry about this story so much as you are about the press’ whole history of covering this issue.
• Next, Garfield interviewed Dawidoff, author of the profile.

  • BOB GARFIELD: Does it matter, from a journalistic point of view, whether he’s right or whether he’s wrong?

    NICHOLAS DAWIDOFF: Oh, absolutely not. ...I have no investment in what he thinks. I'm just interested in how he thinks and the depth and the singularity of his point of view. He’s a completely original person, and a brilliant and an unusual and an accomplished person, and an unpredictable person, and that’s what attracts me to him. I just think that he is so worth listening to, whether you agree with him or not. And I certainly don't agree with everything that he says, but I'm interested in everything that he says. And there are not that many people in this world about who you can say, “I'm interested in everything that he says.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.