Research!America is the nation’s largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance. The group creates terrific, participatory online resources like Your Congress, Your Health where you can search by zip code and track your legislators’ views on health and research issues. Each month, they distribute a newsletter to their 500+ member organizations representing 125 million Americans. My pal Randy Olson (scientist-turned-hollywood-producer and now author of Don’t Be SUCH A Scientist) and I are acknowledged in the fresh-off-the-press December newsletter. I should add that in May, I had the pleasure of participating in the NY Academy of Sciences’  Two Cultures panel discussion with Research!America’s Chair, the Honorable John Porter.

In the current edition of the New York Academy of Sciences Magazine, you’ll find a piece co-authored by me and Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.  We hope that our op-ed, “The Growth of Citizen Science” helps articulate how “average people” are contributing to science.

Here’s an excerpt:

Not so long ago, “citizen scientist” would have seemed to be a contradiction in terms. Science is traditionally something done by people in lab coats who hold PhDs. As with classical music or acting, amateurs might be able to appreciate science, but they could not contribute to it. Today, however, enabled by technology and empowered by social change, science-interested laypeople are transforming the way science gets done.

Some of you have asked to see the video of the Two Cultures event at the NY Academy of Sciences (I was a panelist for the Science and Policy discussion). Two main architects of this event were Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of Unscientific America, a book on the crisis of scientific illiteracy. Speaking of which, see how YOU stack up against others who’ve taken this brief, basic science literacy quiz.

Here’s a note from Shawn Otto, CEO of Science Debate, and a link to the videos.

On May 9, 2009 we co-organized and co-hosted a conference with our friends at the New York Academy of Sciences marking the 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” lecture.   Snow famously complained of a “gulf of mutual incomprehension between science and the humanities.”

That gulf now exists between science and policymaking, and in an age when the world’s greatest challenges revolve around science and engineering, it must be overcome.  This is the focus of our work at Science Debate.

The conference proceedings, including video of the presentations, are now up at the New York Academy of Sciences website.  We hope you can join us online as we explore issues and strategies, with keynote addresses by:

Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson
former Congressman John Porter
Segway inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen

And panel explorations with an all-star line-up:

Cultural History
Moderator
D. Graham Burnett, Professor of History, Princeton University
Panelists
Ann Blair, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Harvard University
Lawrence Krauss, Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University
Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University
Guy Ortolano, Author, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain

Science Communication 101
Moderator
Corey Powell, Editor in Chief, Discover Magazine
Panelists
Paula S. Apsell, Executive Producer of NOVA, Director of WGBH Science Unit
Ira Flatow, Executive Producer & Host, NPR’s Science Friday
Andrew Revkin, Environment Reporter, The New York Times
Carl Zimmer, Author and Science Essayist

Political Science
Moderator
Chris Mooney, Co-author, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
Panelists
Darlene Cavalier, Founder, ScienceCheerleader.com
Matthew Chapman, Darwin descendent, filmmaker, author, founder Science Debate 2008
Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist and Director, Scientific Integrity Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Shawn Otto, Co-founder and CEO, Science Debate 2008; filmmaker
John Porter, Chair of Research!America’s board of directors and Partner in Hogan & Hartson’s DC law office

Education and Citizenship
Moderator
Sheril Kirshenbaum, Co-author, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
Panelists
Stacy Baker, Biology Teacher, Calverton School, Huntingtown, MD
Kevin Finneran, Editor-in-Chief, Issues in Science and Technology, the policy journal of the National Academies
Adrienne Klein, Co-Director, Science & the Arts, The Graduate Center of The City University of New York
Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology, Duke University

Don’t miss this unique and important event – and if you think this kind of discussion is helpful, please contribute!

Any day now, I should receive the video of the Two Cultures panel discussions. My panel, pictured here, discussed science policy as it relates to C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures. The moderator, Chris Mooney, and his co-author, Sheril Kirshenbaum, just released their terrific book “Unscientific America”. (Not to brag but I’m mentioned in the book, um, twice.) Check out the rave reviews and stay tuned for another review, here.

Presenting Science Cheerleader.com’s newest, regular commentator, Occam’s Razor…our skeptical cheerleader.  Take it away, Occam…

This year we honor Charles Darwin’s 200^th birthday. Few scientists are celebrated so ardently for so long as Darwin, and many institutions are using this year to stage a variety of events to celebrate his work and his life with lectures, symposia, conferences, etc. Just like many other pioneers he caused a massive paradigm shift, forcing us to think about something in a whole new way, not unlike Linda Lovelace, for example, who changed the way we thought about movies; both of these brave trailblazers understood how to use evidence to make certain concepts easier to swallow. Of course on the flip side, this pro-Darwin vibe has caused a rise in tensions in the communities typically involved in the debate over his work – those with ideas in opposition to Darwin have been raising their voices lately and the Darwinists have become less tolerant of any dissent…example: new reports from Connecticut indicate that that crazy xanax-laden chimp who attacked that woman did so after he heard her speak poorly of a recent performance of “Inherit the Wind
Yes, it’s been a veritable scientific Darwinpalooza around the U.S., so much so that it’s easy to forget the guy actually was not called a “scientist,” but is commonly referred to as a “naturalist,” which in today’s vernacular can also mean “nudist.” This would explain this often-discussed entry from his Notes from the Beagle: “As I hopped from rock to rock at Galapagos, I did so free and uninhibited of wardrobe, causing the tortoises to observe me in a queer manner…and truly the chill breeze in the air that morning did so cause my parts for reproduction to evolve to a state of such shrinkage that were a potential mate to see me thus I think I would stand a fair chance of natural de-selection!”
But what brought Darwin to this role in history? A love for knowledge? The search for deeper understanding? Maybe, but here’s my theory as to why he was obsessed with this stuff. Have you seen a picture of this guy?  Take a look at that forehead and descending brow! Notice any similarities to this?  I bet when you get called “monkey head” for most of your formative years you sort of become obsessed with the idea and want to legitimize the whole thing somehow!
All of this Darwin stuff is only on my mind because a photo of this pretty cool new bust of him in the National Academy of Sciences Building was recently sent to me. If you’re on the western end of the Mall, north of the Lincoln, check it out. It’s not so much that the bust itself is cool but there was some advanced science used in the creation of it. According to a plaque at the site, “A virtual model was created by (digitally) scanning the original sculpture at the New York Academy of Sciences, which graciously consented to the creation of a second replica to be located at the NAS Building. Using a rapid prototype process, a form was created from which a bronze will be cast.”
Three observations: 1. isn’t “second replica” redundant? Unless there is already one replica and that seems unlikely since they had to graciously consent to this. 2.in situ is Latin for “in the nude,” another reference to his naturalism. 3. Again note the graciously there. This is the NATIONAL Academy of Sciences we’re talking about but of course the New York Academy of Sciences, like everything else in NY, thinks it’s the center of the solar system (ironically ignoring the discoveries of Copernicus, one of their own). Being smarter and more sophisticated (and oh by the way more likely to destroy most of the wealth in this country), New Yorkers must let it be known they are condescending to share something of theirs, even if it’s something for a like-minded institution that seemingly outranks them.
One fascinating piece of information not noted on the plaque regarding the bronze casting: The plan is to create the final sculpture by initially making 20 large sculptures, which when completed will be toppled from their pedestals. The sculptures which do not shatter will be melted down and mixed together to make another several sculptures, which will then also be dropped. Again, the unbroken sculptures will be melted together and so on for several iterations. It’s hoped that after this is done enough times the sculpture will also form legs, eyes, consciousness, animation, etc. Check back in a billion years.