Reactions Of Scientists Research Articles

Communicating earthquake risk to the public: the trial of the “L’Aquila Seven”

The trial and conviction of seven public officials in L’Aquila, central Italy, for having allegedly given out misleading and incorrect information to the public before the 6 April 2009 earthquake has proved to be one of the most momentous developments of recent times in science and disaster risk reduction—and also one of the most misunderstood. It highlights the difficulty in transforming the findings of the earth sciences, which are often characterised by uncertainty, into information that can be used to protect ordinary citizens. This paper describes those elements of the disaster at L’Aquila which are pertinent to the trial and the legal proceedings that followed them. It analyses the political, social and scientific context of the trial, and the reaction of scientists and their institutions in Italy and other countries. I conclude that the defendants were tried as responsible public officials, not as scientists. The mass media in Italy and abroad tended to insist that what was on trial was the ability to predict earthquakes, and this had an enormous influence on the opinion of scientists in many different places. However, the trial was actually about the apparently fatal consequences of misleading the public with “incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information”, as the prosecutors put it. I believe that much of the international reaction to the trial was misguided because it was based on incomplete, second-hand information about the proceedings. If scientists were to make judgements on their own work in such a superficial manner, the results would be highly unreliable and public faith in science would plummet.

Creation of Lunokhod-1 as an outstanding scientific and technological achievement of the XX century

The article discusses the history of the development and experimental testing of the automatic self-propelled chassis Lunokhod-1 and the scientific and technical problems that were solved in the course of this work. The reaction of scientists and the world community to the first studies of the lunar surface using an automatic mobile laboratory is discussed.

The public good vs. commercial interest: research scientists in search of an accommodation

The environment for scientific research in public organisations is undergoing radical change, particularly with commercialisation pressures and blurring of the distinction between public and private research. The commercialisation pressures are reflected in government policy frameworks and institutional contexts for scientific work which are reconfiguring the context within which scientists work and raising questions about their identities, values, roles, motivations and careers. The changes represent a challenge to the traditional public good role of science and accompanying values. Based on an empirical study of a sample of research scientists from two public sector research organisations in Australia, this paper explores the interpretations and reactions of scientists to this changing environment. It shows that the changes have generated significant tensions between a set of norms entrenched in a traditional ethos of science and the emerging commercialisation imperatives that the scientists struggle to come to terms with or reconcile.

‘Grasp of Practice’ as a Reasoning Resource for Inquiry and Nature of Science Understanding

This article articulates how a ‘grasp of practice’ serves as a reasoning resource for inquiry and citizenship abilities associated with nature of science (NOS) understanding. Theoretically, this resource is elaborated through an overlapping concern with ‘practice’ in two literatures, science studies and psychology of learning, bringing attention to two key roles in scientific practice, Critiquers and Constructors of claims. Empirically, this resource is made plausible by the results of an expert-novice study and a classroom study. In the expert-novice study, reactions of scientists and laypeople to science-related claims in the popular media were contrasted, underlining the appropriate ways scientists tend to Critique such claims. In the classroom study, sixth-grade students engaged in a 2-week ramp experiment, experiencing first hand the roles of Critiquers and Constructors of claims, and were subsequently assessed with a novel experimental task. Performances suggest that students had attained a grasp of practice, going well beyond mere execution of methods or procedures. These results challenge a common assumption that declarative knowledge best characterizes learning targets for supporting inquiry and NOS understanding.

Early reactions to information growth

The expansion in the number of journals being published really took off in the nineteenth century. Between the beginning and end of that century, the problems of dealing with the spread of literature appearing consequently grew rapidly. The reactions of scientists to this included a move towards increasing specialisation in their research, and a higher level of organisation of their communication activities. In particular, ways of assisting information retrieval were developed then which became extremely important in the twentieth century. Two of these developments are examined here — the provision of abstracts for scientists and of popular articles for non-scientists. Parallels can be found between these two activities, as well as differences due to the different target audiences. It is noted that both appeared in print environment: an electronic environment may affect their futures differently.

Deviance in the practice of science.

The author discusses misconduct in biomedical research in terms of research about deviance. The ancient mantle of the sacred was transferred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century from religious institutions to the scientists and the universities that they came to dominate. Universities were engaged in the pursuit of truth; and when science came to dominate universities, they became the hallowed ground of science. Many younger scientists consider that theirs is professional work like any other, but the general public, journalists, and policymakers still consider that scientists who break the rules are guilty of heinous offenses (violations of a sacred trust). This explains in part the different reactions of scientists and the public to recent scandals involving medical researchers. One of the most important points about deviance among scientists is the need to distinguish between rules imposed on the actor and rules that the individual is personally committed to. As government funding has come to dominate biomedical research, scientists have become part of huge bureaucratic entities with values, policies, and views often at variance from those of the scientific community. Increasingly, scientists find conflict between the values and mores of their community and the rules and mores of the federal and university bureaucracies that control modern science. Scientists can come to feel that they can violate the bureaucrats' rules and still be highly principled because they do not violate the values of science. The danger is that, by a process of drift, they can come to violate increasingly important, even primary, values of science.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Scientific Validity of Proposed Public Education Materials for Balanced Treatment of Creationism and Evolution in Elementary Science Classrooms of Alabama

The political fight for the inclusion of “scientific creationism” in public school curricula has generated reactions of scientists from many disciplines, who nearly unanimously dismiss this material as unfit for science teaching. Because some “creationist” materials were written specifically for science classes, such as general science, biology, and geological modules, they should be evaluated prior to use for scientific content and accuracy. Should these materials fail to conform with the body of generally accepted, modern scientific knowledge, then they do not belong in the science classrooms of our public schools.I have examined several of the books written by “creationists” for public school science classes, and evaluated them for bias and distortion in their treatment of scientific facts, hypotheses and conclusions. All of the materials I examined exhibit statements of distortion and bias.In addition to unsatisfactory scientific content, I have also noted a degree of dogmatism. This is curious because one of the objections of the “scientific creationists” to current content in public school science classrooms is the teaching of modern science in dogmatic fashion: for example, Darwinian evolution is taught as dogma, in conjunction with no other alternatives (i.e. “scientific creationism”).These materials proposed for the public school science classroom do not belong there, because they do not teach modern science. The lack of scientific validity of “science creationist” literature should be emphasized in debate and discussion at especially the local level.

Reactions of Scientists and Science Teachers to Statements Bearing on Certian Aspects of Science and Science Teaching*

Reactions of Scientists and Science Teachers to Statements Bearing on Certian Aspects of Science and Science Teaching*