{"id":931,"date":"2014-04-06T08:54:52","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T15:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/?p=931"},"modified":"2016-01-13T14:06:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T22:06:14","slug":"blog-and-tweet-says-penny-park-to-canadian-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/2014\/04\/06\/blog-and-tweet-says-penny-park-to-canadian-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog and Tweet says Penny Park to Canadian Scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr<\/a>
Dr Penny Park presenting at UFV Abbotsford Campus. Photograph by Betsy Terpsma.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, the University of the Fraser Valley brought one of their honourary doctorate recipients, Dr Penny Park<\/a> from the Science Media Centre of Canada<\/a>, back to campus to speak about the urgent need to communicate science in Canada.<\/p>\n

Penny called for scientists to \u201cstep up\u201dand correct misinformation when they saw it. She spoke about instances where public misinformation in Canada had exponentially grown; citing recent examples of climate change, genetic engineering, and vaccinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists want to weigh things up, to take their time to think about things; but communication is speeding up,\u201d Penny said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou [scientists] have an obligation to reach out to the public beyond your organisation\u2019s boundaries. We need you,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Penny referred to an EKOS research poll<\/a> from 2011\u00a0showing that Canadians trust scientists more than they trust a lot of other groups, including politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe terrier like. If you see something that is inaccurate, do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also answered audience questions about the practicalities of engaging with the public. Rather than \u201cdumbing down\u201d research for the public, she essentially called on researchers to challenge people with their ideas rather than their language.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsider how your work might enter a conversation that is already happening,\u201d she urged.<\/p>\n

In an earlier blog post<\/a>, I referred to a talk by Jim Hoggan<\/a>, from Hoggan and Associates<\/a>, who warned that researchers were in danger of contributing negatively to already polarised public debates. I asked Penny if researchers might be contributing more noise to already noisy issues. Her response was for scientists to use trusted channels of communication, such as the Science Media Centre of Canada<\/a> or start their own blog or Twitter site where they could establish credibility with a following before an issue became a problem.<\/p>\n

\"Penny<\/a>
Penny Park receiving an honorary doctorate from UFV in 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Penny also responded to questions about what \u201csells\u201d science to the public. She advised scientists to consume the media where they would like to publish so that they could appreciate what that community of viewers or readers needs to know. This also serves to get to know what the editors like. \u00a0She cited what she referred to as the \u201cNASA School of<\/a>\u00a0Journalism<\/a>\u201d, which has brought space to the world through images and animations<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians love weather and sex,\u201d she said. \u201cAnimal sex always makes a great story.\u201d<\/p>\n

UFV President,\u00a0Mark Evered, asked Penny about communicating research before peer review. He was concerned that communicating too early could damage the reputation of scientists and science in general. Penny responded that it is the duty of scientists not to oversell what they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

She also called for journalists as well as public readers and viewers, to look critically at the information they are presented with.<\/p>\n

\u201cCritical thinking is the key,\u201d she emphasized.<\/p>\n

Penny ended the President’s 2014 Leadership Lecture<\/a> with a call to for UFV to engage students in critical thinking around numeracy and statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake it attractive and they\u2019ll want to learn more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the University of the Fraser Valley brought one of their honourary doctorate recipients, Dr Penny Park from the Science Media Centre of Canada, back to campus to speak about the urgent need to communicate science in Canada. Penny called for scientists to \u201cstep up\u201dand correct misinformation when they saw it. She spoke about … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/cmns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}