[Coral-List] Dr. Shinn and YouTube

Delbeek, Charles CDelbeek at calacademy.org
Sun Dec 20 17:14:53 EST 2009


Well said Ben. Just to add to the rigidity of thinking and the difficulty in getting across the method by which science works to the general public thread, I offer the following example overheard just last month when a parent was viewing a preserved coelacanth on display with her child.

"Look honey, this is a coelacanth, it was thought to be extinct until 1938 when they caught one. This just goes to show you, you can't trust what scientists tell you."


J. Charles Delbeek, M.Sc.

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Ben Richards
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 10:33 AM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Dr. Shinn and YouTube

....... How can we, as scientists, help to increase comfort with uncertainty among the general public and especially among the media?  How can we temper backlash and distrust when alarms, raised based on the best available knowledge, turn out to be wrong based on new findings?  Has not a willingness to be incorrect also been a principle of scientific thought and progress?

"Hindsight is 20-20", but we cannot operate on hindsight alone.

Thoughts?

~ben

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><
Benjamin L. Richards
Graduate Student
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology
					               
"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."  
				- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi -




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