Guest Thinkers

At Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School on Monday, about fifty faculty and students turned out for the lunch time seminar on Framing Science. The Q&A generated traditional questions but also a […]

Yesterday, on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show, Francis Collins appeared with other guests to talk about the science and ethics of personal genetic testing. The show was prompted in part by […]

Over the summer I addressed by video conference a meeting by the National Academies on state science policy advice. They’ve now produced a report based on that meeting and it […]

Ask yourself: What’s the best way you can promote atheism in your community or on your campus? Do you want to gain attention through polarizing attacks at your blog or […]

I just drove round trip from the Minneapolis airport to Madison in a rented Toyota Prius. I have to say that the car is super fast and smooth and has […]

You don’t have to be a social scientist to recognize that the distribution of opinion among people who comment at Scienceblogs is very different from the perspective found among the […]

Last week Pew released an in depth survey of national and local print and TV reporters, editors, and producers. Among the findings, Pew describes that journalists at national news organizations […]

Speculation mounts as to whether Gore will endorse either Obama or Clinton in the Democratic Primary race. My suggestion would be that he stay out of election politics in 2008, […]

Two weeks ago, I spent my spring break at the Exploratorium, as a visiting Osher Fellow. One of the projects I consulted on was the Exploratorium’s “evidence” project, an exciting […]

Caitlin Wall, one of the students in my Political Communication seminar this semester, has embarked on a very successful job as an international affairs blogger for Foreign Policy magazine. Caitlin’s […]

From E.O. Wilson’s appearance last year on PBS Bill Moyers talking about the common moral obligation among atheists and evangelicals to take collective action on the environment: Let us– in […]

In the March 14 issue of Science, a letter was published responding to our April 2007 Policy Forum essay and our October 2007 cover article at The Scientist. In her […]

While the PZ Myers Affair dominates discussion at Scienceblogs this weekend, it’s important to remind ourselves that there is an invisible middle of perspectives from scientists, atheists and the religious […]

If you haven’t seen this clip yet, above is a preview of the central message on how “Big Science” views religion in the documentary Expelled. There’s little work needed on […]

In its latest issue, Time magazine runs a feature on the impacts of social issue dramas such as Blood Diamond and documentaries such as Inconvenient Truth. It’s an area where […]

Student Pugwash has launched a very interesting science, environment, and technology guide for young voters. Press release below. Student Pugwash USA Launches Science Policy Election Guide for Young VotersWashington, DC […]

Pew has released its annual “State of the Media” report with detailed summaries of their content analysis on each sector of the news media. I will be blogging about this […]

At the popular site Ars Technica, science editor John Timmer pens a detailed summary of the “Communicating Science in a Religious America” panel held at last month’s AAAS meetings. The […]

With more than a million contributors and volunteers, if Obama makes it to the Oval Office, he could be the first “network president.” That’s how Joe Trippi on PBS NOW […]

In a segment set to air on BBC/PRI’s The World tomorrow, I offer my observations about the communication strategy of The Heartland Institute. The Chicago based think tank seeks to […]

I will be spending next week (my spring break) in San Francisco as an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium science museum. While in the Bay Area, Chris Mooney will be […]

The latest issue of Nature Reports Stem Cell Research runs a lengthy news analysis by Meredith Wadman on the political communication effort that ultimately killed the New Jersey stem cell […]

As I explained yesterday, it’s foolish to dismiss the potential impact of the Heartland Institute conference. The organizers have a powerful framing strategy, one that resonates strongly with conservative media […]

In his regular column at Nature this week, David Goldston weighs in on the themes discussed at the AAAS panel “Communicating Science in a Religious America,” which Goldston moderated. In […]

Yesterday PRI’s The World ran a five minute news report (audio) on The Heartland Institute’s climate change conference to which I contributed analysis. Also at their web site, they feature […]

In the latest issue of the journal CBE Life Sciences, National Academies senior staffers Jay Labov and Barbara Kline Pope describe the audience research that informed the writing, design, and […]

One of the reporters I spotted at AAAS was Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review. Curtis is CJR’s science correspondent and creator of CJR’s Observatory, a great new online […]

Expect a lot more of this train of thought pushed by the Clinton campaign and various journalists and pundits over the next two weeks leading up to the primaries in […]

In the Wall Street Journal today, GOP strategist Karl Rove rejects conventional wisdom that Obama is vulnerable simply because of the two sided attacks from Clinton and McCain, but rather […]

Traveling back from talks at UTexas, I spotted this front page feature in today’s Austin American Statesman. As I have noted at this blog before, according to surveys and experts […]