Examples of science blogs – which blog is for you and me? It all depends ….

After reviewing the provided six examples of science blogs, here is what I thought of each of them.

1.  Blog 1 - Scientist at work.  This blog is clear, reader friendly, interesting, presents general facts, some solid points of the scientific method, but it does it on a day by day basis and not in a single coherent story; I would say that it is directed to people with some level of education and academic background in research.

2.  Blog 2 - Marine conservation news.  This blog is less scientifically oriented, more of a commentary from people, and is based on little empirical evidence.  I would describe its format as brief, simple in vocabulary and with a not well-structured writing.

3.     Blog 3 - Zooillogix.  Here the ideas are good in spotlighting creatures, but in interpreting research facts is not that good. Language used in not technical, nor well-written, although it has very good videos that are very appealing. Too brief to convey a complete message, but eye-catching for the videos.

4.     Blog 4 - The EEEB and flow.  Scientifically based texts, lots of heavy scientific concepts, interesting and thought-provoking for research-related people (e.g., grad students and scientists).

5.     Blog 5 - Science Friday blog.  It conveys little scientific information relating it with our everyday life, some political aspects and with a tinge of sarcasm.  Information is very short and explicitly directs the authors’ opinion.  I did not like the superficial content, nor the way it is presented.

6.     Blog 6 - Parasite of the day.  It conveys scientific information on parasites related to their biological cycle, new species, new hosts, and the like in a technical succinct format.  For those of us with some scientific background, we would feel comfortable reading and learning basic information from it, but for non-scientific background public it would be a little too technical the way is described and the use of scientific names would discourage readers from getting the whole point.

If I had to select and recommend one blog out of these six cases for my non-research-related friends, I would choose, without a doubt, “scientists at work – notes from the field” based on the well-structured writing, flow of ideas, descriptive style, simplicity, and appealing formats used (e.g., text, pictures and videos).  The only tricky thing herein is that the reader has to read the whole blog or most of it to understand the big picture of the research and concatenate the codes (e.g., names of the primate packs or families) and ideas presented due to its nature (i.e., it is a field diary).

As concerns for myself, and other science-related people, I would go for “The EEEB and flow” blog due to its top scientific quality material, critical reviews, informative, brief extension, thought-provoking, perusal-inducing, and well-written texts.  I would also recommend “scientists at work – notes from the field” due to the properties mentioned on the previous paragraph and also because they concisely describe parts of another critical step on science: methods or how they are conducting and developing their research including typical everyday problems.

Wolf-related papers: the wolf and the three litlle pigs idea

The readings “The Wolf Effect” and “Valley of Fear” present similar scientific ecological information under two defined clear styles of writing.  In my opinion, “The Wolf Effect” is written in a more reader-friendly format than the “Valley of Fear”.  This does not imply that the second account was complex at all.  When communicating scientific information to the general reader (general society) is critical to combine an interesting easy-to-understand language to describe in a well articulated narrative a summary of the major scientific findings.  This information should present, as the aforementioned
papers did, numbers, authors, dates, and take home messages to back up the text (i.e, keeping the sound science behind the information).  I considered myself an extremely visual person, but I was thrilled and excited when reading the wolf effect chapter and without having pictures could immerse myself not only into the information but into the situations and landscapes being described throughout the chapter.

As concerns for the Valley of Fear, it captivated me the way how was intertwined the scientific research results with an inductive way of changing attitudes towards wolf populations in Yellowstone and other US parks over time.  We, as a society have the “malign or bad creature” picture for top predators, e.g., wolf, and this idea has come and been promoted through the mass media like traditional TV cartoons for children.  Another point that caught my attention from the Valley of Fear was that it, at least, mentioned alternative hypotheses (fact that is critical in good science) trying to explain the drastic drop of aspen populations and other plant species.  The concept of “trophic cascades” was clearly back up y framed with examples in this chapter, but the vocabulary was a little too “flamboyant” or “over-narrative” for whiles.

I enjoyed reading and comparing both styles of conveying similar ecological information and made me wonder how important is to write in a simple, clear, interesting format to communicate scientific knowledge.  Further, the idea of linking several species as part of a food web to communicate the importance of a concept such as trophic cascade was extremely appealing to me.  Lastly, I did not see a single scientific name during my reading, but it did not interfere with my interest and understanding of both readings.  This might be due to my academic background as well.  One of the major challenges for science communicators will be not just write clear complete interesting information, but strong enough to motivate a “change in attitude” in our society towards “a more environment friendly way of living and learning”.

Should we comunicate ecological scientific knowledge to the society?

After reading the papers by Groffman et al. (2010) and Pace et al. (2010), I feel that we,
researchers and grad students, are in a crucial time to finally put our brains, work, hands, and attitudes more in contact and service to the “real” world.  Ecology and society are two terms that share several fundamental terms/aspects in common, but there is one that stands out above the rest: “interactions or relationships”.  The lack of knowledge or consideration on basic links among the components of an ecosystem can produce biased, limited or undesirable effects when studying its structure, functioning and maintenance.  Similarly, the omission or disregard of a sector or group (i.e., component) of our society in terms of communication, education, engagement, to mention a few, can bring up or increase misunderstandings, ignorance, or a wider gap between different sectors of our society.  Based on this simple analogy, the flow of scientific knowledge from researchers to the open society has been recognized and increasingly emphasized in the last two decades.  The participation of the scientists in outreach and environmental education activities is becoming a “recognizable must-to-do strategy” over time.  If human societies (i.e., all of us) are to be truly engaged into facing, acting, and changing ways of living, acting, thinking, and attitudes towards environmental issues such as climate change, pollution, fuel use, food supply, etc., the interaction between all components of our societies must understand that we are coresponsible agents of our changing world (e.g. wasting energy and paper, not communicating scientific ecological knowledge, throwing garbage in the woods or rivers, etc.).  As concerns for researchers, e.g., ecologists, the communication of new and basic findings in a clear format or frame considering their own abilities, skills, and capacities and by using the mass media can be a tremendous tool for engaging and educating people.  But, this action must be permanent, based on sound scientific research and directly related to the local and global reality.  A key question for engaging us with the entire society through the mass media is, how to do it?  This is a question that every person (e.g., researcher, grad student, etc) has to answer considering his/her own reality (time, effort, abilities, capacities, willingness, responsibilities, etc), but engaging ourselves in the long term locally or regionally and communicating research findings associated to our local and global environment and how these issues can be related to our social, economical, political and everyday life will be one primordial avenue of effective communication. 

I recognize that scientific work is an extremely demanding activity, but, at the same time, we should not forget that we, researchers, are part of the society and that our work is largely being supported by the society (i.e., our own family and everyone’s families).  More importantly, we, e.g., researchers and grad students, are human beings as any other component of our society and every single component of our society is facing and will be facing the same increasing environmental problems regardless our economical status, level of education, social hierarchy, affiliation, or belief.  If we do not understand that all components of the society are coresponsible in caring, protecting, wisely using and understanding our environment or world, as ecology demands, we are just bluffing and trying to cover the sunlight with a finger for a little while. It is up to us, to keep thinking, acting, and permanently communicating scientific knowledge in ad hoc
formats or frames and through the mass media (internet, newspaper, magazines, radio, television, movies, etc.) to cooperate in redirecting and/or increasing our “environmental or ecological culture” towards a more environmentally-oriented society.  It is not matter of teaching “pure science” to the public, but to communicate “scientific knowledge” to the society under a clear, complete audience-friendly format.  This does not exclude that our communication must include ideas about how science works.  This is another very sensitive point that I will not address in this commentary.

Time is currently an issue in taking care and understanding our environment, but the decision to start acting in the long term, starting with ourselves, will be a starting point to share sound scientific knowledge in “simple words”, without oversimplifying facts, and with ad hoc formats (e.g., articles, public seminars, and supporting local events) depending on our audience.  Perhaps, our seminar “Effective communication of science to the public” can be the initial stepping stone to jump into solid ground to promote the suggested long term communication with the society as we defined more convenient.  It is up to me, or to us, to do it, right?