Program on Energy, Drought, Climate Change
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
Tucson-based Group Brings Unique Program on Energy, Drought, Climate Change to Whittier
In today's world, science — once considered sacrosanct — can get tossed into the centrifuge of social media and spun into a thousand different opinions.
For example, some parents ignore doctors and instead listen to bloggers when they refuse to vaccinate their children.
Many folks, including 56 percent of congressional Republicans, deny or question an overwhelming majority of the scientific community who conclude carbon emissions from an industrialized world are at least partly responsible forwarming the planet.
The 2 to 3 percent of scientists who disagree still influence millions of Americans with websites, blogs and Internet posts rather than peer-reviewed articles published in respected scientific journals.
Former University of Arizona chemistry professor and science adviser to two secretaries of state under President George W. Bush, George Atkinson believes the scientific method is working. The problem is the top-down way scientific discoveries reach the public, he says.
Atkinson, founder of the Tucson-based Institute on Science for Global Policy in 2008, is putting scientists in the hot seat by using a town-hall-type model for exploring issues such as infectious diseases, the mapping of the human genome and global climate change.
Source: SGV Tribune
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