2.20: Human Enterprises with Deborah Blum
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After 20 episodes and 23 guests we've finally reached the end of season two! But, before we go on sabbatical, we've got one more episode-featuring an interview with fantastic science writer and Pulitzer Prize winning science journalist Deborah Blum. In our interview we discuss literally burning out of a career in chemistry, structuring narratives about science, and about the taxonomy of professions and activities that fall under the term "science communication".
Want more info about Deborah and Undark?
Deborah’s Website | Deborah on Twitter
KSJ@MIT | Undark Magazine
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Bold Signals on SoundCloud | Bold Signals on iTunes | Bold Signals on Twitter | Bold Signals on Facebook
John on About.Me
Links and Show Notes
The cover art from this episode depicts Pierre and Marie Curie in the lab. The Curies discovered radium, the key ingredient in a horrifically dangerous radioluminescent paint marketed under the name Undark.
The James-Lange theory of emotion, one of the oldest and most influential theory in modern psychology, states that the physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion. Interpreted broadly, this could mean that smiling causes happiness. The “facial feedback” paradigm is literally a textbook finding in social psychology. It was also central to a certain podcast host’s undergraduate honors thesis. Unfortunately, as described in this paper and this article from Slate, it does not stand up to replication.
Quick hint, if you’re thinking of writing a writing an obnoxious article ostensibly about making science better for young investigators, maybe don’t throw in a bunch of nonsense about “professional selfies”.
To paraphrase Carl Zimmer, John Ioannidis- probably the most feared and influential statistician in science- recently turned his statistical death ray towards psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The results were not pretty.
Yes. The University of Chicago really did send a letter to students condemning trigger warnings and safe spaces. Yes. There were think pieces. Here’s a nice one from author and University of Chicago grad John Scalzi.
The University of Kentucky is suing it’s student newspaper in an attempt to prevent them from releasing documents detailing a scientist alleged sexual assault against two students.
From riparian ecology to Pulitzer Prize winning science journalism, we covered lots of ground in season two. The podcast switched coasts, its host changed jobs, and we chatted with a lot of neat folks about a lot of neat things.
Deborah’s father, Murray Blum, was an entomologist and chemical ecologist. Beyond convincing Bryant Gumbel to eat a breakfast of sauteed grubs, he is probably best known for literally writing the book on insect physiology and chemical defenses.
E. O. Wilson is probably the world’s most known myrmecologist. In addition to his work with ants, Wilson is well known for his jumpstarting the field of sociobology with his influential and immensely controversial book “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis”.
Deborah’s book “Monkey Wars” is based on her homonymous Pulitzer Prize winning work investigating issues around the use of non-human primates in scientific research.
Rebecca Skloot is best known for her book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” about the life a legacy of the woman whose cells- harvested without her knowledge or consent in 1951- were cloned after her death and continue to be used in scientific research.
“The Poisoner’s Handbook” is Deborah’s book about murder, Charles Norris, Alexander Gettler, the birth of modern toxicology, and the history of chemistry.
Deborah wrote the “Elemental” blog for Wired. “Your Daughter Died” is her second person piece about a chain of suspected poisonings in Thailand. “How to read a scientific paper” is her piece about Jon Allen’s nematode research.
Ed Yong is a well-known science journalist, currently writing for The Atlantic. He also had a very nice thing to say about the last episode of this podcast.
Noam Chomsky is widely regarded as one of the principal architects of the “cognitive revolution” in the social sciences. Though his research has profoundly shaped the field of linguistics, he is perhaps best known these days for his political activism and writing.
Deborah’s essay in which she discusses the origins and goals of Undark can be found here.
But no seriously, Undark’s advisory board includes quite a heavy hitters from the worlds of science, journalism, and science journalism.
The results of Anthony Dudo and John C. Besley’s survey into scientists’ motivations for communicating with the public can be found here.
This Undark piece provides a good overview of the growing professional divide within science communication.
The final edition of the Bold Signals Book Club covers “Dangerous Visions”, edited by Harlan Ellison.
When we initially set forth to build up the book club list, we tried to pick an interestingly diverse list of books by an interestingly diverse group of writers. We wanted to push the boundaries a little. With that in mind, it made sense to conclude with a volume full “dangerous” fiction.
With an introduction by Isaac Asimov and stories from authors including Fritz Lieber, Philip K Dick, John Brunner, Philip José Farmer, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Samuel Delany, and Ellison himself- “Dangerous Visions” is a fascinating snapshot of a particular type of fiction at a particular moment in time. Unfortunately it was so influential that, 40 years later, most of the stories feel far more pedestrian than dangerous. Perhaps these stories changed science fiction so much that, to readers who only consumed science fiction only through the lense of what came after, they seem very much like artifacts of before.
If you’d like to support the podcast while purchasing any of the books discussed in the book club, take a gander at our Amazon store. The podcast also has an Amazon wishlist if you’d like to donate a book.
Music in this Episode:
“Enterprise 1” by Languis "Still" by Skipless "You Don't Know it Yet" by Moosefrog "You and Me" by Gone X3
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3793080
