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I suspect that explanations, simple or otherwise, rather fit into the deficit model, no? ;)

---- Coding is Fun wrote ----

>Was it Einstein or Feynman (or . . .) who said something like:
>
>"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"
>
>Or possibly:
>
>"Feynman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, "Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics." Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But he came back a few days later to say, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it.""
>
>David Nutting
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dom McDonald
>Sent: 13 June 2016 15:19
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Returning to the deficit model
>
>Hi Pam
>
>Others have got here first, so I'll just say "Brian Trench Brian Trench Brian Trench Brian Trench Brian Trench" and offer you this polemic from John Steinbeck ("The Log from the Sea of Cortez", 1941):
>
>"It has seemed sometimes that the little men in scientific work assumed the awe-fullness of a priesthood to hide their deficiencies, as the witch-doctor does with his stilts and high masks, as the priesthoods of all cults have, with secret or unfamiliar languages and symbols. It is usually found that only the little stuffy men object to what is called "popularization", by which they mean writing with a clarity understandable to one not familiar with the tricks and codes of the cult. We have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that the haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields? A dull man seems to be a dull man no matter what his field, and of course it is the right of a dull scientist to protect himself with feathers and robes, emblems and degrees, as do other dull men who are potentates and grand imperial rulers of lodges of dull men.”
>
>Good luck!
>
>Dom
>
>Freelance do-gooder
>Public Engagement a speciality
>@TheOxfordDom
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pamela Buchan
>Sent: 13 June 2016 13:51
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Returning to the deficit model
>
>Hi Bella,
>
>Thanks to you for replying (and those who replied off-list). Well in honesty this was my suspicion but I guess I wanted to hear it from the mouths of others before going off on one in my research.
>
>I agree with you completely about the culture change within research as to the value of public engagement. However, my own work is veering towards policy-making and I hope to be able to draw together and critique some of the disparate approaches towards the role of individuals in environmental management via pro-environmental behaviours. It seems most (all?) of the theories ultimately come down to knowledge deficit (with some sociological enabling thrown in to remove
>barriers) and the idea of challenging the normative narrative of science as the powerful authority on the environment and 'right' way to approach it seems largely absent. I've only really found one approach that attacks the issue from a different perspective (that of social justice) but sadly I've yet to see how the theory can be put into practice. More reading required there.
>
>Pam
>
>On 13/06/2016 08:53, Bella Williams wrote:
>> Hi Pamela,
>>
>> My view from my (currently very small) corner of science communication and policy:
>>
>> I'm not sure whether this is a resurgence or whether the deficit model never went away. Ten years ago motivations for engaging with the public among natural scientists were concerned with addressing misconceptions and educating, and I believe that they still are today.
>>
>> For me the change around two way engagement came with developing strategies to enable this, and investment and research into effective science communication. We cannot be all things and while natural scientists may be effective presenters, unless they have taken the jump into science communication, they still position themselves as scientists and take a science-centric, positivist view of the world which is it difficult to step outside of. The main motivation for communicating may be 'to inform the public' on a key issue, and it should be the role of the communications specialists to help them think through the most effective way of doing this. Perhaps there is a time and a place for 'educating', but we need to have realistic expectations about what it is likely to achieve.
>>
>> The recent AAAS study was interesting for highlighting the continuation of the deficit model clearly, but the impacts of all the work undertaken to develop science engagement over the past 16 years have been very real in strategic terms. The sector has professionalised and scientific institutions now take public engagement much more seriously, there are fewer institutional and managerial blocks in terms of science communication and engagement being viewed as 'time wasting', and the connected issue that scientists who were good communicators or in the public eye were viewed as compensating for a poor research record has faded.
>>
>> Sounds like a really interesting PhD. Good luck with it.
>>
>> Bella
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: psci-com: on public engagement with science 
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pamela Buchan
>> Sent: 11 June 2016 21:31
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: [PSCI-COM] Returning to the deficit model
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Some of you know that since leaving the BSA I've embarked on a PhD at Exeter Uni looking at public engagement with marine conservation. I'm reading lots about citizenship, psychological theories of behaviour and values and public perceptions. There are a number of researchers working on models of behaviour for marine and more general environmental conservation that bring together factors you would expect like knowledge, motivation, capacity due to socio-economic circumstances etc.
>>
>> What I'm emailing about is to discuss the resurgence of the deficit model in subject specific research being led by natural scientists (as opposed to social scientists or those who are specialists in science communication/public engagement). Whilst I accept and agree that knowledge can be a significant barrier to action, I am seeing a strong leaning towards deficit model (in all but name) in much of the research that I am reading. I wondered if anyone might be interested in sharing their opinions about that. Coming from a decade in public engagement this feels like a step back and indeed my human geography/philosophy of science reading is taking me much further in the other direction in regards to power and whose voices are legitimate in setting the agenda in the first place.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Pam
>>
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