I'm sure that everyone just recieved the great news from WesPAC that Chris Mooney will guest blogging at CCN this Thursday. Hmmm, ...and I think that we have ms in la and the donut team to thank for this, especially. ;)

WesPAC Announcement:
Chris Mooney will join us on Thursday, June 29, 2006.

Chris is the author of the book, " Republican War on Science" as well as the online editor at The American Prospect (where he created TAPPED) and a regular contributor to a variety of other publications. Chris's work to call attention to the subversion of science to this administration's political agenda has been called "Nothing short of a landmark in contemporary political reporting" and " ...a wake-up call to all Americans who value intellectual honesty and civility in our national affairs."

Hopefully, we can lead this discussion into CCN's Real Science Friday.  Overall, it would be good for CCN bloggers to prep for it. For starters, one way is to visit Mooney's blog, The Intersection.

Another is to listen to Chris Mooney and Tom Bethell (science skeptic/contrarian), when they debated each other last week on NPR's Science Friday with host, Ira Flatow. This is a must listen for everyone!

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NPR: When Science Drives Politics

Talk of the Nation, June 16, 2006 · Authors Tom Bethell and Chris Mooney debate the politicization of science. Bethell is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. Mooney penned Republican War on Science

Guests:
Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science; Senior Editor for The American Spectator
Chris Mooney, author of Republican War on Science Washington correspondent for Seed magazine

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5490898

These two have debated each other before; and Mooney knows this opponent very well, even perhaps better than Bethell knows himself. In fact on 2 ocassions, Chris caught Bethell "flip-flopping" not once, but twice from positions that he wrote in his own book versus what he stated Live on the Air.

During the 40 minute discussion, Mooney and Bethell once again debate the full range of science issues that have been politcised by the Bush Adminsitration and the GOP-led Congress; including scientific integrity, federal funding of stem cell research, evolution, global warming and believe it or not, even the cause of AIDS. This part was made my jaw drop. Bethell suggested that AIDS may not have be caused by HIV! No kidding! Also, quite noteworthy, when listening to this segment, was how assertive Mooney was, as he backed his comments with the full weight of the scientifc evidence, against Bethel's blatant distortions of same scientific evidence. Mooney hammered Bethell on all his arguments and tactics. Mooney clearly knows his "enemy." And personally, I think that it's a great study of how we can all model his approach when debating science skeptics who fail to look at the science.

Also, for background info, below is another important article written by Mooney, where he advises the science community how it can learn to speak "Science" to the American public; and why it's also important for the American public to be more engaged with the science community and our political leaders on these issues.

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LEARNING TO SPEAK "SCIENCE"
Chris Mooney offers a few suggestions on how the scientific community can win back its political influence in America.

by Chris Mooney • Posted January 31, 2006 04:58 PM
From the FEB/MAR 2006 issue of Seed.

Credit: Lise Gagne

Page 1 of 3: ...

I recently spent two and a half months during a book tour across the United States speaking about political attacks on science. At universities from Caltech to Oberlin, I heard a recurring series of questions from my audiences: How can scientists combat the political distortion of science? How can they defend evolution? How can they win back America, and better translate what they know for the public?

These aren't easy questions to answer, since they go beyond hard and fast matters of scientific accuracy and into the more nebulous realm of political communication and strategy. So over the course of my travels, I began to formulate my response, mindful of the conditions that have prompted such a political awakening among scientists in the first place.

What the scientific community—not just scientists, mind you, but people who care about the role science plays in building a better society—is realizing is that scientific knowledge itself is politically vulnerable. We've seen the Bush administration's assaults on science on issues ranging from climate change to Plan B emergency contraception (the "morning after" pill); we're witnessing a newly resurgent anti-evolutionist movement that's spreading community-to-community and state-to-state. And we're frustrated with a national media that seeks to hear "both sides," even on subjects (like evolution) where no scientific debate actually exists.

Coming to grips with science's newly exposed political and cultural vulnerability will require scientists to emphasize a rather different set of skills than they're used to privileging. Although it's not true of all scientists, too many have grown accustomed to the security of their labs and university communities, occasionally lamenting the American public's poor understanding of science but doing little in a concerted way to improve it. And small wonder: American science rewards the publication of peer-reviewed research, but offers little incentive for scientists to communicate and translate what they know to the public. So scientists in the US have little practice when it comes to crafting a message or winning a political debate, and their inexperience sometimes leads to ill-advised actions that have the tendency to backfire.

"It's becoming possible to craft a communications strategy that's based on a rich understanding of how the human mind actually operates."

Consider the scientific community's engagement (or lack thereof) with the anti-evolutionist Kansas State Board of Education. State Board of Education. When the Board called hearings on evolution, the scientific community boycotted. When the Board began to rewrite state science standards, compromising biology education, the National Academy of Sciences denied the Kansas Board permission to use their copyrighted educational material. The scientific community's distrust of the Kansas Board is understandable. But such actions make scientists look like haughty snobs and elitists who simply refuse to engage with ordinary Americans—an already prevalent stereotype that hardly needs reinforcing.

Article continues...
: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/01/learning_to_speak_science.php