Success and impact metrics in science are based on a system that perpetuates sexist and racist “rewards” by prioritizing citations and impact factors. These metrics are flawed and biased against ...already marginalized groups and fail to accurately capture the breadth of individuals’ meaningful scientific impacts. We advocate shifting this outdated value system to advance science through principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. We outline pathways for a paradigm shift in scientific values based on multidimensional mentorship and promoting mentee well-being. These actions will require collective efforts supported by academic leaders and administrators to drive essential systemic change.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This research note explores the nature of science communication’s role in modern societies, using data from a qualitative interview study with scholars and teachers of science communication and ...discussing this in light of science communication literature. Six types of roles for science communication within society are identified: It is said to ensure the accountability and legitimacy of publicly funded science, have practical functions, enhance democracy, serve a cultural role, fulfil particular economic purposes, and act as promotion or marketing. These arguments are examined and their implications for science communication research and practice discussed.
Research integrity and misconduct have recently risen to public attention as policy issues. Concern has arisen about divergence between this policy discourse and the language and concerns of ...scientists. This interview study, carried out in Denmark with a cohort of highly internationalised natural scientists, explores how researchers talk about integrity and good science. It finds, first, that these scientists were largely unaware of the Danish Code of Conduct for Responsible Conduct of Research and indifferent towards the value of such codes; second, that they presented an image of good science as nuanced and thereby as difficult to manage through abstracted, principle-based codes; and third, that they repeatedly pointed to systemic issues both as triggering misconduct and as ethical problems in and of themselves. Research integrity is framed as a part of wider moves to ‘responsibilise’ science; understood in these terms, resistance to codes of conduct and the representation of integrity as a problem of science as a whole can be seen as a rejection of a neoliberal individualisation of responsibility.
As global warming continues, reef-building corals could avoid local population declines through "genetic rescue" involving exchange of heat-tolerant genotypes across latitudes, but only if ...latitudinal variation in thermal tolerance is heritable. Here, we show an up–to–10-fold increase in odds of survival of coral larvae under heat stress when their parents come from a warmer lower-latitude location. Elevated thermal tolerance was associated with heritable differences in expression of oxidative, extracellular, transport, and mitochondrial functions that indicated a lack of prior stress. Moreover, two genomic regions strongly responded to selection for thermal tolerance in interlatitudinal crosses. These results demonstrate that variation in coral thermal tolerance across latitudes has a strong genetic basis and could serve as raw material for natural selection.
This article uses notions of the atmospheric to engage with empirical material concerned with international mobility in science. It draws on recent conceptual work on atmospheres that frames them as ...allowing access to the affective qualities of everyday life and as ‘productively nebulous’: atmospheres exist between the local and the globally diffuse, the emergent and the staged, the intangible and the brutally present. Using atmospheric thinking, I devise ‘apparatuses of attunement’ to capture elusive aspects of life in science, as discussed in interviews with natural scientists about their experiences of international mobility. In particular I use ideas of the situation, atmospheric threads, and the staging of atmospheres to argue that scientists represent themselves as existing in between the particular and the general: they are never wholly at the mercy of the structures and expectations of globalized science, but are also never not in the grip of them. In closing I reflect on what this analysis reveals about the affective qualities of contemporary science, the forms of life being nurtured by the norms and expectations of research (policy), and the kinds of agency available to (these) scientists. The aim of the article is thus twofold: to demonstrate how concepts of atmospheres can be put to work in STS, and to contribute to research on international mobility in science and contemporary scientific careers.
Previous studies aimed at understanding public responses to emerging technologies have given limited attention to the social and cultural processes through which public concerns emerge. When probed, ...these have tended to be explained either in cognitive social psychological terms, typically in the form of cognitive shortcuts or heuristics or the influence of affective variables, or in social interactionist terms, as a product of the micro dynamics of the social interaction. We argue for an alternative approach that examines how public attitudes are formed in relation to the interplay of wider cultural narratives about science and technology. Using data from recent qualitative research with publics on nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, we develop a typology of five cultural narratives that underpin and structure public talk. The narratives we identify within focus group talk are familiar stories that are deeply embedded in contemporary culture, and which provide cultural resources for navigating the issues posed by emerging technology. Substantively, they inform a 'tragic' mood on the prospects of emerging technology, reflecting the loss of belief in science, when coupled to neo-liberal logics, as guaranteeing social progress. The implications for policy-making are discussed.
This brief commentary considers the relation between science communication research and practice and the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). It outlines some key aspects of STS approaches, ...from an emphasis on exploratory research to considerations of normativity and the political, and discusses what they can bring to science communication. It ends by arguing for methodological and disciplinary diversity in science communication research.
Active coral restoration typically involves two interventions: crossing gametes to facilitate sexual larval propagation; and fragmenting, growing, and outplanting adult colonies to enhance asexual ...propagation. From an evolutionary perspective, the goal of these efforts is to establish self-sustaining, sexually reproducing coral populations that have sufficient genetic and phenotypic variation to adapt to changing environments. Here, we provide concrete guidelines to help restoration practitioners meet this goal for most Caribbean species of interest. To enable the persistence of coral populations exposed to severe selection pressure from many stressors, a mixed provenance strategy is suggested: genetically unique colonies (genets) should be sourced both locally as well as from more distant, environmentally distinct sites. Sourcing three to four genets per reef along environmental gradients should be sufficient to capture a majority of intraspecies genetic diversity. It is best for practitioners to propagate genets with one or more phenotypic traits that are predicted to be valuable in the future, such as low partial mortality, high wound healing rate, high skeletal growth rate, bleaching resilience, infectious disease resilience, and high sexual reproductive output. Some effort should also be reserved for underperforming genets because colonies that grow poorly in nurseries sometimes thrive once returned to the reef and may harbor genetic variants with as yet unrecognized value. Outplants should be clustered in groups of four to six genets to enable successful fertilization upon maturation. Current evidence indicates that translocating genets among distant reefs is unlikely to be problematic from a population genetic perspective but will likely provide substantial adaptive benefits. Similarly, inbreeding depression is not a concern given that current practices only raise first-generation offspring. Thus, proceeding with the proposed management strategies even in the absence of a detailed population genetic analysis of the focal species at sites targeted for restoration is the best course of action. These basic guidelines should help maximize the adaptive potential of reef-building corals facing a rapidly changing environment.
Maps of bottom type are essential to the management of marine resources and biodiversity because of their foundational role in characterizing species' habitats. They are also urgently needed as ...countries work to define marine protected areas. Current approaches are time consuming, focus largely on grain size, and tend to overlook shallow waters. Our random forest classification of almost 200,000 observations of bottom type is a timely alternative, providing maps of coastal substrate at a combination of resolution and extents not previously achieved. We correlated the observations with depth, depth-derivatives, and estimates of energy to predict marine substrate at 100 m resolution for Canada's Pacific shelf, a study area of over 135,000 km2. We built five regional models with the same data at 20 m resolution. In addition to standard tests of model fit, we used three independent data sets to test model predictions. We also tested for regional, depth, and resolution effects. We guided our analysis by asking: 1) does weighting for prevalence improve model predictions? 2) does model resolution influence model performance? And 3) is model performance influenced by depth? All our models fit the build data well with true skill statistic (TSS) scores ranging from 0.56 to 0.64. Weighting models with class prevalence improved fit and the correspondence with known spatial features. Class-based metrics showed differences across both resolutions and spatial regions, indicating non-stationarity across these spatial categories. Predictive power was lower (TSS from 0.10 to 0.36) based on independent data evaluation. Model performance was also a function of depth and resolution, illustrating the challenge of accurately representing heterogeneity. Our work shows the value of regional analyses to assessing model stationarity and how independent data evaluation and the use of error metrics can improve understanding of model performance and sampling bias.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This commentary essay reflects on the role of science communication in contemporary democratic societies, with a particular focus on how it should be imagined and practiced in times of crisis and ...emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic or climate change. I distinguish between science communication that is oriented to strategic and democratic goals, and argue for the continued importance of science communication in nurturing democracy even at times of crisis. I close by suggesting principles that might guide such communication, and by relating these arguments to an understanding of science communication as ‘the social conversation around science’.
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