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Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows (Science Daily)

14/05/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Cognição, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Previsão, Semiótica, Sensacionalismo, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — The more you know the less you care — at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis.

“More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming,” states the article, titled “Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA.”

The study showed high levels of confidence in scientists among Americans led to a decreased sense of responsibility for global warming.

The diminished concern and sense of responsibility flies in the face of awareness campaigns about climate change, such as in the movies An Inconvenient Truth and Ice Age: The Meltdown and in the mainstream media’s escalating emphasis on the trend.

The research was conducted by Paul M. Kellstedt, a political science associate professor at Texas A&M; Arnold Vedlitz, Bob Bullock Chair in Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M’s George Bush School of Government and Public Service; and Sammy Zahran, formerly of Texas A&M and now an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University.

Kellstedt says the findings were a bit unexpected. The focus of the study, he says, was not to measure how informed or how uninformed Americans are about global warming, but to understand why some individuals who are more or less informed about it showed more or less concern.

“In that sense, we didn’t really have expectations about how aware or unaware people were of global warming,” he says.

But, he adds, “The findings that the more informed respondents were less concerned about global warming, and that they felt less personally responsible for it, did surprise us. We expected just the opposite.

“The findings, while rather modest in magnitude — there are other variables we measured which had much larger effects on concern for global warming — were statistically quite robust, which is to say that they continued to appear regardless of how we modeled the data.”

Measuring knowledge about global warming is a tricky business, Kellstedt adds.

“That’s true of many other things we would like to measure in surveys, of course, especially things that might embarrass people (like ignorance) or that they might feel social pressure to avoid revealing (like prejudice),” he says.

“There are no industry standards, so to speak, for measuring knowledge about global warming. We opted for this straightforward measure and realize that other measures might produce different results.”

Now, for better or worse, scientists have to deal with the public’s abundant confidence in them. “But it cannot be comforting to the researchers in the scientific community that the more trust people have in them as scientists, the less concerned they are about their findings,” the researchers conclude in their study.

Despite Awareness Of Global Warming Americans Concerned More About Local Environment (Science Daily)

14/05/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2008) — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently declared climate change a top international threat, and Al Gore urged politicians to get involved to fight global warming. Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public, while aware of the deteriorating global environment, is concerned predominantly with local and national environmental issues.

Potomac River near Washington DC. The top three issues that the US public wants the government to address are protecting community drinking water, reducing pollution of U.S. rivers and lakes, and improving urban air pollution issues like smog. (Credit: Michele Hogan)

“The survey’s core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues,” said David Konisky, a policy research scholar with the Institute of Public Policy. “People are hesitant to support efforts concerning global issues even though they believe that environmental quality is poorer at the global level than at the local and national level. This is surprising given the media attention that global warming has recently received and reflects the division of opinion about the severity of climate change.”

Konisky, an assistant professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs at MU, recently surveyed 1,000 adults concerning their attitudes about the environment. The survey polled respondents about their levels of concern for the environment and preferences for government action to address a wide set of environmental issues.

A strong majority of the public expressed general concern about the environment. According to the survey, the top three issues that the public wants the government to address are protecting community drinking water, reducing pollution of U.S. rivers and lakes, and improving urban air pollution issues like smog. In the survey, global warming ranks eighth in importance.

“Americans are clearly most concerned about pollution issues that might affect their personal health, or the health of their families,” Konisky said.

Additionally, Konisky and his colleagues found that the best predictor of individuals’ environmental preferences is their political attributes. They examined the relationship between party identification and political ideology and support for action to address environmental problems.

“The survey reinforced the stark differences in people’s environmental attitudes, depending on their political leanings,” Konisky said. “Democrats and political liberals clearly express more desire for governmental action to address environmental problems. Republicans and ideological conservatives are much less enthusiastic about further government intervention.”

Results from the survey were recently presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association in San Diego.

Support for Climate Change Action Drops, Poll Finds (Science Daily)

14/05/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Sensacionalismo, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (May 8, 2012) — Americans’ support for government action on global warming remains high but has dropped during the past two years, according to a new survey by Stanford researchers in collaboration with Ipsos Public Affairs. Political rhetoric and cooler-than-average weather appear to have influenced the shift, but economics doesn’t appear to have played a role.

The survey directed by Jon Krosnick, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, shows that support for a range of policies intended to reduce future climate change dropped by an average of 5 percentage points per year between 2010 and 2012.

In a 2010 Stanford survey, more than three-quarters of respondents expressed support for mandating more efficient and less polluting cars, appliances, homes, offices and power plants. Nearly 90 percent of respondents favored federal tax breaks to spur companies to produce more electricity from water, wind and solar energy. On average, 72 percent of respondents supported government action on climate change in 2010. By 2012, that support had dropped to 62 percent.

The drop was concentrated among Americans who distrust climate scientists, even more so among such people who identify themselves as Republicans. Americans who do not trust climate science were especially aware of and influenced by recent shifts in world temperature, and 2011 was tied for the coolest of the last 11 years.

Krosnick pointed out that during the recent campaign, all but one Republican presidential candidate expressed doubt about global warming, and some urged no government action to address the issue. Rick Santorum described belief in climate change as a “pseudo-religion,” while Ron Paul called it a “hoax.” Mitt Romney, the apparent Republican nominee, has said, “I can tell you the right course for America with regard to energy policy is to focus on job creation and not global warming.”

The Stanford-Ipsos study found no evidence that the decline in public support for government action was concentrated among respondents who lived in states struggling the most economically.

The study found that, overall, the majority of Americans continue to support many specific government actions to mitigate global warming’s effect. However, most Americans remain opposed to consumer taxes intended to decrease public use of electricity and gasoline.

Jews Are a ‘Race,’ Genes Reveal (The Jewish Daily Forward)

08/05/2012Uncategorizedciência, Mediação tecnológica, Raça, Racismo, Religião, Visualidaderenzotaddei

MONTAGE KURT HOFFMAN

By Jon Entine

Published May 04, 2012, issue of May 11, 2012.

In his new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, claims that Jews are different, and the differences are not just skin deep. Jews exhibit, he writes, a distinctive genetic signature. Considering that the Nazis tried to exterminate Jews based on their supposed racial distinctiveness, such a conclusion might be a cause for concern. But Ostrer sees it as central to Jewish identity.

“Who is a Jew?” has been a poignant question for Jews throughout our history. It evokes a complex tapestry of Jewish identity made up of different strains of religious beliefs, cultural practices and blood ties to ancient Palestine and modern Israel. But the question, with its echoes of genetic determinism, also has a dark side.

Geneticists have long been aware that certain diseases, from breast cancer to Tay-Sachs, disproportionately affect Jews. Ostrer, who is also director of genetic and genomic testing at Montefiore Medical Center, goes further, maintaining that Jews are a homogeneous group with all the scientific trappings of what we used to call a “race.”

For most of the 3,000-year history of the Jewish people, the notion of what came to be known as “Jewish exceptionalism” was hardly controversial. Because of our history of inmarriage and cultural isolation, imposed or self-selected, Jews were considered by gentiles (and usually referred to themselves) as a “race.” Scholars from Josephus to Disraeli proudly proclaimed their membership in “the tribe.”

Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People
By Harry Ostrer
Oxford University Press, 288 Pages, $24.95

Ostrer explains how this concept took on special meaning in the 20th century, as genetics emerged as a viable scientific enterprise. Jewish distinctiveness might actually be measurable empirically. In “Legacy,” he first introduces us to Maurice Fishberg, an upwardly mobile Russian-Jewish immigrant to New York at the fin de siècle. Fishberg fervently embraced the anthropological fashion of the era, measuring skull sizes to explain why Jews seemed to be afflicted with more diseases than other groups — what he called the “peculiarities of the comparative pathology of the Jews.” It turns out that Fishberg and his contemporary phrenologists were wrong: Skull shape provides limited information about human differences. But his studies ushered in a century of research linking Jews to genetics.

Ostrer divides his book into six chapters representing the various aspects of Jewishness: Looking Jewish, Founders, Genealogies, Tribes, Traits and Identity. Each chapter features a prominent scientist or historical figure who dramatically advanced our understanding of Jewishness. The snippets of biography lighten a dense forest of sometimes-obscure science. The narrative, which consists of a lot of potboiler history, is a slog at times. But for the specialist and anyone touched by the enduring debate over Jewish identity, this book is indispensable.

“Legacy” may cause its readers discomfort. To some Jews, the notion of a genetically related people is an embarrassing remnant of early Zionism that came into vogue at the height of the Western obsession with race, in the late 19th century. Celebrating blood ancestry is divisive, they claim: The authors of “The Bell Curve” were vilified 15 years ago for suggesting that genes play a major role in IQ differences among racial groups.

Furthermore, sociologists and cultural anthropologists, a disproportionate number of whom are Jewish, ridicule the term “race,” claiming there are no meaningful differences between ethnic groups. For Jews, the word still carries the especially odious historical association with Nazism and the Nuremberg Laws. They argue that Judaism has morphed from a tribal cult into a worldwide religion enhanced by thousands of years of cultural traditions.

Is Judaism a people or a religion? Or both? The belief that Jews may be psychologically or physically distinct remains a controversial fixture in the gentile and Jewish consciousness, and Ostrer places himself directly in the line of fire. Yes, he writes, the term “race” carries nefarious associations of inferiority and ranking of people. Anything that marks Jews as essentially different runs the risk of stirring either anti- or philo-Semitism. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the factual reality of what he calls the “biological basis of Jewishness” and “Jewish genetics.” Acknowledging the distinctiveness of Jews is “fraught with peril,” but we must grapple with the hard evidence of “human differences” if we seek to understand the new age of genetics.

Although he readily acknowledges the formative role of culture and environment, Ostrer believes that Jewish identity has multiple threads, including DNA. He offers a cogent, scientifically based review of the evidence, which serves as a model of scientific restraint.

“On the one hand, the study of Jewish genetics might be viewed as an elitist effort, promoting a certain genetic view of Jewish superiority,” he writes. “On the other, it might provide fodder for anti-Semitism by providing evidence of a genetic basis for undesirable traits that are present among some Jews. These issues will newly challenge the liberal view that humans are created equal but with genetic liabilities.”

Jews, he notes, are one of the most distinctive population groups in the world because of our history of endogamy. Jews — Ashkenazim in particular — are relatively homogeneous despite the fact that they are spread throughout Europe and have since immigrated to the Americas and back to Israel. The Inquisition shattered Sephardi Jewry, leading to far more incidences of intermarriage and to a less distinctive DNA.

In traversing this minefield of the genetics of human differences, Ostrer bolsters his analysis with volumes of genetic data, which are both the book’s greatest strength and its weakness. Two complementary books on this subject — my own “Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People” and “Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History” by Duke University geneticist David Goldstein, who is well quoted in both “Abraham’s Children” and “Legacy” — are more narrative driven, weaving history and genetics, and are consequently much more congenial reads.

The concept of the “Jewish people” remains controversial. The Law of Return, which establishes the right of Jews to come to Israel, is a central tenet of Zionism and a founding legal principle of the State of Israel. The DNA that tightly links Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi, three prominent culturally and geographically distinct Jewish groups, could be used to support Zionist territorial claims — except, as Ostrer points out, some of the same markers can be found in Palestinians, our distant genetic cousins, as well. Palestinians, understandably, want their own right of return.

That disagreement over the meaning of DNA also pits Jewish traditionalists against a particular strain of secular Jewish liberals that has joined with Arabs and many non-Jews to argue for an end to Israel as a Jewish nation. Their hero is Shlomo Sand, an Austrian-born Israeli historian who reignited this complex controversy with the 2008 publication of “The Invention of the Jewish People.”

Sand contends that Zionists who claim an ancestral link to ancient Palestine are manipulating history. But he has taken his thesis from novelist Arthur Koestler’s 1976 book, “The Thirteenth Tribe,” which was part of an attempt by post-World War II Jewish liberals to reconfigure Jews not as a biological group, but as a religious ideology and ethnic identity.

The majority of the Ashkenazi Jewish population, as Koestler, and now Sand, writes, are not the children of Abraham but descendants of pagan Eastern Europeans and Eurasians, concentrated mostly in the ancient Kingdom of Khazaria in what is now Ukraine and Western Russia. The Khazarian nobility converted during the early Middle Ages, when European Jewry was forming.

Although scholars challenged Koestler’s and now Sand’s selective manipulation of the facts — the conversion was almost certainly limited to the tiny ruling class and not to the vast pagan population — the historical record has been just fragmentary enough to titillate determined critics of Israel, who turned both Koestler’s and Sand’s books into roaring best-sellers.

Fortunately, re-creating history now depends not only on pottery shards, flaking manuscripts and faded coins, but on something far less ambiguous: DNA. Ostrer’s book is an impressive counterpoint to the dubious historical methodology of Sand and his admirers. And, as a co-founder of the Jewish HapMap — the study of haplotypes, or blocks of genetic markers, that are common to Jews around the world — he is well positioned to write the definitive response.

In accord with most geneticists, Ostrer firmly rejects the fashionable postmodernist dismissal of the concept of race as genetically naive, opting for a more nuanced perspective.

When the human genome was first mapped a decade ago, Francis Collins, then head of the National Genome Human Research Institute, said: “Americans, regardless of ethnic group, are 99.9% genetically identical.” Added J. Craig Venter, who at the time was chief scientist at the private firm that helped sequenced the genome, Celera Genomics, “Race has no genetic or scientific basis.” Those declarations appeared to suggest that “race,” or the notion of distinct but overlapping genetic groups, is “meaningless.”

But Collins and Venter have issued clarifications of their much-misrepresented comments. Almost every minority group has faced, at one time or another, being branded as racially inferior based on a superficial understanding of how genes peculiar to its population work. The inclination by politicians, educators and even some scientists to underplay our separateness is certainly understandable. But it’s also misleading. DNA ensures that we differ not only as individuals, but also as groups.

However slight the differences (and geneticists now believe that they are significantly greater than 0.1%), they are defining. That 0.1% contains some 3 million nucleotide pairs in the human genome, and these determine such things as skin or hair color and susceptibility to certain diseases. They contain the map of our family trees back to the first modern humans.

Both the human genome project and disease research rest on the premise of finding distinguishable differences between individuals and often among populations. Scientists have ditched the term “race,” with all its normative baggage, and adopted more neutral terms, such as “population” and “clime,” which have much of the same meaning. Boiled down to its essence, race equates to “region of ancestral origin.”

Ostrer has devoted his career to investigating these extended family trees, which help explain the genetic basis of common and rare disorders. Today, Jews remain identifiable in large measure by the 40 or so diseases we disproportionately carry, the inescapable consequence of inbreeding. He traces the fascinating history of numerous “Jewish diseases,” such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher, Niemann-Pick, Mucolipidosis IV, as well as breast and ovarian cancer. Indeed, 10 years ago I was diagnosed as carrying one of the three genetic mutations for breast and ovarian cancer that mark my family and me as indelibly Jewish, prompting me to write “Abraham’s Children.”

Like East Asians, the Amish, Icelanders, Aboriginals, the Basque people, African tribes and other groups, Jews have remained isolated for centuries because of geography, religion or cultural practices. It’s stamped on our DNA. As Ostrer explains in fascinating detail, threads of Jewish ancestry link the sizable Jewish communities of North America and Europe to Yemenite and other Middle Eastern Jews who have relocated to Israel, as well as to the black Lemba of southern Africa and to India’s Cochin Jews. But, in a twist, the links include neither the Bene Israel of India nor Ethiopian Jews. Genetic tests show that both groups are converts, contradicting their founding myths.

Why, then, are Jews so different looking, usually sharing the characteristics of the surrounding populations? Think of red-haired Jews, Jews with blue eyes or the black Jews of Africa. Like any cluster — a genetic term Ostrer uses in place of the more inflammatory “race” — Jews throughout history moved around and fooled around, although mixing occurred comparatively infrequently until recent decades. Although there are identifiable gene variations that are common among Jews, we are not a “pure” race. The time machine of our genes may show that most Jews have a shared ancestry that traces back to ancient Palestine but, like all of humanity, Jews are mutts.

About 80% of Jewish males and 50% of Jewish females trace their ancestry back to the Middle East. The rest entered the “Jewish gene pool” through conversion or intermarriage. Those who did intermarry often left the faith in a generation or two, in effect pruning the Jewish genetic tree. But many converts became interwoven into the Jewish genealogical line. Reflect on the iconic convert, the biblical Ruth, who married Boaz and became the great-grandmother of King David. She began as an outsider, but you don’t get much more Jewish than the bloodline of King David!

To his credit, Ostrer also addresses the third rail of discussions about Jewishness and race: the issue of intelligence. Jews were latecomers to the age of freethinking. While the Enlightenment swept through Christian Europe in the 17th century, the Haskalah did not gather strength until the early 19th century. By the beginning of the new millennium, however, Jews were thought of as among the smartest people on earth. The trend is most prominent in America, which has the largest concentration of Jews outside Israel and a history of tolerance.

Although Jews make up less than 3% of the population, they have won more than 25% of the Nobel Prizes awarded to American scientists since 1950. Jews also account for 20% of this country’s chief executives and make up 22% of Ivy League students. Psychologists and educational researchers have pegged their average IQ at 107.5 to 115, with their verbal IQ at more than 120, a stunning standard deviation above the average of 100 found in those of European ancestry. Like it or not, the IQ debate will become an increasingly important issue going forward, as medical geneticists focus on unlocking the mysteries of the brain.

Many liberal Jews maintain, at least in public, that the plethora of Jewish lawyers, doctors and comedians is the product of our cultural heritage, but the science tells a more complex story. Jewish success is a product of Jewish genes as much as of Jewish moms.

Is it “good for the Jews” to be exploring such controversial subjects? We can’t avoid engaging the most challenging questions in the age of genetics. Because of our history of endogamy, Jews are a goldmine for geneticists studying human differences in the quest to cure disease. Because of our cultural commitment to education, Jews are among the top genetic researchers in the world.

As humankind becomes more genetically sophisticated, identity becomes both more fluid and more fixed. Jews in particular can find threads of our ancestry literally anywhere, muddying traditional categories of nationhood, ethnicity, religious belief and “race.” But such discussions, ultimately, are subsumed by the reality of the common shared ancestry of humankind. Ostrer’s “Legacy” points out that — regardless of the pros and cons of being Jewish — we are all, genetically, in it together. And, in doing so, he gets it just right.

Jon Entine is the founder and director of the Genetic Literacy Project at George Mason University, where he is senior research fellow at the Center for Health and Risk Communication. His website is www.jonentine.com.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/155742/jews-are-a-race-genes-reveal/?p=all#ixzz1uJ67qPdJ

Bruno Latour: Love Your Monsters (Breakthrough)

08/05/2012Uncategorizedambientalismo, Antropologia, ciência, Clima, Cultura, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Sensacionalismo, Violência, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Breakthrough Journal, No. 2, Fall 2011

In the summer of 1816, a young British woman by the name of Mary Godwin and her boyfriend Percy Shelley went to visit Lord Byron in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. They had planned to spend much of the summer outdoors, but the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year had changed the climate of Europe. The weather was so bad that they spent most of their time indoors, discussing the latest popular writings on science and the supernatural.

After reading a book of German ghost stories, somebody suggested they each write their own. Byron’s physician, John Polidori, came up with the idea for The Vampyre, published in 1819,¹ which was the first of the “vampire-as-seducer” novels. Godwin’s story came to her in a dream, during which she saw “the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.”² Soon after that fateful summer, Godwin and Shelley married, and in 1818, Mary Shelley’s horror story was published under the title, Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus.³

Frankenstein lives on in the popular imagination as a cautionary tale against technology. We use the monster as an all-purpose modifier to denote technological crimes against nature. When we fear genetically modified foods we call them “frankenfoods” and “frankenfish.” It is telling that even as we warn against such hybrids, we confuse the monster with its creator. We now mostly refer to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster as Frankenstein. And just as we have forgotten that Frankenstein was the man, not the monster, we have also forgotten Frankenstein’s real sin.

Dr. Frankenstein’s crime was not that he invented a creature through some combination of hubris and high technology, but rather that heabandoned the creature to itself. When Dr. Frankenstein meets his creation on a glacier in the Alps, the monster claims that it was notborn a monster, but that it became a criminal only after being left alone by his horrified creator, who fled the laboratory once the horrible thing twitched to life. “Remember, I am thy creature,” the monster protests, “I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed… I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

Written at the dawn of the great technological revolutions that would define the 19th and 20th centuries, Frankenstein foresees that the gigantic sins that were to be committed would hide a much greater sin. It is not the case that we have failed to care for Creation, but that we have failed to care for our technological creations. We confuse the monster for its creator and blame our sins against Nature upon our creations. But our sin is not that we created technologies but that we failed to love and care for them. It is as if we decided that we were unable to follow through with the education of our children.⁴

Let Dr. Frankenstein’s sin serve as a parable for political ecology. At a time when science, technology, and demography make clear that we can never separate ourselves from the nonhuman world — that we, our technologies, and nature can no more be disentangled than we can remember the distinction between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster — this is the moment chosen by millions of well-meaning souls to flagellate themselves for their earlier aspiration to dominion, to repent for their past hubris, to look for ways of diminishing the numbers of their fellow humans, and to swear to make their footprints invisible?

The goal of political ecology must not be to stop innovating, inventing, creating, and intervening. The real goal must be to have the same type of patience and commitment to our creations as God the Creator, Himself. And the comparison is not blasphemous: we have taken the whole of Creation on our shoulders and have become coextensive with the Earth.

What, then, should be the work of political ecology? It is, I believe, tomodernize modernization, to borrow an expression proposed by Ulrich Beck.⁵  This challenge demands more of us than simply embracing technology and innovation. It requires exchanging the modernist notion of modernity for what I have called a “compositionist” one that sees the process of human development as neither liberation from Nature nor as a fall from it, but rather as a process of becoming ever-more attached to, and intimate with, a panoply of nonhuman natures.

1.
At the time of the plough we could only scratch the surface of the soil. Three centuries back, we could only dream, like Cyrano de Bergerac, of traveling to the moon. In the past, my Gallic ancestors were afraid of nothing except that the “sky will fall on their heads.”

Today we can fold ourselves into the molecular machinery of soil bacteria through our sciences and technologies. We run robots on Mars. We photograph and dream of further galaxies. And yet we fear that the climate could destroy us.

Everyday in our newspapers we read about more entanglements of all those things that were once imagined to be separable — science, morality, religion, law, technology, finance, and politics. But these things are tangled up together everywhere: in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in the space shuttle, and in the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

If you envision a future in which there will be less and less of these entanglements thanks to Science, capital S, you are a modernist. But if you brace yourself for a future in which there will always be more of these imbroglios, mixing many more heterogeneous actors, at a greater and greater scale and at an ever-tinier level of intimacy requiring even more detailed care, then you are… what? A compositionist!

The dominant, peculiar story of modernity is of humankind’semancipation from Nature. Modernity is the thrusting-forward arrow of time — Progress — characterized by its juvenile enthusiasm, risk taking, frontier spirit, optimism, and indifference to the past. The spirit can be summarized in a single sentence: “Tomorrow, we will be able to separate more accurately what the world is really like from the subjective illusions we used to entertain about it.”

The very forward movement of the arrow of time and the frontier spirit associated with it (the modernizing front) is due to a certain conception of knowledge: “Tomorrow, we will be able to differentiate clearly what in the past was still mixed up, namely facts and values, thanks to Science.”

Science is the shibboleth that defines the right direction of the arrow of time because it, and only it, is able to cut into two well-separated parts what had, in the past, remained hopelessly confused: a morass of ideology, emotions, and values on the one hand, and, on the other, stark and naked matters of fact.

The notion of the past as an archaic and dangerous confusion arises directly from giving Science this role. A modernist, in this great narrative, is the one who expects from Science the revelation that Nature will finally be visible through the veils of subjectivity — and subjection — that hid it from our ancestors.

And here has been the great failure of political ecology. Just when all of the human and nonhuman associations are finally coming to the center of our consciousness, when science and nature and technology and politics become so confused and mixed up as to be impossible to untangle, just as these associations are beginning to be shaped in our political arenas and are triggering our most personal and deepest emotions, this is when a new apartheid is declared: leave Nature alone and let the humans retreat — as the English did on the beaches of Dunkirk in the 1940s.

Just at the moment when this fabulous dissonance inherent in the modernist project between what modernists say (emancipation from all attachments!) and what they do (create ever-more attachments!) is becoming apparent to all, along come those alleging to speak for Nature to say the problem lies in the violations and imbroglios — the attachments!

Instead of deciding that the great narrative of modernism (Emancipation) has always resulted in another history altogether (Attachments), the spirit of the age has interpreted the dissonance in quasi-apocalyptic terms: “We were wrong all along, let’s turn our back to progress, limit ourselves, and return to our narrow human confines, leaving the nonhumans alone in as pristine a Nature as possible, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…”

Nature, this great shortcut of due political process, is now used to forbid humans to encroach. Instead of realizing at last that the emancipation narrative is bunk, and that modernism was always about attachments, modernist greens have suddenly shifted gears and have begun to oppose the promises of modernization.

Why do we feel so frightened at the moment that our dreams of modernization finally come true? Why do we suddenly turn pale and wish to fall back on the other side of Hercules’s columns, thinking we are being punished for having transgressed the sign: “Thou shall not transgress?” Was not our slogan until now, as Nordhaus and Shellenberger note in Break Through, “We shall overcome!”?⁶

In the name of indisputable facts portraying a bleak future for the human race, green politics has succeeded in leaving citizens nothing but a gloomy asceticism, a terror of trespassing Nature, and a diffidence toward industry, innovation, technology, and science. No wonder that, while political ecology claims to embody the political power of the future, it is reduced everywhere to a tiny portion of electoral strap-hangers. Even in countries where political ecology is a little more powerful, it contributes only a supporting force.

Political ecology has remained marginal because it has not grasped either its own politics or its own ecology. It thinks it is speaking of Nature, System, a hierarchical totality, a world without man, an assured Science, but it is precisely these overly ordered pronouncements that marginalize it.

Set in contrast to the modernist narrative, this idea of political ecology could not possibly succeed. There is beauty and strength in the modernist story of emancipation. Its picture of the future is so attractive, especially when put against such a repellent past, that it makes one wish to run forward to break all the shackles of ancient existence.

To succeed, an ecological politics must manage to be at least as powerful as the modernizing story of emancipation without imagining that we are emancipating ourselves from Nature. What the emancipation narrative points to as proof of increasing human mastery over and freedom from Nature — agriculture, fossil energy, technology — can be redescribed as the increasing attachmentsbetween things and people at an ever-expanding scale. If the older narratives imagined humans either fell from Nature or freed themselves from it, the compositionist narrative describes our ever-increasing degree of intimacy with the new natures we are constantly creating. Only “out of Nature” may ecological politics start again and anew.

2.
The paradox of “the environment” is that it emerged in public parlance just when it was starting to disappear. During the heyday of modernism, no one seemed to care about “the environment” because there existed a huge unknown reserve on which to discharge all bad consequences of collective modernizing actions. The environment is what appeared when unwanted consequences came back to haunt the originators of such actions.

But if the originators are true modernists, they will see the return of “the environment” as incomprehensible since they believed they were finally free of it. The return of consequences, like global warming, is taken as a contradiction, or even as a monstrosity, which it is, of course, but only according to the modernist’s narrative of emancipation. In the compositionist’s narrative of attachments, unintended consequences are quite normal — indeed, the most expected things on earth!

Environmentalists, in the American sense of the word, never managed to extract themselves from the contradiction that the environment is precisely not “what lies beyond and should be left alone” — this was the contrary, the view of their worst enemies! The environment is exactly what should be even more managed, taken up, cared for, stewarded, in brief, integrated and internalized in the very fabric of the polity.

France, for its part, has never believed in the notion of a pristine Nature that has so confused the “defense of the environment” in other countries. What we call a “national park” is a rural ecosystem complete with post offices, well-tended roads, highly subsidized cows, and handsome villages.

Those who wish to protect natural ecosystems learn, to their stupefaction, that they have to work harder and harder — that is, to intervene even more, at always greater levels of detail, with ever more subtle care — to keep them “natural enough” for Nature-intoxicated tourists to remain happy.

Like France’s parks, all of Nature needs our constant care, our undivided attention, our costly instruments, our hundreds of thousands of scientists, our huge institutions, our careful funding. But though we have Nature, and we have nurture, we don’t know what it would mean for Nature itself to be nurtured.⁷

The word “environmentalism” thus designates this turning point in history when the unwanted consequences are suddenly considered to be such a monstrosity that the only logical step appears to be to abstain and repent: “We should not have committed so many crimes; now we should be good and limit ourselves.” Or at least this is what people felt and thought before the breakthrough, at the time when there was still an “environment.”

But what is the breakthrough itself then? If I am right, the breakthrough involves no longer seeing a contradiction between the spirit of emancipation and its catastrophic outcomes, but accepting it as the normal duty of continuing to care for unwanted consequences, even if this means going further and further down into the imbroglios. Environmentalists say: “From now on we should limit ourselves.” Postenvironmentalists exclaim: “From now on, we should stop flagellating ourselves and take up explicitly and seriously what we have been doing all along at an ever-increasing scale, namely, intervening, acting, wanting, caring.” For environmentalists, the return of unexpected consequences appears as a scandal (which it is for the modernist myth of mastery). For postenvironmentalists, the other, unintended consequences are part and parcel of any action.

3.
One way to seize upon the breakthrough from environmentalism to postenvironmentalism is to reshape the very definition of the “precautionary principle.” This strange moral, legal, epistemological monster has appeared in European and especially French politics after many scandals due to the misplaced belief by state authority in the certainties provided by Science.⁸

When action is supposed to be nothing but the logical consequence of reason and facts (which the French, of all people, still believe), it is quite normal to wait for the certainty of science before administrators and politicians spring to action. The problem begins when experts fail to agree on the reasons and facts that have been taken as the necessary premises of any action. Then the machinery of decision is stuck until experts come to an agreement. It was in such a situation that the great tainted blood catastrophe of the 1980s ensued: before agreement was produced, hundreds of patients were transfused with blood contaminated by the AIDS virus.⁹

The precautionary principle was introduced to break this odd connection between scientific certainty and political action, stating that even in the absence of certainty, decisions could be made. But of course, as soon as it was introduced, fierce debates began on its meaning. Is it an environmentalist notion that precludes action or a postenvironmentalist notion that finally follows action through to its consequences?

Not surprisingly, the enemies of the precautionary principle — which President Chirac enshrined in the French Constitution as if the French, having indulged so much in rationalism, had to be protected against it by the highest legal pronouncements — took it as proof that no action was possible any more. As good modernists, they claimed that if you had to take so many precautions in advance, to anticipate so many risks, to include the unexpected consequences even before they arrived, and worse, to be responsible for them, then it was a plea for impotence, despondency, and despair. The only way to innovate, they claimed, is to bounce forward, blissfully ignorant of the consequences or at least unconcerned by what lies outside your range of action. Their opponents largely agreed. Modernist environmentalists argued that the principle of precaution dictated no action, no new technology, no intervention unless it could be proven with certainty that no harm would result. Modernists we were, modernists we shall be!

But for its postenvironmental supporters (of which I am one) the principle of precaution, properly understood, is exactly the change ofzeitgeist needed: not a principle of abstention — as many have come to see it — but a change in the way any action is considered, a deep tidal change in the linkage modernism established between science and politics. From now on, thanks to this principle, unexpected consequences are attached to their initiators and have to be followed through all the way.

4.
The link between technology and theology hinges on the notion of mastery. Descartes exclaimed that we should be “maîtres et possesseurs de la nature.”¹⁰
But what does it mean to be a master? In the modernist narrative, mastery was supposed to require such total dominance by the master that he was emancipated entirely from any care and worry. This is the myth about mastery that was used to describe the technical, scientific, and economic dominion of Man over Nature.

But if you think about it according to the compositionist narrative, this myth is quite odd: where have we ever seen a master freed from any dependence on his dependents? The Christian God, at least, is not a master who is freed from dependents, but who, on the contrary, gets folded into, involved with, implicated with, and incarnated into His Creation. God is so attached and dependent upon His Creation that he is continually forced (convinced? willing?) to save it. Once again, the sin is not to wish to have dominion over Nature, but to believe that this dominion means emancipation and not attachment.

If God has not abandoned His Creation and has sent His Son to redeem it, why do you, a human, a creature, believe that you can invent, innovate, and proliferate — and then flee away in horror from what you have committed? Oh, you the hypocrite who confesses of one sin to hide a much graver, mortal one! Has God fled in horror after what humans made of His Creation? Then have at least the same forbearance that He has.

The dream of emancipation has not turned into a nightmare. It was simply too limited: it excluded nonhumans. It did not care about unexpected consequences; it was unable to follow through with its responsibilities; it entertained a wholly unrealistic notion of what science and technology had to offer; it relied on a rather impious definition of God, and a totally absurd notion of what creation, innovation, and mastery could provide.

Which God and which Creation should we be for, knowing that, contrary to Dr. Frankenstein, we cannot suddenly stop being involved and “go home?” Incarnated we are, incarnated we will be. In spite of a centuries-old misdirected metaphor, we should, without any blasphemy, reverse the Scripture and exclaim: “What good is it for a man to gain his soul yet forfeit the whole world?” /

1. Polidori, John, et al. 1819. The Vampyre: A Tale. Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones.

2. Shelley, Mary W., 1823. Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. Printed for G. and W.B. Whittaker.

3. Ibid.

4. This is also the theme of: Latour, Bruno. 1996. Aramis or the Love of Technology. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

5. Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

6. Nordhaus, Ted, and Michael Shellenberger. 2007. Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

7. Descola, Philippe. 2005. Par dela nature et culture. Paris: Gallimard.

8. Sadeleer, Nicolas de, 2006. Implementing the Precautionary Principle: Approaches from Nordic Countries and the EU. Earthscan Publ. Ltd.

9. Hermitte, Marie-Angele. 1996. Le Sang Et Le Droit. Essai Sur La Transfusion Sanguine. Paris: Le Seuil.

10. Descartes, Rene. 1637. Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings. Translated by Desmond M. Clark. 1999. Part 6, 44. New York: Penguin.

Relação entre interações sociais e mudanças gramaticais (Fapesp)

08/05/2012UncategorizedLinguística, Oralidaderenzotaddei

Contrariando teorias da sociolinguística, estudo sugere que adultos integrados em diferentes nichos sociais acompanham evolução da língua

08/05/2012

Por Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP – Poderia um indivíduo adulto mudar sua gramática ao longo da vida? Para responder a essa pergunta, a professora Maria Célia Lima-Hernandes, da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), deu início à pesquisa que resultou no livroIndivíduo, Sociedade e Língua – Cara, tipo assim, fala sério!.

Recém-lançada pela Edusp, com auxílio da FAPESP, a obra é uma versão revista da tese de doutorado defendida por Lima-Hernandes em 2005, no Instituto de Estudos de Linguagem da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp).

A autora investiga se um mesmo grupo de pessoas poderia ter sua gramática alterada em um espaço de 20 anos. Quatro palavras de base comparativa – “como”, “igual”, “feito” e “tipo” – foram escolhidas para testar a hipótese de que contatos sociais mais extensos desencadeariam mudanças na gramática da língua falada por adultos independentemente da idade, do sexo ou do grau de escolaridade.

“A teoria até então predominante na sociolinguística era a de que as mudanças na gramática seriam resultado da rebeldia adolescente. Os jovens, por acharem os pais caretas, procurariam usos inovadores para as palavras. Isso foi recentemente questionado por William Labov, professor da Universidade da Pensilvânia e precursor da Sociolinguística Quantitativa”, disse Lima-Hernandes.

Já para a corrente teórica liderada pelo linguista e filósofo Noam Chomsky, é a criança a força transformadora da língua. “A criança interpretaria as construções de um modo diferente produzindo uma nova gramática”, explicou Lima-Hernandes.

Mas, nas pesquisas que realizou antes mesmo de dar início ao doutorado, a autora encontrou evidências de mudanças linguísticas na idade adulta em várias línguas do mundo.

A confirmação veio quando comparou entrevistas de um grupo de 36 moradores do subúrbio do Rio de Janeiro que, 20 anos antes, haviam sido objeto de estudo do grupo de sua orientadora, Maria Luiza Braga, professora da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

Lima-Hernandes observou inicialmente que usos inovadores da palavra “tipo” podiam ter sua incorporação na fala relacionada ao tipo de vida social que os falantes desenvolviam.

“Algumas pessoas simplesmente haviam parado de usar a palavra “tipo” ou só a usavam em suas categorias e funções normatizadas. Essas eram as que mantinham um círculo social restrito. Já as que tinham contato com pessoas de diferentes idades e participavam de nichos sociais variados usavam todos os tipos de “tipo”, ou seja, acompanharam a evolução da língua mesmo na idade adulta”, disse.

Por meio da análise de documentos históricos que datam do século 13 ao século 20, Lima-Hernandes resgatou também a trajetória de evolução das palavras “como”, “igual”, “feito” e “tipo”, mostrando os diferentes usos que surgiram com o passar dos anos.

“É possível perceber que a mudança no uso das palavras não vai em qualquer direção, não é aberta à criatividade aleatória como se pensa, mas respeita princípios cognitivos. O novo uso tem de estar ligado, de alguma forma, ao seu traço etimológico resiliente, ainda que os falantes não tenham a mínima consciência disso”, disse.

Indivíduo, Sociedade e Língua – Cara, tipo assim, fala sério!
Autora: Maria Célia Lima-Hernandes
Lançamento: dezembro de 2011
Preço: R$ 45
Páginas: 232

Mais informações: www.edusp.com.br/detlivro.asp?ID=413216

Mixed Methods Should Be a Valued Practice in Anthropology (Anthropology News)

04/05/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, Educação, Etnografiarenzotaddei

METHODS

By Thomas S Weisner

1 May 2012

Methods are systematic, socially agreed upon ways to represent the world. Mixed methods integrate qualitative and quantitative evidence through intentional efforts to focus “on research questions that call for real-life contextual understandings, multi-level perspectives, and cultural influences” (Cresswell, et al, 2011, Best Practices for Mixed Methods Research in the Health Sciences, p 4).

Good anthropology will always benefit from the widest variety of data. High quality examples of combining qualitative and quantitative methods abound in anthropology today and have done so throughout our history. Although ethnography and qualitative methods remain central, it has always been true that other methods are commonly used as well in every field of anthropology.

SOME EXAMPLES
Elinor Ochs and colleagues at UCLA assembled what is arguably the richest family database in the world today (combining video, sociolinguistic, ethnographic, questionnaire, daily diary, material possession, stress hormone and other evidence) in their study of the everyday lives of two-parent, middle class working Los Angeles families and their children (www.celf.ucla.edu). Robert LeVine and collaborators combined sociolinguistic, ethnographic, systematic observational, demographic, historical and child assessment methods in their study of the connections between women’s gains in literacy, lower completed family size, improved health and changes in maternal care in communities around the world (Literacy and Mothering: How Women’s Schooling Changes the Lives of the World’s Children, 2012). The New Hope community based work and family support study (Duncan, Huston and Weisner, Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and their Children, 2007) used a random-assignment social experiment, survey, questionnaire, child assessment and qualitative ethnographic fieldwork to discover why the program was successful in improving the well-being of parents and children, and yet why sometimes only selectively so.

Andrew Fuligni, Nancy Gonzalez and I currently collaborate on a study of the daily activities, family responsibilities and obligations, and academic and behavioral outcomes of 428 Mexican American immigrant teens and parents in Los Angeles (first, second and later generations, documented and not). Methods include 14-day consecutive daily diaries, survey and questionnaire data, and school and behavior assessments. In addition, a 10% nested random sample of parents and teens from this larger sample participate in a qualitative study in the homes of parents and children in addition. We gave cameras to adolescents in ninth and tenth grades with instructions to take 25 pictures of people, places, events and activities important to them. We plugged the cameras into our laptops and talked with the teens about their photos. We asked questions such as: Who are these friends; oh you have a boyfriend? Tell me more about your soccer team. That’s your Mom cooking; what do you do for chores? That’s one of your teachers? What class is it; how is school going? Teens take photos of other family members’ photos such as grandparents they cannot visit in Mexico; one took a photo of the moon, mentioning the film Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna).

The narratives then can be recorded, transcribed and uploaded to a mixed methods software program such as Dedoose (www.Dedoose.com), a web-based mixed method software tool. Indexing and coding are a matter of dragging and dropping codes on the relevant portions of the text. Quantitative data from the larger study also are uploaded and linked to adolescent and parent narratives and photos. Narratives can be coded; patterns in quantitative data can be enriched qualitatively. The same fieldworkers who went to the homes and did interviews, also often worked on analyses of quantitative data.

STRENGTH OF INTEGRATED METHODS
Methods and research designs are languages understood across the social sciences. To the extent that we can speak those languages in our work, we more likely will draw in those in other disciplines into conversations with us. A study that creatively integrates quantitative and qualitative methods sends a positive message to those fluent in only qualitative or quantitative methods that we take their methods (and so their identities and ideas) seriously. The increased believability in our and others’ work which often results is itself a criterion for successful mixed methods research. The use of integrated methods is growing across the social sciences; psychology (eg, Yoshikawa, et al, Developmental Psychology 44[344–54]), sociology (eg, Mario Small in Annual Review of Sociology 37[57–86]), psychiatry (Palinkas, et al, Psychiatric Services 62 [3]), public health (Plano-Clark, Qualitative Inquiry16 [6]), political science, education, economics and other fields are benefitting and sometimes looking to anthropology for collaboration. Policy and practice research benefits hugely from integrating qualitative and quantitative methods. Funders increasingly see integrated methods as a strength in grant proposals.

The stark binary contrast of the “two Q’s”—qualitative vs quantitative—is not very useful; it restricts our thinking and limits our conversations. The two Q’s oversimplifies the debates and obscures important shared goals common to all methods. A better narrative and discourse about methods should use a richer conceptual framework. The actual contrast with quantitative levels of measurement (ordinal, interval, ratio scales) should be nominal or categorical levels (words, categories, narratives, themes, patterns); both are useful. The contrast with naturalistic research should not be experimental but research that is contrived or controlled in some systematic way to aid understanding. A useful framework for anthropology should distinguish person and experience-centered, or context-centered and variable-centered methods, not a qualitative/quantitative binary. Such a methods conversation could then focus on the most important Q—our common questions.

Many of us use ethnographic settings, events or activities as our units of analysis to be sure we do not bracket out context that provides essential meaning. However, inquiry across levels of analysis beyond settings and beyond projects often requires mixed methods. We often deal with suspicions about the “bias” of ethnographic and qualitative methods. Mixed methods do not necessarily lead to common findings; there is method variance just as there is expectable heterogeneity, conflict and inconsistency in cultural beliefs and practices themselves. A more useful question is whether our methods have been systematically context-examined or remain context-unexamined—since all methods (whether qualitative or quantitative) entail a context or a set of presumptions and methods effects of some kinds.

Quantitative methods and statistical analyses have guidelines and procedures (not uncontested of course) for deciding if they are done well—if they met accepted standards and should be published and disseminated for example. These include judgments of reliability, validity, sample size and representativeness or generalizability, power, and so forth. Qualitative and ethnographic work can and should have recognized criteria as well, such as breadth, depth, holism, veridicality, specificity of context, meaning centered, narrative and behavioral coherence, shared cognitions, interpretive richness, and others. These are of course more variable, and not so easy to define, yet they are valuable and defensible if carefully described. These should be in addition to explicit descriptions of sampling, setting, and so forth. Reasonable, flexible mixed methods criteria are being developed in these respects (Weisner and Fiese in Journal of Family Psychology 25[6]). Recent NIH guidelines have been developed for the use of mixed methods in health research and in applications for funding (Cresswell, et al, 2011).

METHODS PLURALISM IN ANTHROPOLOGY
I would guess—or at least hope—that most anthropologists are fairly tolerant pluralists regarding methods. Most of us appreciate the vast range of qualitative and ethnographic methods and their integration, as in Russ Bernard’s Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (2011). I suspect many if not most of us generally agree with this view or use mixed methods in our own research and teaching, and regularly cite such work even if we don’t do this ourselves. If we don’t do quantitative research, we may have partnered with others who do and are interested in similar questions, or we may have taught courses using books and papers with quantitative evidence. And yet it is fair to say that those who critique quantitative methods, or dismiss systematic methods altogether, including mixed methods, sometimes, without justification in my view, seek to claim the dominant view. To the contrary: the future of our field and the social sciences is far more likely to be characterized by interdisciplinary methodological pluralism, often including integrated mixed methods. Anthropology should be at the forefront of such research and practice, not critiquing from the margins or simply ignoring important methodological and research design innovations.

Donald Campbell long ago described this more modest, pluralist, pragmatic, skeptical, empirically based approach to methods: he argued that all methods are valuable and important, but that all methods are also weak in the sense that they are incomplete representations of the incredibly complex world that we hope to understand. Hence we should use the widest range of methods, so that the weaknesses of one method can be complemented by the strengths of another, and so that phenomena in the world that are holistic qualities best or only to be represented by narrative, text, photos or sound are represented that way, and phenomena best or only to be represented with numbers, variables and models are represented quantitatively. As a result, we will get closer to understanding the world, and then persuading others of the truth of what we discover and believe.

Thomas S Weisner (www.tweisner.com) is anthropology professor in the departments of psychiatry and anthropology at UCLA, and director of Center for Culture & Health. His research and teaching interests are in culture and human development; medical, psychological and cultural studies of families and children at risk; mixed methods; and evidence-informed policy.

Zygmunt Bauman: ‘No one is in control. That is the major source of contemporary fear’ (Guardian)

04/05/2012UncategorizedControle, Incerteza, Medo, participatividade, Política, Previsão, sociedade civilrenzotaddei

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 September 2011

For Zygmunt Bauman the world is marked by a division between power and politics. While politics is defined by nations, power no longer recognises national boundaries

Video: http://gu.com/p/3xgzt

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity”

26/04/2012Uncategorizedciênciarenzotaddei

In George Bernard Shaw´s The Doctor’s Dilemma

Novelas brasileiras passam imagem de país branco, critica escritora moçambicana (Agência Brasil)

25/04/2012UncategorizedCultura, Educação, Enquadramento, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Moçambique, Raça, Racismo, Religião, Telenovelarenzotaddei

17/04/2012 – 15h35

Alex Rodrigues
Repórter da Agência Brasil

Brasília – “Temos medo do Brasil.” Foi com um desabafo inesperado que a romancista moçambicana Paulina Chiziane chamou a atenção do público do seminário A Literatura Africana Contemporânea, que integra a programação da 1ª Bienal do Livro e da Leitura, em Brasília (DF). Ela se referia aos efeitos da presença, em Moçambique, de igrejas e templos brasileiros e de produtos culturais como as telenovelas que transmitem, na opinião dela, uma falsa imagem do país.

“Para nós, moçambicanos, a imagem do Brasil é a de um país branco ou, no máximo, mestiço. O único negro brasileiro bem-sucedido que reconhecemos como tal é o Pelé. Nas telenovelas, que são as responsáveis por definir a imagem que temos do Brasil, só vemos negros como carregadores ou como empregados domésticos. No topo [da representação social] estão os brancos. Esta é a imagem que o Brasil está vendendo ao mundo”, criticou a autora, destacando que essas representações contribuem para perpetuar as desigualdades raciais e sociais existentes em seu país.

“De tanto ver nas novelas o branco mandando e o negro varrendo e carregando, o moçambicano passa a ver tal situação como aparentemente normal”, sustenta Paulina, apontando para a mesma organização social em seu país.

A presença de igrejas brasileiras em território moçambicano também tem impactos negativos na cultura do país, na avaliação da escritora. “Quando uma ou várias igrejas chegam e nos dizem que nossa maneira de crer não é correta, que a melhor crença é a que elas trazem, isso significa destruir uma identidade cultural. Não há o respeito às crenças locais. Na cultura africana, um curandeiro é não apenas o médico tradicional, mas também o detentor de parte da história e da cultura popular”, detacou Paulina, criticando os governos dos dois países que permitem a intervenção dessas instituições.

Primeira mulher a publicar um livro em Moçambique, Paulina procura fugir de estereótipos em sua obra, principalmente, os que limitam a mulher ao papel de dependente, incapaz de pensar por si só, condicionada a apenas servir.

“Gosto muito dos poetas de meu país, mas nunca encontrei na literatura que os homens escrevem o perfil de uma mulher inteira. É sempre a boca, as pernas, um único aspecto. Nunca a sabedoria infinita que provém das mulheres”, disse Paulina, lembrando que, até a colonização europeia, cabia às mulheres desempenhar a função narrativa e de transmitir o conhecimento.

“Antes do colonialismo, a arte e a literatura eram femininas. Cabia às mulheres contar as histórias e, assim, socializar as crianças. Com o sistema colonial e o emprego do sistema de educação imperial, os homens passam a aprender a escrever e a contar as histórias. Por isso mesmo, ainda hoje, em Moçambique, há poucas mulheres escritoras”, disse Paulina.

“Mesmo independentes [a partir de 1975], passamos a escrever a partir da educação europeia que havíamos recebido, levando os estereótipos e preconceitos que nos foram transmitidos. A sabedoria africana propriamente dita, a que é conhecida pelas mulheres, continua excluída. Isso para não dizer que mais da metade da população moçambicana não fala português e poucos são os autores que escrevem em outras línguas moçambicanas”, disse Paulina.

Durante a bienal, foi relançado o livro Niketche, uma história de poligamia, de autoria da escritora moçambicana.

The U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Numerical Weather Prediction: Part I

24/04/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Matemática, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

March 28, 2012 – 05:00 AM

By Dr. Cliff Mass (Twitter @CliffMass)

It’s a national embarrassment. It has resulted in large unnecessary costs for the U.S. economy and needless endangerment of our citizens. And it shouldn’t be occurring.

What am I talking about? The third rate status of numerical weather prediction in the U.S. It is a huge story, an important story, but one the media has not touched, probably from lack of familiarity with a highly technical subject. And the truth has been buried or unavailable to those not intimately involved in the U.S. weather prediction enterprise. This is an issue I have mentioned briefly in previous blogs, and one many of you have asked to learn more about. It’s time to discuss it.

Weather forecasting today is dependent on numerical weather prediction, the numerical solution of the equations that describe the atmosphere. The technology of weather prediction has improved dramatically during the past decades as faster computers, better models, and much more data (mainly satellites) have become available.

Supercomputers are used for numerical weather prediciton.

U.S. numerical weather prediction has fallen to third or fourth place worldwide, with the clear leader in global numerical weather prediction (NWP) being the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF). And we have also fallen behind in ensembles (using many models to give probabilistic prediction) and high-resolution operational forecasting. We used to be the world leader decades ago in numerical weather prediction: NWP began and was perfected here in the U.S. Ironically, we have the largest weather research community in the world and the largest collection of universities doing cutting-edge NWP research (like the University of Washington!). Something is very, very wrong and I will talk about some of the issues here. And our nation needs to fix it.

But to understand the problem, you have to understand the competition and the players. And let me apologize upfront for the acronyms.

In the U.S., numerical weather prediction mainly takes place at the National Weather Service’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), a part of NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction). They run a global model (GFS) and regional models (e.g., NAM).

The Europeans banded together decades ago to form the European Center for Medium-Range Forecasting (ECMWF), which runs a very good global model. Several European countries run regional models as well.

The United Kingdom Met Office (UKMET) runs an excellent global model and regional models. So does the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC).

There are other major global NWP centers such as the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), the U.S. Navy (FNMOC), the Australian center, one in Beijing, among others. All of these centers collect worldwide data and do global NWP.

The problem is that both objective and subjective comparisons indicate that the U.S. global model is number 3 or number 4 in quality, resulting in our forecasts being noticeably inferior to the competition. Let me show you a rather technical graph (produced by the NWS) that illustrates this. This figure shows the quality of the 500hPa forecast (about halfway up in the troposphere–approximately 18,000 ft) for the day 5 forecast. The top graph is a measure of forecast skill (closer to 1 is better) from 1996 to 2012 for several models (U.S.–black, GFS; ECMWF-red, Canadian: CMC-blue, UKMET: green, Navy: FNG, orange). The bottom graph shows the difference between the U.S. and other nation’s model skill.

You first notice that forecasts are all getting better. That’s good. But you will notice that the most skillful forecast (closest to one) is clearly the red one…the European Center. The second best is the UKMET office. The U.S. (GFS model) is third…roughly tied with the Canadians.

Here is a global model comparison done by the Canadian Meteorological Center, for various global models from 2009-2012 for the 120 h forecast. This is a plot of error (RMSE, root mean square error) again for 500 hPa, and only for North America. Guess who is best again (lowest error)?–the European Center (green circle). UKMET is next best, and the U.S. (NCEP, blue triangle) is back in the pack.

Lets looks at short-term errors. Here is a plot from a paper by Garrett Wedam, Lynn McMurdie and myself comparing various models at 24, 48, and 72 hr for sea level pressure along the West Coast. Bigger bar means more error. Guess who has the lowest errors by far? You guessed it, ECMWF.

I could show you a hundred of these plots, but the answers are very consistent. ECMWF is the worldwide gold standard in global prediction, with the British (UKMET) second. We are third or fourth (with the Canadians). One way to describe this, is that the ECWMF model is not only better at the short range, but has about one day of additional predictability: their 8 day forecast is about as skillful as our 7 day forecast. Another way to look at it is that with the current upward trend in skill they are 5-7 years ahead of the U.S.

Most forecasters understand the frequent superiority of the ECMWF model. If you read the NWS forecast discussion, which is available online, you will frequently read how they often depend not on the U.S. model, but the ECMWF. And during the January western WA snowstorm, it was the ECMWF model that first indicated the correct solution. Recently, I talked to the CEO of a weather/climate related firm that was moving up to Seattle. I asked them what model they were using: the U.S. GFS? He laughed, of course not…they were using the ECMWF.

A lot of U.S. firms are using the ECMWF and this is very costly, because the Europeans charge a lot to gain access to their gridded forecasts (hundreds of thousands of dollars per year). Can you imagine how many millions of dollars are being spent by U.S. companies to secure ECMWF predictions? But the cost of the inferior NWS forecasts are far greater than that, because many users cannot afford the ECMWF grids and the NWS uses their global predictions to drive the higher-resolution regional models–which are NOT duplicated by the Europeans. All of U.S. NWP is dragged down by these second-rate forecasts and the costs for the nation has to be huge, since so much of our economy is weather sensitive. Inferior NWP must be costing billions of dollars, perhaps many billions.

The question all of you must be wondering is why this bad situation exists. How did the most technologically advanced country in the world, with the largest atmospheric sciences community, end up with third-rate global weather forecasts? I believe I can tell you…in fact, I have been working on this issue for several decades (with little to show for it). Some reasons:

1. The U.S. has inadequate computer power available for numerical weather prediction. The ECMWF is running models with substantially higher resolution than ours because they have more resources available for NWP. This is simply ridiculous–the U.S. can afford the processors and disk space it would take. We are talking about millions or tens of millions of dollars at most to have the hardware we need. A part of the problem has been NWS procurement, that is not forward-leaning, using heavy metal IBM machines at very high costs.

2. The U.S. has used inferior data assimilation. A key aspect of NWP is to assimilate the observations to create a good description of the atmosphere. The European Center, the UKMET Office, and the Canadians using 4DVAR, an advanced approach that requires lots of computer power. We used an older, inferior approach (3DVAR). The Europeans have been using 4DVAR for 20 years! Right now, the U.S. is working on another advanced approach (ensemble-based data assimilation), but it is not operational yet.

3. The NWS numerical weather prediction effort has been isolated and has not taken advantage of the research community. NCEP’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) is well known for its isolation and “not invented here” attitude. While the European Center has lots of visitors and workshops, such things are a rarity at EMC. Interactions with the university community have been limited and EMC has been reluctant to use the models and approaches developed by the U.S. research community. (True story: some of the advances in probabilistic weather prediction at the UW has been adopted by the Canadians, while the NWS had little interest). The National Weather Service has invested very little in extramural research and when their budget is under pressure, university research is the first thing they reduce. And the U.S. NWP center has been housed in a decaying building outside of D.C.,one too small for their needs as well. (Good news… a new building should be available soon).

4. The NWS approach to weather related research has been ineffective and divided. The governmnent weather research is NOT in the NWS, but rather in NOAA. Thus, the head of the NWS and his leadership team do not have authority over folks doing research in support of his mission. This has been an extraordinarily ineffective and wasteful system, with the NOAA research teams doing work that often has a marginal benefit for the NWS.

5. Lack of leadership. This is the key issue. The folks in NCEP, NWS, and NOAA leadership have been willing to accept third-class status, providing lots of excuses, but not making the fundamental changes in organization and priority that could deal with the problem. Lack of resources for NWP is another issue…but that is a decision made by NOAA/NWS/Dept of Commerce leadership.

This note is getting long, so I will wait to talk about the other problems in the NWS weather modeling efforts, such as our very poor ensemble (probabilistic) prediction systems. One could write a paper on this…and I may.

I should stress that I am not alone in saying these things. A blue-ribbon panel did a review of NCEP in 2009 and came to similar conclusions (found here). And these issues are frequently noted at conferences, workshops, and meetings.

Let me note that the above is about the modeling aspects of the NWS, NOT the many people in the local forecast offices. This part of the NWS is first-rate. They suffer from inferior U.S. guidance and fortunately have access to the ECMWF global forecasts. And there are some very good people at NCEP that have lacked the resources required and suitable organization necessary to push forward effectively.

This problem at the National Weather Service is not a weather prediction problem alone, but an example of a deeper national malaise. It is related to other U.S. issues, like our inferior K-12 education system. Our nation, gaining world leadership in almost all areas, became smug, self-satisfied, and a bit lazy. We lost the impetus to be the best. We were satisfied to coast. And this attitude must end…in weather prediction, education, and everything else… or we will see our nation sink into mediocrity.

The U.S. can reclaim leadership in weather prediction, but I am not hopeful that things will change quickly without pressure from outside of the NWS. The various weather user communities and our congressional representatives must deliver a strong message to the NWS that enough is enough, that the time for accepting mediocrity is over. And the Weather Service requires the resources to be first rate, something it does not have at this point.

* * *

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Lack of Computer Power Undermines U.S. Numerical Weather Prediction (Revised)

In my last blog on this subject, I provided objective evidence of how U.S. numerical weather prediction (NWP), and particularly our global prediction skill, lags between major international centers, such as the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), the UKMET office, and the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC).   I mentioned briefly how the problem extends to high-resolution weather prediction over the U.S. and the use of ensemble (many model runs) weather prediction, both globally and over the U.S. Our nation is clearly number one in meteorological research and we certainly have the knowledge base to lead the world in numerical weather prediction, but for a number of reasons we are not. The cost of inferior weather prediction is huge: in lives lost, injuries sustained, and economic impacts unmitigated. Truly, a national embarrassment. And one we must change.

In this blog, I will describe in some detail one major roadblock in giving the U.S. state-of-the-art weather prediction:  inadequate computer resources.   This situation should clearly have been addressed years ago by leadership in the National Weather Service, NOAA, and the Dept of Commerce, but has not, and I am convinced will not without outside pressure. It is time for the user community and our congressional representatives to intervene. To quote Samuel L. Jackson, enough is enough. (…)

In the U.S. we are trying to use less computer resources to do more tasks than the global leaders in numerical weather prediction. (Note: U.S. NWP is done by National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s (NCEP) Environmental Modeling Center (EMC)). This chart tells the story:

Courtesy of Bill Lapenta, EMC.

ECMWF does global high resolution and ensemble forecasts, and seasonal climate forecasts. UKMET office also does regional NWP (England is not a big country!) and regional air quality. NCEP does all of this plus much, much more (high resolution rapid update modeling, hurricane modeling, etc.).   And NCEP has to deal with prediction over a continental-size country.

If you would expect the U.S. has a lot more computer power to balance all these responsibilities and tasks, you would be very wrong. Right now the U.S. NWS has two IBM supercomputers, each with 4992 processors (IBM Power6 processors).   One computer does the operational work, the other is for back up (research and testing runs are done on the back-up). About 70 teraflops (trillion floating points operations per second) for each machine.

NCEP (U.S.) Computer

The European Centre has a newer IBM machine with 8192, much faster, processors that gets 182 terraflops (yes, over twice as fast and with far fewer tasks to do).

The UKMET office, serving a far, far smaller country, has two newer IBM machines, each with 7680 processors for 175 teraflops per machine.

Here is a figure, produced at NCEP that compares the relative computer power of NCEP’s machine with the European Centre’s. The shading indicates computational activity and the x-axis for each represents a 24-h period. The relative heights allows you to compare computer resources. Not only does the ECMWF have much more computer power, but they are more efficient in using it…packing useful computations into every available minute.

Courtesy of Bill Lapenta, EMC

Recently, NCEP had a request for proposals for a replacement computer system. You may not believe this, but the specifications were ONLY for a system at least equal to the one that have.    A report in acomputer magazine suggests that perhaps this new system (IBM got the contract) might be slightly less powerful (around 150 terraflops) than one of the UKMET office systems…but that is not known at this point.

The Canadians? They have TWO machines like the European Centre’s!

So what kind of system does NCEP require to serve the nation in a reasonable way?

To start, we need to double the resolution of our global model to bring it into line with ECMWF (they are now 15 km global).   Such resolution allows the global model to model regional features (such as our mountains). Doubling horizontal resolution requires 8 times more computer power. We need to use better physics (description of things like cloud processes and radiation). Double again. And we need better data assimilation (better use of observations to provide an improved starting point for the model). Double once more.  So we need 32 times more computer power for the high-resolution global runs to allow us to catch up with ECMWF. Furthermore, we must do the same thing for the ensembles (running many lower resolution global simulations to get probabilistic information). 32 times more computer resources for that (we can use some of the gaps in the schedule of the high resolution runs to fit some of this in…that is what ECMWF does).   There are some potential ways NCEP can work more efficiently as well. Right now NCEP runs our global model out to 384 hours four times a day (every six hours). To many of us this seems excessive, perhaps the longest periods (180hr plus) could be done twice a day. So lets begin with a computer 32 times faster that the current one.

Many workshops and meteorological meetings (such as one on improvements in model physics that was held at NCEP last summer—I was the chair) have made a very strong case that the U.S. requires an ensemble prediction system that runs at 4-km horizontal resolution. The current national ensemble system has a horizontal resolution about 32 km…and NWS plans to get to about 20 km in a few years…both are inadequate.   Here is an example of the ensemble output (mean of the ensemble members) for the NWS and UW (4km) ensemble systems: the difference is huge–the NWS system does not even get close to modeling the impacts of the mountains. It is similarly unable to simulate large convective systems.

Current NWS( NCEP) “high resolution” ensembles (32 km)

4 km ensemble mean from UW system

Let me make one thing clear. Probabilistic prediction based on ensemble forecasts and reforecasting (running models back for years to get statistics of performance) is the future of weather prediction. The days of giving a single number for say temperature at day 5 are over. We need to let people know about uncertainty and probabilities. The NWS needs a massive increase of computer power to do this. It lacks this computer power now and does not seem destined to get it soon.

A real champion within NOAA of the need for more computer power is Tom Hamill, an expert on data assimilation and model post-processing.   He and colleagues have put together a compelling case for more NWS computer resources for NWP. Read it here.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicates that a good first step– 4km national ensembles–would require about 20,000 processors to do so in a timely manner–but it would revolutionize weather prediction in the U.S., including forecasting convection and in mountainous areas. This high-resolution ensemble effort would meld with data assimilation over the long-term.

And then there is running super-high resolution numerical weather prediction to get fine-scale details right. Here in the NW my group runs a 1.3 km horizontal resolution forecast out twice a day for 48h.   Such capability is needed for the entire country. It does not exist now due to inadequate computer resources.

The bottom line is that the NWS numerical modeling effort needs a huge increase of computer power to serve the needs of the country–and the potential impacts would be transformative.   We could go from having a third-place effort, which is slipping back into the pack, to a world leader. Furthermore, the added computer power will finally allow NOAA to complete Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) and Observing System Experiments (OSEs) to make rational decisions about acquisitions of very expensive satellite systems. The fact that this is barely done today is really amazing and a potential waste of hundreds of millions of dollars on unnecessary satellite systems.

But do to so will require a major jump in computational power, a jump our nation can easily afford.   I would suggest that NWS’s EMC should begin by securing at least a 100,000 processor machine, and down the road something considerably larger. Keep in mind my department has about 1000 processors in our computational clusters, so this is not as large as you think.

For a country with several billion-dollar weather disasters a year, investment in reasonable computer resrouces for NWP is obvious.

The cost?   Well, I asked Art Mann of Silicon Mechanics (a really wonderful local vendor of computer clusters) to give me rough quote: using fast AMD chips, you could have such a 100K core machine for 11 million dollars. (this is without any discount!) OK, this is the U.S. government and they like expensive, heavy metal machines….lets go for 25 million dollars. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is getting a new machine with around 75,000 processors and the cost will be around 25-35 million dollars.   NCEP will want two machines, so lets budget 60 million dollars. We spend this much money on a single jet fighter, but we can’t invest this amount to greatly improve forecasts and public safety in the U.S.? We have machines far larger than this for breaking codes, doing simulations of thermonuclear explosions, and simulating climate change.

Yes, a lot of money, but I suspect the cost of the machine would be paid back in a few months from improved forecasts.   Last year we had quite a few (over ten) billion-dollar storms….imagine the benefits of forecasting even a few of them better. Or the benefits to the wind energy and utility industries, or U.S. aviation, of even modestly improved forecasts.   And there is no doubt such computer resources would improve weather prediction. The list of benefits is nearly endless.   Recent estimates suggest that  normal weather events cost the U.S. economy nearly 1/2 trillion dollars a year. Add to that hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and other extreme weather. The business case is there.

As someone with an insider’s view of the process, it is clear to me that the current players are not going to move effectively without some external pressure. In fact, the budgetary pressure on the NWS is very intense right now and they are cutting away muscle and bone at this point (like reducing IT staff in the forecast offices by over 120 people and cutting back on extramural research). I believe it is time for weather sensitive industries and local government, together with t he general public, to let NOAA management and our congressional representatives know that this acute problem needs to be addressed and addressed soon.   We are acquiring huge computer resources for climate simulations, but only a small fraction of that for weather prediction…which can clearly save lives and help the economy.  Enough is enough.

Posted by Cliff Mass Weather Blog at 8:38 PM

There’s No Tomorrow

24/04/2012Uncategorizedambientalismo, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Jean-Luc Godard on Digital Media

24/04/2012UncategorizedCinema, Enquadramento, Mídias digitais, Mediação tecnológica, participatividade, Poder, sociedade civil, Visualidaderenzotaddei

guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 October 2011

Jean-Luc Godard, Director: “The so-called “digital” is not a mere technical medium, but a medium of thought. And when modern democracies turn technical thought into a separate domain, those modern democracies incline towards totalitarianism.”

Best Practices Are the Worst (Education Next)

24/04/2012UncategorizedEconomia, Educação, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

SUMMER 2012 / VOL. 12, NO. 3 – http://educationnext.org/

As reviewed by Jay P. Greene

“Best practices” is the worst practice. The idea that we should examine successful organizations and then imitate what they do if we also want to be successful is something that first took hold in the business world but has now unfortunately spread to the field of education. If imitation were the path to excellence, art museums would be filled with paint-by-number works.

The fundamental flaw of a “best practices” approach, as any student in a half-decent research-design course would know, is that it suffers from what is called “selection on the dependent variable.” If you only look at successful organizations, then you have no variation in the dependent variable: they all have good outcomes. When you look at the things that successful organizations are doing, you have no idea whether each one of those things caused the good outcomes, had no effect on success, or was actually an impediment that held organizations back from being even more successful. An appropriate research design would have variation in the dependent variable; some have good outcomes and some have bad ones. To identify factors that contribute to good outcomes, you would, at a minimum, want to see those factors more likely to be present where there was success and less so where there was not.

“Best practices” lacks scientific credibility, but it has been a proven path to fame and fortune for pop-management gurus like Tom Peters, with In Search of Excellence, and Jim Collins, with Good to Great. The fact that many of the “best” companies they featured subsequently went belly-up—like Atari and Wang Computers, lauded by Peters, and Circuit City and Fannie Mae, by Collins—has done nothing to impede their high-fee lecture tours. Sometimes people just want to hear a confident person with shiny teeth tell them appealing stories about the secrets to success.

With Surpassing Shanghai, Marc Tucker hopes to join the ranks of the “best practices” gurus. He, along with a few of his colleagues at the National Center on Education and the Economy, has examined the education systems in some other countries with successful outcomes so that the U.S. can become similarly successful. Tucker coauthors the chapter on Japan, as well as an introductory and two concluding chapters. Tucker’s collaborators write chapters featuring Shanghai, Finland, Singapore, and Canada. Their approach to greatness in American education, as Linda Darling-Hammond phrases it in the foreword, is to ensure that “our strategies must emulate the best of what has been accomplished in public education both from here and abroad.”

But how do we know what those best practices are? The chapters on high-achieving countries describe some of what those countries are doing, but the characteristics they feature may have nothing to do with success or may even be a hindrance to greater success. Since the authors must pick and choose what characteristics they highlight, it is also quite possible that countries have successful education systems because of factors not mentioned at all. Since there is no scientific method to identifying the critical features of success in the best-practices approach, we simply have to trust the authority of the authors that they have correctly identified the relevant factors and have properly perceived the causal relationships.

But Surpassing Shanghai is even worse than the typical best-practices work, because Tucker’s concluding chapters, in which he summarizes the common best practices and draws policy recommendations, have almost no connection to the preceding chapters on each country. That is, the case studies of Shanghai, Finland, Japan, Singapore, and Canada attempt to identify the secrets to success in each country, a dubious-enough enterprise, and then Tucker promptly ignores all of the other chapters when making his general recommendations.

Tucker does claim to be drawing on the insights of his coauthors, but he never actually references the other chapters in detail. He never names his coauthors or specifically draws on them for his conclusions. In fact, much of what Tucker claims as common lessons of what his coauthors have observed from successful countries is contradicted in chapters that appear earlier in the book. And some of the common lessons they do identify, Tucker chooses to ignore.

For example, every country case study in Surpassing Shanghai, with the exception of the one on Japan coauthored by Marc Tucker, emphasizes the importance of decentralization in producing success. In Shanghai the local school system “received permission to create its own higher education entrance examination. This heralded a trend of exam decentralization, which was key to localized curricula.” The chapter on Finland describes the importance of the decision “to devolve increasing levels of authority and responsibility for education from the Ministry of Education to municipalities and schools…. [T]here were no central initiatives that the government was trying to push through the system.” Singapore is similarly described: “Moving away from the centralized top-down system of control, schools were organized into geographic clusters and given more autonomy…. It was felt that no single accountability model could fit all schools. Each school therefore set its own goals and annually assesses its progress toward meeting them…” And the chapter on Canada teaches us that “the most striking feature of the Canadian system is its decentralization.”

Tucker makes no mention of this common decentralization theme in his conclusions and recommendations. Instead, he claims the opposite as the common lesson of successful countries: “students must all meet a common basic education standard aligned to a national or provincial curriculum… Further, in these countries, the materials prepared by textbook publishers and the publishers of supplementary materials are aligned with the national curriculum framework.” And “every high-performing country…has a unit of government that is clearly in charge of elementary and secondary education…In such countries, the ministry has an obligation to concern itself with the design of the system as a whole…”

Conversely, Tucker emphasizes that “the dominant elements of the American education reform agenda” are noticeably absent from high-performing countries, including “the use of market mechanisms, such as charter schools and vouchers….” But if Tucker had read the chapter on Shanghai, he would have found a description of a system by which “students choose schools in other neighborhoods by paying a sponsorship fee. It is the Chinese version of school choice, a hot issue in the United States.” And although the chapter on Canada fails to make any mention of it, Canada has an extensive system of school choice, offering options that vary by language and religious denomination. According to recently published research by David Card, Martin Dooley, and Abigail Payne, competition among these options is a significant contributor to academic achievement in Canada.

There is a reason that promoters of best-practices approaches are called “gurus.” Their expertise must be derived from a mystical sphere, because it cannot be based on a scientific appraisal of the evidence. Marc Tucker makes no apology for his nonscientific approach. In fact, he denounces “the clinical research model used in medical research” when assessing education policies. The problem, he explains, is that no country would consent to “randomly assigning entire national populations to the education systems of another country or to certain features of the education system of another country.” On the contrary, countries, states, and localities can and do randomly assign “certain features of the education system,” and we have learned quite a lot from that scientific process. In the international arena, Tucker may want to familiarize himself with the excellent work being done by Michael Kremer and Karthik Muralidharan utilizing random assignment around the globe.

In addition, social scientists have developed practices to observe and control for differences in the absence of random assignment that have allowed extensive and productive analyses of the effectiveness of educational practices in different countries. In particular, the recent work of Ludger Woessmann, Martin West, and Eric Hanushek has utilized the PISA and TIMSS international test results that Tucker finds so valuable, but they have done so with the scientific methods that Tucker rejects. Even well-constructed case study research, like that done by Charles Glenn, can draw useful lessons across countries. The problem with the best-practices approach is not entirely that it depends on case studies, but that by avoiding variation in the dependent variable it prevents any scientific identification of causation.

Tucker’s hostility to scientific approaches is more understandable, given that his graduate training was in theater rather than a social science. Perhaps that is also why Tucker’s book reminds me so much of The Music Man. Tucker is like “Professor” Harold Hill come to town to sell us a bill of goods. His expertise is self-appointed, and his method, the equivalent of “the think system,” is obvious quackery. And the Gates Foundation, which has for some reason backed Tucker and his organization with millions of dollars, must be playing the residents of River City, because they have bought this pitch and are pouring their savings into a band that can never play music except in a fantasy finale.

Best practices really are the worst.

Jay P. Greene is professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a fellow at the George W. Bush Institute.

Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems
Edited by Marc Tucker
Harvard Education Press, 2011, $49.99; 288 pages.

Pela primeira vez no Brasil, antropólogo Roy Wagner dialoga com indígenas da Amazônia (A Crítica)

24/04/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, Índios, participatividaderenzotaddei

Autor de “A Invenção da Cultura”, Roy Wagner conheceu, pela primeira vez, indígenas da América do Sul e participou de ritual

Manaus, 08 de Agosto de 2011

ELAÍZE FARIAS

Antropólogo Norte Americano dialoga com índios do Amazônia – FOTO: ALEXANDRE FONSECA/ACRITICA

Antropólogo norte-americano dialoga com índios da Amazônia. FOTO: ALEXANDRE FONSECA/ACRITICA

Antropólogo norte-americano dialoga com índios da Amazônia. FOTO: ALEXANDRE FONSECA/ACRITICA

Antropólogo norte-americano dialoga com índios da Amazônia. FOTO: ALEXANDRE FONSECA/ACRITICA

Antropólogo norte-americano dialoga com índios da Amazônia. FOTO: ALEXANDRE FONSECA/ACRITICA

“Todo entendimento de uma outra cultura é uma experiência com a sua própria”, diz o norte-americano Roy Wagner, um dos principais nomes da antropologia contemporânea mundial, no livro “A Invenção da Cultura”.

Foi exatamente essa equivalência entre culturas que Roy Wagner vivenciou em sua primeira visita à Amazônia, na semana passada.

Em Manaus, Wagner realizou aula magna de abertura de ano letivo, participou de uma mesa redonda com graduandos e pós-graduandos indígenas da Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Ufam), visitou duas malocas de grupos indígenas que vivem na zona rural da capital amazonense e testemunhou o que ele chamou de “multiperspectivos”.

Autor da teoria sobre “a invenção e a noção da cultura”, que resultou no conceito de “antropologia reversa”, Wagner notabilizou-se pelos estudos que desenvolveu desde os anos 60 na Melanésia e na Nova Guiné (Oceania). Mas, somente agora, aos 73 anos, é que teve oportunidade de conhecer os povos nativos da América do Sul.

No sábado (06), último dia em Manaus, Roy Wagner conheceu e participou de um ritual dos índios tukano, tuyuka e dessana, em uma maloca localizada a quatro horas de Manaus em viagem de barco de recreio.

Na maloca, o indígena tuyuka Higino Tuyuka, que veio de São Gabriel da Cachoeira (a 851 quilômetros de Manaus), cidade onde 90% da população é indígena, apenas para participar das atividades e dialogar nos eventos com Roy Wagner, fez uma demonstração de um ritual de iniciação e apresentou ao antropólogo uma bebida típica chamada kahpí, de efeito alucinógeno e que é destinada apenas aos homens.

Perspectivas

“São muitas perspectivas se encontrando. Não considero um encontro de uma cultura nativa com um antropólogo, mas entre culturas compartilhando os mesmos espaços”, disse Wagner ao portal acrítica.com, ao final da experiência com os indígenas.

Esta foi a primeira vez que Wagner teve contato com os povos nativos da América do Sul, desde que começou seu trabalho como etnográfico e antropólogo.

Nas atividades desenvolvidas em Manaus, ele participou “uma conversa intercambiada sobre as cosmologias” e identificou semelhanças entre os ameríndios e os povos que estudou na Oceania.

A principal delas refere-se à relação entre o humano e os animais. “Na Austrália, os aborígenes têm uma relação, em sua cosmologia, com os corvos. Os animais são incorporados no mundo dos humanos. Aqui, vemos que os indígenas tem uma associação com os peixes. São os peixe-gente”, disse.

No seu diálogo com os indígenas brasileiros, Wagner, contudo, conta que encontrou uma característica específica: a preferência pelas “origens”. “Os povos daqui falam muito sobre o início, sobre a origem, a estrela Dalva, em contraste, por exemplo, com os povos aborígenes, que falam mais do poente, para a morte”, descreveu.

Intelectuais

Roy Wagner veio a Manaus numa articulação do Instituto Brasil Plural, que vincula a Universidade Federal do Amazonas e a Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

Sua vinda ao Amazonas não estava prevista inicialmente. Convidado pelos professores do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social (PPGAS) da Ufam, ele aceitou o convite para dialogar com os intelectuais indígenas – professores e estudantes.

A agenda do antropológo inclui palestras em Florianópolis (SC), Brasília (DF), Rio de Janeiro (RJ) e São Paulo (SP).

“Os intelectuais indígenas são aqueles que detêm as suas formas específicas do conhecimento. Alguns não são necessariamente pessoas que passaram pela universidade, mas que detém um profundo conhecimento”, descreveu o professor Carlos Dias, do PPGAS.

Carlos Dias disse que Roy Wagner ficou muito impressionado com a experiência vivenciada no Amazonas, sobretudo pela interlocução com os indígenas com os quais teve oportunidade de conversar.

Dias contou que, no domingo (08), o orientando de Wagner entrou em contato com os professores da Ufam e contou que “o grande momento no Brasil do antropólogo foi sua vinda à Amazônia”.

Conforme Carlos, em seu contato com os indígenas, Wagner encontrou uma grande quantidade de paralelos em termos cosmológicos entre os ameríndios e os povos que estudou, no passado.

“O Roy Wagner cria uma nova teoria de noção da cultura quando leva a sério essas novas formas de pensar. Capturar o outro através de seu conhecimento.

João Paulo Barreto, indígena tukano e mestrando em antropologia da Ufam, comentou que Wagner ficou surpreso com a apresentação de perspectivas na visão indígena. Isto ocorreu quando o líder Higino Tuyuka, durante o ritual, relacionou o cocar utilizado por João Paulo com as estruturas da maloca.

Estévão Barreto, também tukano e mestre em Sociedade e Cultura da Amazônia, destacou que a presença de Roy Wagner indicou a necessidade de promover o diálogo “ciência indígena e o saber científico”.

Igualdade

Roy Wagner tem formação em literatura inglesa, história, astronomia e antropologia.

Seus trabalhos mais conhecidos foram realizados entre os Dabiri, na Nova Guiné, e entre os aborígenes, na Austrália. Sua obra mais conhecida, “A Invenção da Cultura”, foi lançada em 1975 e teve uma revisão em 1981. No Brasil, o livro foi traduzido apenas em 2010.

No Brasil, seu principal interlocutor é o antropólogo Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, autor do conceito de Perspectivismo.

No livro “A Invenção da Cultura”, Wagner diz que “o antropólogo usa sua própria cultura para investigar outras, e para estudar a cultura em geral”. Ou seja, “a idéia de cultura coloca o pesquisador em pé de igualdade com seus objetos de estudo: cada qual ‘pertence a uma cultura’.”.

Para Roy Wagner, “um antropólogo ‘experencia´, de um modo ou de outro, seu objeto de estudo; ele o faz através do universo de seus próprios significados, e então se vale dessa experiência carregada de significados para comunicar uma compreensão aos membros de própria cultura”.

* * *

Antropólogo autor de “A Invenção da Cultura” ministra aula magna na Ufam nesta quinta

Roy Wagner é um dos maiores importantes antropólogos da atualidade. o norte-americano vem pela primeira vez ao Brasil

Manaus, 03 de Agosto de 2011

ACRITICA.COM

Um dos mais renomados antropólogos da atualidade, o norte-americano Roy Wagner, ministra aula magna de abertura do semestre do curso de mestrado em Antropologia da Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Ufam), nesta quinta-feira (04), às 9h, no auditório Rio Solimões do Instituto de Ciências Humanas e Letras (ICHL/Ufam).

O professor do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social (PPGAS), Gilton Mendes, disse que Roy Wagner interessou-se pelo convite de vir a Manaus estimulado pela ideia de conversar com “conhecedores sobre a antropologia indígena amazônica”.

Autor de “A Invenção da Cultura”, Roy Wagner estudou astronomia, literatura inglesa e história na Universidade de Harvard, e fez sua pós-graduação em antropologia na Universidade de Chicago.

O livro “A Invenção da Cultura” foi lançado em 1975, mas só teve edição no Brasil no ano passado. Era uma das obras mais esperadas pelo meio antropólogo nos últimos anos no país.

No dia 5 de agosto, Roy Wagner participará de uma mesa-redonda intitulada ‘Conversações Melanésias e Amazônia’, com os pesquisadores indígenas. Promovida pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social em conjunto com o Núcleo de Estudos da Amazônia Indígena (Neai).

O evento acontecerá às 15h, na Rua Coronel Sérgio Pessoa, 147, na Praça dos Remédios, Centro de Manaus. A mesa-redonda contará com a participação especial de Justin Shaffner, da Universidade de Cambridge (EUA).

Indígenas

Roy Wagner iniciou seu trabalho de campo entre os Daribi no monte Karimui, na Nova Guiné, sobre quem escreveu e publicou sua monografia dedicada aos princípios daribi de definição de clã e aliança.

A partir da etnografia daribi, Wagner desenvolveu uma teoria geral sobre a invenção de significado e sobre a noção de cultura, publicada em “A invenção da cultura”, que ganhou nova edição revista e ampliada em 1981.

A obra radicaliza uma reflexão sobre o polêmico conceito de cultura em antropologia: a partir da consideração dos modos de conceitualização nativos, ela reformula a própria disciplina antropológica.

Para Wagner, não se trata de entender o que outros povos produzem como “cultura” a partir de um dado universal (a “natureza”), mas antes, o que é concebido como dado por outras populações. Com isto, a própria noção de “natureza” como dado universal e de “cultura” ficam sob suspeição.

Sua vinda ao Brasil faz parte das iniciativas programadas do Instituto Brasil Plural, uma rede de pesquisadores articulada pelos Programas de Pós-Graduação da Universidade de Santa Catarina (UFSC) e da Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Ufam), financiada pelo CNPq, a Fapesc e a Fapeam.

Bruno Latour: From Critique to Composition

24/04/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, ciência, Cultura, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Semióticarenzotaddei

Dublin City University, February 17, 2012

Lead Dust Is Linked to Violence, Study Suggests (Science Daily)

18/04/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, Cognição, Mediação tecnológica, Psicologia, Sensacionalismo, Violênciarenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2012) — Childhood exposure to lead dust has been linked to lasting physical and behavioral effects, and now lead dust from vehicles using leaded gasoline has been linked to instances of aggravated assault two decades after exposure, says Tulane toxicologist Howard W. Mielke.

Vehicles using leaded gasoline that contaminated cities’ air decades ago have increased aggravated assault in urban areas, researchers say.

The new findings are published in the journal Environment International by Mielke, a research professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Tulane University School of Medicine, and demographer Sammy Zahran at the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University.

The researchers compared the amount of lead released in six cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans and San Diego, during the years 1950-1985. This period saw an increase in airborne lead dust exposure due to the use of leaded gasoline. There were correlating spikes in the rates of aggravated assault approximately two decades later, after the exposed children grew up.

After controlling for other possible causes such as community and household income, education, policing effort and incarceration rates, Mielke and Zahran found that for every one percent increase in tonnages of environmental lead released 22 years earlier, the present rate of aggravated assault was raised by 0.46 percent.

“Children are extremely sensitive to lead dust, and lead exposure has latent neuroanatomical effects that severely impact future societal behavior and welfare,” says Mielke. “Up to 90 per cent of the variation in aggravated assault across the cities is explained by the amount of lead dust released 22 years earlier.” Tons of lead dust were released between 1950 and 1985 in urban areas by vehicles using leaded gasoline, and improper handling of lead-based paint also has contributed to contamination.

Violence in Men Caused by Unequal Wealth and Competition, Study Suggests (Science Daily)

18/04/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, Cognição, Psicologia, Sensacionalismo, Violênciarenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2012) — Violence in men can be explained by traditional theories of sexual selection. In a review of the literature, Professor John Archer from the University of Central Lancashire, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, points to a range of evidence that suggests that high rates of physical aggression and assaults in men are rooted in inter-male competition.

These findings are presented April 18 at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference held at the Grand Connaught Rooms, London (18-20 April).

Professor Archer describes evidence showing that differences between men and women in the use of physical aggression peak when men and women are in their twenties. In their twenties, men are more likely to report themselves as high in physical aggression, and to be arrested for engaging in assaults and the use of weapons, than at any other age. They also engage in these activities at a phenomenally higher rate than women.

Professor Archer highlights that sex differences in aggression are not observed in relation to indirect forms of aggression but become larger with the severity of violence. Indeed, at the extreme end of violence, there are a minimal number of female-female homicides in the face of a high male-male homicide rate. Interestingly, men are also much more likely to engage in risky behaviour in the presence of other men.

Professor Archer says that a range of male features that develop during adolescence arising from hormonal changes in testosterone accentuate aggressive behaviour. Examples include the growth of facial hair, voice pitch and facial changes such as brow ridge and chin size. He implicates height, weight and strength differences between men and women as further evidence of male adaptation to engage in fighting.

How does the environment influence aggression and violence? Professor Archer suggests there are two key principles — unequal wealth and a high ratio of sexually active men to women — that may increase physical aggression and violence in young men.

Professor Archer says: “The research evidence highlights that societal issues such as inequality of wealth and competition between males may contribute to the violence we see in today’s society.”

Relação entre cientistas e jornalistas é debatida em seminário (FAPESP)

18/04/2012Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, jornalismo, Mídia, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

Divulgação científica ganha peso no meio acadêmico e relacionamento entre as duas classe profissionais se torna mais próximo,dizem especialistas em encontro realizado pela FAPESP

18/04/2012

Por Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP – Com as ações de divulgação científica ganhando cada vez mais peso no meio acadêmico, a relação entre jornalistas e pesquisadores parece mudar para melhor. Mas é preciso ter em mente que cientistas eminentes não são autoridades em todos os assuntos.

O alerta foi feito pelo biólogo Thomas Lewinsohn, professor da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), durante sua participação no seminário Ciência na Mídia, realizado pela FAPESP no dia 16 de abril.

“Antigamente os pesquisadores davam muito peso para publicação em revistas científicas, o que lhes garantia prestígio acadêmico e financiamento, e quase nenhuma atenção à divulgação científica, que servia apenas para aumentar a popularidade. Hoje estamos perto de um equilíbrio entre os dois ramos”, afirmou.

Percebeu-se que além de popularidade, a exposição na mídia afetava também a influência e o poder de decisão no meio acadêmico, aumentando as chances de ter um projeto financiado e, consequentemente, elevando o prestígio acadêmico.

Um exemplo claro do novo paradigma, segundo Lewinsohn, é a mudança no sistema de avaliação dos cursos de pós-graduação pela Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes). “Hoje se dá um peso maior à visibilidade do trabalho dos cientistas que compõem os quadros”, avaliou.

Outro sinal é a transformação pela qual as mais importantes revistas científicas, entre elas Sciencee Nature, passaram nos últimos anos, ganhando novas seções com conteúdo noticioso e linguagem mais acessível.

“Está se tornando impossível para o cientista ignorar a mídia. Muitos hoje cortejam os jornalistas e isso dá margem a distorções. Existe uma ideia de que o cientista terá sempre uma opinião racional e bem embasada sobre tudo e isso não é verdade”, afirmou o biólogo.

Por esse motivo, recomendou, os jornalistas devem resistir ao impulso de, na correria das redações, recorrer sempre àquela fonte que tem respostas para todos os temas. “Alguns têm uma agenda pessoal, que nem sempre tem a ver com a ciência.”

Durante sua apresentação, o médico Paulo Saldiva, da Faculdade de Medicina da USP, reclamou do fato de que a maioria dos jornalistas que o procura querer falar de temas que não têm relação com sua área de estudo: os efeitos da poluição atmosférica sobre a saúde.

Outro problema abordado por ele foi o pouco tempo dispensado aos temas e o risco da superficialidade. “Você fala durante meia hora e aparece apenas dez segundos. Esse é o maior pavor dos cientistas”, acrescentou Saldiva.

Para o biólogo Fernando Reinach, que se tornou conhecido após participar do Projeto Genoma , financiado pela FAPESP, e hoje mantém uma coluna de divulgação científica no jornal O Estado de S. Paulo, o grande problema do jornalismo científico é “contar o milagre e não contar o santo”.

“Dá-se muita ênfase à descoberta e não se explora bem os métodos usados. Isso dificulta avaliar se o que está sendo dito é verdade”, opinou.

Reinach contou que após deixar a vida acadêmica manteve o hábito de ler artigos científicos e idealizou a coluna no jornal por considerar que havia muitos temas interessantes escondidos atrás de títulos obscuros. “Tenho o cientista como personagem. Tento dar uma dimensão humana à pesquisa”, revelou.

Já o editor de Ciência do jornal Folha de S. Paulo, Reinaldo José Lopes, falou sobre o encolhimento do espaço nos jornais para as notícias em geral e para ciência em particular. “Como empacotar a notícia, a metodologia e o lado humano em meia página? A gente sente uma impaciência do leitor que é assustadora e isso acaba conduzindo à superficialidade”, disse.

O encontro ainda teve a participação de Roberto Wertman, editor do programa Espaço Aberto Ciência & Tecnologia da Globonews, que comentou as limitações da cobertura científica na TV, extremamente dependente da existência de imagens. E de Sonia López, ex-editora do AlphaGalileu, um dos maiores portais de notícias acadêmicas.

A abertura ficou por conta de Clive Cookson, editor de Ciência do jornal Financial Times, que listou os três principais problemas que, em sua opinião, afetam a qualidade do jornalismo científico.

Em primeiro lugar, Cookson mencionou a tendência de abordar os resultados de pesquisas de forma exagerada e sensacionalista. “O repórter precisa convencer seu editor de que vale a pena publicar aqueles dados e a verdade científica às vezes acaba em segunda plano. E quando o subeditor escreve a manchete a notícia fica ainda mais exagerada”, comentou.

Outro problema é a tendência de abordar os dados de forma negativista, o que pode causar distorções. “A ideia é que notícia ruim vende mais”, disse.

Por último Cookson mencionou a divulgação de notícias não objetivas, permeadas de interesses políticos. “Cientistas devem se ater à ciência. Mas mesmo em situações controversas devem aproveitar para passar sua mensagem. Se deixarem um vazio, fontes com motivações políticas podem se aproveitar.”

UK aid helps to fund forced sterilisation of India’s poor [climate change](The Guardian)

17/04/2012UncategorizedCidadania, Discriminação, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Racismo, Saúde, Violênciarenzotaddei

Money from the Department for International Development has helped pay for a controversial programme that has led to miscarriages and even deaths after botched operations

Gethin Chamberlain
The Observer, Sunday 15 April 2012

Sterilisation remains the most common method of family planning in India’s bid to curb its burgeoning population of 1.2 billion. Photograph: Mustafa Quraishi/AP

Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised Indian women and men, theObserver has learned. Many have died as a result of botched operations, while others have been left bleeding and in agony. A number of pregnant women selected for sterilisation suffered miscarriages and lost their babies.

The UK agreed to give India £166m to fund the programme, despite allegations that the money would be used to sterilise the poor in an attempt to curb the country’s burgeoning population of 1.2 billion people.

Sterilisation has been mired in controversy for years. With officials and doctors paid a bonus for every operation, poor and little-educated men and women in rural areas are routinely rounded up and sterilised without having a chance to object. Activists say some are told they are going to health camps for operations that will improve their general wellbeing and only discover the truth after going under the knife.

Court documents filed in India earlier this month claim that many victims have been left in pain, with little or no aftercare. Across the country, there have been numerous reports of deaths and of pregnant women suffering miscarriages after being selected for sterilisation without being warned that they would lose their unborn babies.

Yet a working paper published by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes. The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases, although it warned that there were “complex human rights and ethical issues” involved in forced population control.

The latest allegations centre on the states of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, both targeted by the UK government for aid after a review of funding last year. In February, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh had to publicly warn off his officials after widespread reports of forced sterilisation. A few days later, 35-year-old Rekha Wasnik bled to death in the state after doctors sterilised her. The wife of a poor labourer, she was pregnant with twins at the time. She began bleeding on the operating table and a postmortem cited the operation as the cause of death.

Earlier this month, India’s supreme court heard how a surgeon operating in a school building in the Araria district of Bihar in January carried out 53 operations in two hours, assisted by unqualified staff, with no access to running water or equipment to clean the operating equipment. A video shot by activists shows filthy conditions and women lying on the straw-covered ground.

Human rights campaigner Devika Biswas told the court that “inhuman sterilisations, particularly in rural areas, continue with reckless disregard for the lives of poor women”. Biswas said 53 poor and low-caste women were rounded up and sterilised in operations carried out by torchlight that left three bleeding profusely and led to one woman who was three months pregnant miscarrying. “After the surgeries, all 53 women were crying out in pain. Though they were in desperate need of medical care, no one came to assist them,” she said.

The court gave the national and state governments two months to respond to the allegations.

Activists say that it is India’s poor – and particularly tribal people – who are most frequently targeted and who are most vulnerable to pressure to be sterilised. They claim that people have been threatened with losing their ration cards if they do not undergo operations, or bribed with as little as 600 rupees (£7.34) and a sari. Some states run lotteries in which people can win cars and fridges if they agree to be sterilised.

Despite the controversy, an Indian government report shows that sterilisation remains the most common method of family planning used in its Reproductive and Child Health Programme Phase II, launched in 2005 with £166m of UK funding. According to the DfID, the UK is committed to the project until next year and has spent £34m in 2011-12. Most of the money – £162m – has been paid out, but no special conditions have been placed on the funding.

Funding varies from state to state, but in Bihar private clinics receive 1,500 rupees for every sterilisation, with a bonus of 500 rupees a patient if they carry out more than 30 operations on a particular day. NGO workers who convince people to have the operations receive 150 rupees a person, while doctors get 75 rupees for each patient.

A 2009 Indian government report said that nearly half a million sterilisations had been carried out the previous year but warned of problems with quality control and financial management.

In 2006, India’s ministry of health and family welfare published a report into sterilisation, which warned of growing concerns, and the following year an Indian government audit of the programme warned of continuing problems with sterilisation camps. “Quality of sterilisation services in the camps is a matter of concern,” it said. It also said the quality of services was affected because much of the work was crammed into the final part of the financial year.

When it announced changes to aid for India last year, the DfID promised to improve the lives of more than 10 million poor women and girls. It said: “We condemn forced sterilisation and have taken steps to ensure that not a penny of UK aid could support it. The UK does not fund sterilisation centres anywhere.

“The coalition government has completely changed the way that aid is spent in India to focus on three of the poorest states, and our support for this programme is about to end as part of that change. Giving women access to family planning, no matter where they live or how poor they are, is a fundamental tenet of the coalition’s international development policy.”

See Dan read: Baboons can learn to spot real words (Guardian)

17/04/2012UncategorizedCognição, Linguística, Macacos, Primatasrenzotaddei

AP foreign, Saturday April 14 2012 (The Guardian)

SETH BORENSTEIN

AP Science Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan the baboon sits in front of a computer screen. The letters BRRU pop up. With a quick and almost dismissive tap, the monkey signals it’s not a word. Correct. Next comes, ITCS. Again, not a word. Finally KITE comes up.

He pauses and hits a green oval to show it’s a word. In the space of just a few seconds, Dan has demonstrated a mastery of what some experts say is a form of pre-reading and walks away rewarded with a treat of dried wheat.

Dan is part of new research that shows baboons are able to pick up the first step in reading — identifying recurring patterns and determining which four-letter combinations are words and which are just gobbledygook.

The study shows that reading’s early steps are far more instinctive than scientists first thought and it also indicates that non-human primates may be smarter than we give them credit for.

“They’ve got the hang of this thing,” said Jonathan Grainger, a French scientist and lead author of the research.

Baboons and other monkeys are good pattern finders and what they are doing may be what we first do in recognizing words.

It’s still a far cry from real reading. They don’t understand what these words mean, and are just breaking them down into parts, said Grainger, a cognitive psychologist at the Aix-Marseille University in France.

In 300,000 tests, the six baboons distinguished between real and fake words about three-out-of-four times, according to the study published in Thursday’s journal Science.

The 4-year-old Dan, the star of the bunch and about the equivalent age of a human teenager, got 80 percent of the words right and learned 308 four-letter words.

The baboons are rewarded with food when they press the right spot on the screen: A blue plus sign for bogus combos or a green oval for real words.

Even though the experiments were done in France, the researchers used English words because it is the language of science, Grainger said.

The key is that these animals not only learned by trial and error which letter combinations were correct, but they also noticed which letters tend to go together to form real words, such as SH but not FX, said Grainger. So even when new words were sprung on them, they did a better job at figuring out which were real.

Grainger said a pre-existing capacity in the brain may allow them to recognize patterns and objects, and perhaps that’s how we humans also first learn to read.

The study’s results were called “extraordinarily exciting” by another language researcher, psychology professor Stanislas Dehaene at the College of France, who wasn’t part of this study. He said Grainger’s finding makes sense. Dehaene’s earlier work says a distinct part of the brain visually recognizes the forms of words. The new work indicates this is also likely in a non-human primate.

This new study also tells us a lot about our distant primate relatives.

“They have shown repeatedly amazing cognitive abilities,” said study co-author Joel Fagot, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research.

Bill Hopkins, a professor of psychology at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, isn’t surprised.

“We tend to underestimate what their capacities are,” said Hopkins, who wasn’t part of the French research team. “Non-human primates are really specialized in the visual domain and this is an example of that.”

This raises interesting questions about how the complex primate mind works without language or what we think of as language, Hopkins said. While we use language to solve problems in our heads, such as deciphering words, it seems that baboons use a “remarkably sophisticated” method to attack problems without language, he said.

Key to the success of the experiment was a change in the testing technique, the researchers said. The baboons weren’t put in the computer stations and forced to take the test. Instead, they could choose when they wanted to work, going to one of the 10 computer booths at any time, even in the middle of the night.

The most ambitious baboons test 3,000 times a day; the laziest only 400.

The advantage of this type of experiment setup, which can be considered more humane, is that researchers get far more trials in a shorter time period, he said.

“They come because they want to,” Fagot said. “What do they want? They want some food. They want to solve some task.”

Cresce valorização da divulgação científica (FAPESP)

17/04/2012Uncategorizedcomunicação científica, jornalismorenzotaddei

Para Clive Cookson, editor de Ciência do Financial Times, qualidade da cobertura de temas científicos melhorou quando pesquisadores adquiriram consciência de que é importante trabalhar em parceria com jornalistas para divulgar seus trabalhos

17/04/2012 – Por Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – Editor de Ciência do Financial Times há duas décadas, o jornalista britânico Clive Cookson acredita que os temas científicos têm se tornado mais familiares e mais valorizados para o público, graças a uma cobertura jornalística que se revela pouco a pouco mais profunda e mais precisa que no passado.

Essa transformação, de acordo com Cookson, deve-se em parte às novas tecnologias que facilitaram o trabalho do jornalista nos últimos anos. Mas, segundo ele, a principal razão para que o noticiário de ciência ganhasse mais qualidade está em uma mudança de atitude dos próprios cientistas, que perceberam a importância da comunicação.

Cookson, que atua há mais de 30 anos na cobertura dos temas de ciência e tecnologia, em diversos países e diferentes veículos e contextos, participou nesta segunda-feira (16/4) do seminário “Ciência na Mídia”, promovido pela FAPESP na sede da Fundação, em São Paulo.

O evento teve o objetivo de estimular a reflexão, por parte de todos os envolvidos na produção e divulgação científicas, sobre as maneiras de propiciar um espaço para a troca de conhecimentos e a proposição de novos modos de pensar a divulgação desses temas na sociedade. Em entrevista exclusiva à Agência FAPESP, Cookson comentou esses temas.

Agência FAPESP – Como tem evoluído a cobertura jornalística sobre ciência, considerando os seus 30 anos de experiência na área?
Clive Cookson– Apesar de existirem muitos blogs e sites de ciência, as pessoas continuam obtendo a maior parte de suas informações sobre o que está acontecendo no mundo científico por meio da mídia tradicional: jornais impressos, revistas, TV e rádio. Assim, o cientista se comunica com o público por meio desses veículos não especializados em ciência. Essa não é uma relação trivial. Mas sou muito otimista, porque, olhando com essa perspectiva de 30 anos, percebo que os cientistas estão se tornando muito melhores na tarefa de se comunicar com a mídia.

Agência FAPESP – O que mudou nessa relação, da perspectiva dos cientistas?
Clive Cookson– Eles estão se tornando muito mais proativos, mais abertos. Perderam o medo do contato com os repórteres. É uma mudança muito grande se você olha em uma perspectiva de longo tempo. E acredito que se trata de algo até certo ponto generalizado. Aqui no Brasil percebi que os cientistas são muito abertos.

Agência FAPESP – Qual pode ter sido a razão para essa transformação?
Clive Cookson– Os cientistas perceberam – certamente nos Estados Unidos e Europa, mas acho que no Brasil também – que é mais provável conseguir investimentos públicos e auxílios para fazer suas pesquisas na medida em que eles se tornam bons comunicadores. Na Grã-Bretanha os conselhos de pesquisa incluem explicitamente a comunicação dos resultados científicos como um dos critérios importantes para conseguir investimentos. De modo geral, podemos dizer que você tem mais facilidade para conseguir o investimento se você estiver preparado para comunicar. Isso é verdade para os pesquisadores, de forma individual, mas também em uma perspectiva mais geral: os pesquisadores sabem que a ciência como um todo terá mais apoio público se os cientistas gastarem um pouco de tempo e esforço para falar com jornalistas.

Agência FAPESP – Além dessas mudanças do lado da comunidade científica, houve também evolução do lado da produção da notícia? A qualidade do jornalismo melhorou?
Clive Cookson– Houve melhora, mas nada que justificasse um aumento muito grande da confiança dos pesquisadores nos jornalistas. A qualidade do jornalismo melhorou, mas não acho que isso tenha acontecido porque os jornalistas se tornaram melhores. O que ocorreu é que ficou muito mais fácil escrever uma matéria sobre ciência, agora que podemos ter acesso a artigos científicos na internet, podemos obter comentários por e-mail e coisas assim. Quando eu comecei no ofício, se quiséssemos ter acesso a um artigo era preciso ir às bibliotecas e para um simples comentários era preciso ter muita sorte e localizar os pesquisadores por telefone na hora certa.

Agência FAPESP – No Brasil os jornalistas de ciência, com frequência, têm formação em jornalismo, mas não uma formação científica. Qual é a característica dos divulgadores na Inglaterra?
Clive Cookson– Na Inglaterra há uma mistura. A maior parte dos jornalistas de ciência tem uma formação em ciência. Eu, por exemplo, sou formado em química. Mas há outros ótimos jornalistas de ciência que têm seu background em artes ou humanidades e depois começaram a trabalhar com ciência e foram excepcionalmente atraídos pela área. Acho que há prós e contras em ambos os casos.

Agência FAPESP – Em uma situação hipotética: se o senhor tivesse que contratar um repórter, iria preferir um indivíduo com uma formação científica, que escreve bem, mas não tem nenhuma experiência prévia em jornalismo, ou alguém que é um jornalista capaz e talentoso, mas sem qualquer envolvimento com ciência, nem experiência em jornalismo científico?
Clive Cookson– Se eu estivesse contatando essa pessoa para um trabalho de reportagem de ciências em um jornal, por exemplo, não hesitaria: escolheria o jornalista que tem experiência em reportagem, em vez de escolher o cientista. Acho que a capacidade para ser um bom jornalista é de fato o mais importante. Não adianta ser um bom cientista que escreve corretamente. Porque a ciência realmente requer um texto diferente, vívido. Prefiro um excelente jornalista que um excelente cientista para fazer isso.

Agência FAPESP – A percepção do público em relação à importância da ciência também tem mudado?
Clive Cookson– Minha impressão é que o conhecimento sobre ciência em meio ao público geral melhorou sim. Ainda não é o suficiente, mas acho que, em geral, a população ficou mais alfabetizada em ciência que há alguns anos atrás. Muita gente passou a entender melhor as bases da ciência. As pessoas têm mais intimidade com temas e termos centrais no mundo científico. Até certo ponto a internet contribuiu com isso, mas não sei se há grande potencial para melhorar muito mais, porque na rede também temos muito ruído e desinformação.

Agência FAPESP – Os jornalistas procuram fazer a ciência mais atraente para o público. Ao mesmo tempo, tendem a mostrar exclusivamente os resultados de sucesso, deixando em segundo plano o processo de produção da ciência. Com isso não se corre o risco de mistificar a ciência junto ao público?
Clive Cookson– Tem toda razão, esse é um problema absolutamente fundamental na relação entre jornalismo e ciência. No noticiário não há tempo nem espaço para descrever todos os passos da produção da ciência, mostrando ao público que não se trata de mágica, mas de um processo difícil, pontuado de dificuldades e fracassos momentâneos. O que deixa essa situação pior é que mesmo que você privilegie as pesquisas de qualidade, publicadas em revistas de prestígio, os artigos científicos também não lhe darão pistas sobre o processo de como a ciência funciona. Você só conseguiria dar ao público uma educação científica se fosse possível acompanhar o trabalho por meses a fio no laboratório. Geralmente isso é impossível.

Agência FAPESP – Além disso os insucessos raramente são publicados, não é?
Clive Cookson– Sim, essa é outra questão. A publicação, em particular na área de saúde, normalmente descreve apenas os resultados positivos. Os resultados negativos quase nunca têm espaço em publicações. É preciso estar atento a isso para não dar uma falsa impressão de que a ciência é feita só de acertos.

Agência FAPESP – Quando se noticia os resultados de um novo estudo, pode ser difícil repercutir a notícia com outros cientistas, porque muitas vezes eles alegam que ainda não tiveram contato com o artigo. Como o senhor lida com essa situação?
Clive Cookson– É uma situação extremamente difícil. Em primeiro lugar porque os cientistas normalmente não indicam seus competidores que trabalham na mesma área e que poderiam contribuir com um comentário. Além disso, geralmente é difícil conseguir um comentário sobre um artigo que acaba de sair e que não foi lido por quase ninguém. Na Inglaterra temos uma organização é muito útil, nesse sentido, para os jornalistas da área de saúde: o Science Media Centre.

Agência FAPESP – Como funciona?
Clive Cookson– É um serviço que foi criado há exatos 10 anos e reúne cientistas que atuam como se fosse assessores de imprensa. Eles pegam qualquer estudo e avaliam se é controverso, ou interessante o suficiente para render uma manchete. Então usamos seus contatos, que fazem comentários com grande qualidade. Acho que o SMC fez mais que qualquer outra instituição para melhorar a cobertura jornalística de ciência na Inglaterra. Eles têm excelentes bases de dados e uma incrível lista de contatos especializados. É muito eficiente.

Agência FAPESP – Muita gente vê os repórteres de ciência como tradutores de uma linguagem especializada para a linguagem do senso comum. O que o senhor acha dessa noção?
Clive Cookson– Parte do que fazemos pode ser visto como uma espécie de tradução, mas espero que nosso trabalho seja algo mais criativo e complexo que isso. Acho que os jornalistas são capazes de colocar novas maneiras de se olhar para a ciência que os próprios cientistas não poderiam proporcionar. É algo mais que simplesmente traduzir. Podemos gerar imagens, comparações, que os cientistas não conceberiam. Não se trata apenas de questão de simplificar uma linguagem, mas de fornecer uma interpretação nova de ideias, contextos e visões. E, mesmo no campo da linguagem, acho que esse trabalho extrapola a simples tradução: devemos ser autores capazes de tornar o conhecimento mais vívido, mais interessante para o público.

Agência FAPESP – Como foi sua trajetória? Por que se interessou por ciência?
Clive Cookson– Sempre me interessei por ciência e me formei em Química em Oxford. Mas dois fatos mudaram minha trajetória. Um deles é que notei que o jornalismo científico na Inglaterra não era bom. Ao mesmo tempo, percebi que eu não seria brilhante o suficiente para fazer um bom doutorado em química. Eu sabia que se não fosse tão brilhante, um doutorado em química poderia se transformar em algo não muito criativo, uma espécie de trabalho braçal para um orientador. Eu sabia que não era na verdade bom o suficiente para me tornar um grande cientista. Mas percebi que poderia escrever bem sobre ciência.

Agência FAPESP – E como começou de fato a atuar como jornalista?
Clive Cookson– Fui aceito em um programa de treinamento de um jornal local, em Londres. Depois de dois anos, tive a oportunidade de ir para Washington, nos Estados Unidos, por quatro anos, para trabalhar no suplemento de Educação Superior do Times. Foi uma experiência fantástica, eu escrevia sobre as universidades e institutos de pesquisa norte-americanos. Depois voltei para Londres para me tornar repórter de tecnologia do Times. Comecei, na década de 1980, a trabalhar na rádio BBC, como correspondente da área da saúde. E de lá fui para o Financial Times, onde tenho atuado como editor de ciência nos últimos 20 anos.

A Sharp Rise in Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform (N.Y. Times)

17/04/2012Uncategorizedciência, comunicação científica, Corrupção, Incerteza, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

PLEA Dr. Ferric Fang argues that science has changed in worrying ways. Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times

By CARL ZIMMER – Published: April 16, 2012

In the fall of 2010, Dr. Ferric C. Fang made an unsettling discovery. Dr. Fang, who is editor in chief of the journal Infection and Immunity, found that one of his authors had doctored several papers.

It was a new experience for him. “Prior to that time,” he said in an interview, “Infection and Immunity had only retracted nine articles over a 40-year period.”

The journal wound up retracting six of the papers from the author, Naoki Mori of the University of the Ryukyus in Japan. And it soon became clear that Infection and Immunity was hardly the only victim of Dr. Mori’s misconduct. Since then, other scientific journals have retracted two dozen of his papers, according to the watchdog blog Retraction Watch.

“Nobody had noticed the whole thing was rotten,” said Dr. Fang, who is a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Dr. Fang became curious how far the rot extended. To find out, he teamed up with a fellow editor at the journal, Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. And before long they reached a troubling conclusion: not only that retractions were rising at an alarming rate, but that retractions were just a manifestation of a much more profound problem — “a symptom of a dysfunctional scientific climate,” as Dr. Fang put it.

Dr. Casadevall, now editor in chief of the journal mBio, said he feared that science had turned into a winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.

“This is a tremendous threat,” he said.

WATCHDOG Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York teamed up with Dr. Ferric C. Fang to study a raft of retractions. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

Last month, in a pair of editorials in Infection and Immunity, the two editors issued a pleafor fundamental reforms. They also presented their concerns at the March 27 meeting of the National Academies of Sciences committee on science, technology and the law.

Members of the committee agreed with their assessment. “I think this is really coming to a head,” said Dr. Roberta B. Ness, dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health. And Dr. David Korn of Harvard Medical School agreed that “there are problems all through the system.”

No one claims that science was ever free of misconduct or bad research. Indeed, the scientific method itself is intended to overcome mistakes and misdeeds. When scientists make a new discovery, others review the research skeptically before it is published. And once it is, the scientific community can try to replicate the results to see if they hold up.

Source: Journal of Medical Ethics

But critics like Dr. Fang and Dr. Casadevall argue that science has changed in some worrying ways in recent decades — especially biomedical research, which consumes a larger and larger share of government science spending.

In October 2011, for example, the journal Nature reported that published retractions had increased tenfold over the past decade, while the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent. In 2010 The Journal of Medical Ethics published a studyfinding the new raft of recent retractions was a mix of misconduct and honest scientific mistakes.

Several factors are at play here, scientists say. One may be that because journals are now online, bad papers are simply reaching a wider audience, making it more likely that errors will be spotted. “You can sit at your laptop and pull a lot of different papers together,” Dr. Fang said.

But other forces are more pernicious. To survive professionally, scientists feel the need to publish as many papers as possible, and to get them into high-profile journals. And sometimes they cut corners or even commit misconduct to get there.

To measure this claim, Dr. Fang and Dr. Casadevall looked at the rate of retractions in 17 journals from 2001 to 2010 and compared it with the journals’ “impact factor,” a score based on how often their papers are cited by scientists. The higher a journal’s impact factor, the two editors found, the higher its retraction rate.

The highest “retraction index” in the study went to one of the world’s leading medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine. In a statement for this article, it questioned the study’s methodology, noting that it considered only papers with abstracts, which are included in a small fraction of studies published in each issue. “Because our denominator was low, the index was high,” the statement said.

Monica M. Bradford, executive editor of the journal Science, suggested that the extra attention high-impact journals get might be part of the reason for their higher rate of retraction. “Papers making the most dramatic advances will be subject to the most scrutiny,” she said.

Dr. Fang says that may well be true, but adds that it cuts both ways — that the scramble to publish in high-impact journals may be leading to more and more errors. Each year, every laboratory produces a new crop of Ph.D.’s, who must compete for a small number of jobs, and the competition is getting fiercer. In 1973, more than half of biologists had a tenure-track job within six years of getting a Ph.D. By 2006 the figure was down to 15 percent.

Yet labs continue to have an incentive to take on lots of graduate students to produce more research. “I refer to it as a pyramid scheme,” said Paula Stephan, a Georgia State University economist and author of “How Economics Shapes Science,” published in January by Harvard University Press.

In such an environment, a high-profile paper can mean the difference between a career in science or leaving the field. “It’s becoming the price of admission,” Dr. Fang said.

The scramble isn’t over once young scientists get a job. “Everyone feels nervous even when they’re successful,” he continued. “They ask, ‘Will this be the beginning of the decline?’ ”

University laboratories count on a steady stream of grants from the government and other sources. The National Institutes of Health accepts a much lower percentage of grant applications today than in earlier decades. At the same time, many universities expect scientists to draw an increasing part of their salaries from grants, and these pressures have influenced how scientists are promoted.

“What people do is they count papers, and they look at the prestige of the journal in which the research is published, and they see how many grant dollars scientists have, and if they don’t have funding, they don’t get promoted,” Dr. Fang said. “It’s not about the quality of the research.”

Dr. Ness likens scientists today to small-business owners, rather than people trying to satisfy their curiosity about how the world works. “You’re marketing and selling to other scientists,” she said. “To the degree you can market and sell your products better, you’re creating the revenue stream to fund your enterprise.”

Universities want to attract successful scientists, and so they have erected a glut of science buildings, Dr. Stephan said. Some universities have gone into debt, betting that the flow of grant money will eventually pay off the loans. “It’s really going to bite them,” she said.

With all this pressure on scientists, they may lack the extra time to check their own research — to figure out why some of their data doesn’t fit their hypothesis, for example. Instead, they have to be concerned about publishing papers before someone else publishes the same results.

“You can’t afford to fail, to have your hypothesis disproven,” Dr. Fang said. “It’s a small minority of scientists who engage in frank misconduct. It’s a much more insidious thing that you feel compelled to put the best face on everything.”

Adding to the pressure, thousands of new Ph.D. scientists are coming out of countries like China and India. Writing in the April 5 issue of Nature, Dr. Stephan points out that a number of countries — including China, South Korea and Turkey — now offer cash rewards to scientists who get papers into high-profile journals. She has found these incentives set off a flood of extra papers submitted to those journals, with few actually being published in them. “It clearly burdens the system,” she said.

To change the system, Dr. Fang and Dr. Casadevall say, start by giving graduate students a better understanding of science’s ground rules — what Dr. Casadevall calls “the science of how you know what you know.”

They would also move away from the winner-take-all system, in which grants are concentrated among a small fraction of scientists. One way to do that may be to put a cap on the grants any one lab can receive.

Such a shift would require scientists to surrender some of their most cherished practices — the priority rule, for example, which gives all the credit for a scientific discovery to whoever publishes results first. (Three centuries ago, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz were bickering about who invented calculus.) Dr. Casadevall thinks it leads to rival research teams’ obsessing over secrecy, and rushing out their papers to beat their competitors. “And that can’t be good,” he said.

To ease such cutthroat competition, the two editors would also change the rules for scientific prizes and would have universities take collaboration into account when they decide on promotions.

Ms. Bradford, of Science magazine, agreed. “I would agree that a scientist’s career advancement should not depend solely on the publications listed on his or her C.V.,” she said, “and that there is much room for improvement in how scientific talent in all its diversity can be nurtured.”

Even scientists who are sympathetic to the idea of fundamental change are skeptical that it will happen any time soon. “I don’t think they have much chance of changing what they’re talking about,” said Dr. Korn, of Harvard.

But Dr. Fang worries that the situation could be become much more dire if nothing happens soon. “When our generation goes away, where is the new generation going to be?” he asked. “All the scientists I know are so anxious about their funding that they don’t make inspiring role models. I heard it from my own kids, who went into art and music respectively. They said, ‘You know, we see you, and you don’t look very happy.’ ”

4th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods in Xalapa, Mexico

16/04/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, CIFAS, Educação, Etnografiarenzotaddei

Summer Field School in Ethnographic Methods in Mexico

July 23 to August 10, 2012 – Xalapa, Mexico

The Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study (CIFAS) is pleased to announce the 4th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods, in Xalapa (Jalapa), Mexico.

The goal of the Field School is to offer training in the foundations and practice of ethnographic methods. The faculty works closely with participants to identify the required field methods needed to address their academic or professional needs. The Field School is designed for people with little or no experience in ethnographic research, or those who want a refresher course. It is suitable for graduate and undergraduate students in social sciences and other fields of study that use qualitative approaches (such as education, communication, cultural studies, health, social work, human ecology, development studies, consumer behavior, among others), applied social scientists, professionals, and researchers who have an interest in learning more about ethnographic methods and their applications.

Program:

·          Foundations of ethnographic research

·          Social theories in the field & research design

·          Planning the logistics of field research

·          Data collection techniques

·          Principles of organization and indexation of field data

·          Analyzing field data

·          Qualitative analysis softwares: basic principles

·          Individual, one-on-one discussion of research projects

·          Field trips

Coordinators:

Renzo Taddei (Assistant Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/Affiliated Researcher, Columbia University). CV: http://bit.ly/nueNbu.

Ana Laura Gamboggi (Postdoctoral fellow, University of Brasilia). CV: http://bit.ly/psuVyw.

Zulma Amador (Faculty member of the Centro de EcoAlfabetización y Diálogo de Saberes of Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico). CV: http://bit.ly/J1VGVA

Registration and other costs: Places are limited. The registration fee is US$900, which covers the full three weeks of program activities. The registration fee should be paid by July 1, though a deposit to the CIFAS bank account. Pre-registration should be completed online at the link http://bit.ly/Jr0kvU. The deadline for pre-registration is June 30, 2012.

The registration fee does not cover accommodation, meals or transportation. If needed, the organizers of the Field School can recommend reasonably priced hotels and places to eat during the program. In Xalapa, accommodation, meals and local transportation costs should be no more than US$100 per day in total.

Course venue: Classes will take place in the Centro de EcoAlfabetización y Diálogo de Saberes of Universidad Veracruzana (refer to http://www.uv.mx/transdisciplina). For more information on Xalapa, please see “Xalapa: Mexico’s best kept secret”

Other information:

Language: The Field School activities will be carried out in English. Special sections of the Field School can be offered in Spanish, depending on the number of interested individuals.

Visa requirements: Citizens of the U.S. and some European and Latin American countries don’t need visas to enter Mexico, but do need valid passports. You can check whether you need a visa here: http://www.inm.gob.mx/index.php/page/Paises_Visa/en.html.

Insurance: Participants are required to have travel insurance that covers medical and repatriation costs. Proof of purchase of travel insurance must be presented at the first day of activities.

The average temperature in Xalapa in July is 25 ºC (77 ºF) during the day and 16 ºC (61 ºF) at night. Xalapa´s rainy season goes from June to November, so participants should expect some rain during the field school.

For more information, please see the link http://bit.ly/Jr0kvU or write to Renzo Taddei at taddei@iri.columbia.edu.

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By CARL ZIMMER – Published: April 16, 2012

4th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods in Xalapa, Mexico

Summer Field School in Ethnographic Methods in Mexico

July 23 to August 10, 2012 – Xalapa, Mexico