August 20, 2006 at 9:06 PM · Filed under Uncategorized
On Saturday, October 7th I will be giving a presentation to the Association for Integrative Studies at their Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The presentation is summarized as follows:
Endless Forms: Engaging an Evolution Theme Semester
During the 2006 winter semester a group of University of Michigan students organized an international contemporary art exhibition to engage the topic of evolution. This theme was part of a larger effort within the university to highlight this contemporary social concern within its undergraduate educational programs. This exhibition, entitled “Endless Forms: Engaging Evolution,” brought together artists from varying educational levels and communities to create and stimulate dialogue both within and among communities and disciplinary affiliations.
The Association for Integrative Studies is an interdisciplinary professional organization founded in 1979 to promote the interchange of ideas among scholars and administrators in all of the arts and sciences on intellectual and organizational issues related to furthering integrative studies.
The meeting offers a broad spectrum of presentations dealing with the multiplicity of ways in which integration of human capacities, academic disciplines, career practices, and social institutions increasingly characterizes higher education in the United States and around the world.
for a full schedule visit:
http://www.ais.oxford.emory.edu/fullschedule.html
August 18, 2006 at 4:16 AM · Filed under Uncategorized
It seems that The Society for the Study of Evolution is getting wise to the need for a more proactive approach to changing public perceptions. An anti-wedge strategy document has been produced and one of the suggestions is:
“To achieve these medium term goals, the societies should establish a joint
communications and outreach committee that will coordinate efforts among the societies,and seek professional help in developing an integrated PR/mass communication plan.”
The anti-wedge document can be found at the society’s website.
Below is a call for images of evolution from The Society for the Study of Evolution’s website: http://www.evolutionsociety.org
-–who said art and science share different goals?
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ImageThiss of Evolution: Fame although not Fortune
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We are seeking images (photographs, drawings, illustrations, or any other images) that illustrate evolutionary biology, including those that reflect the diversity of organisms (including plants, animals, microorganisms and fossils) studied by evolutionary biologists. The images will be used on the Society’s newly designed website, both as illustrations and also for a new feature in which users will be able to send electronic postcards with these images. All images used will become copyright by SSE, and credited to the people who created them. Credits will appear prominently on each image.
Please submit images to
mjonas@life.bio.sunysb.edu
Thank you in advance for your submissions. We view this effort as part of showing the beauty of evolutionary biology to visitors to the web site, and making the subject more approachable and accessible to the public.
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August 17, 2006 at 9:57 PM · Filed under Uncategorized
Between 15 March and 10 May 2006, Lancaster University held a series of interdisciplinary workshops on the changing relationship between art, politics and the life sciences.
Here is a summary of the proceedings:
Science – Art – Politics
August 14, 2006 at 8:28 AM · Filed under Uncategorized
This is the first in a series on the need for rapid synthesis between evolutionary biology, genomics, contemporary art, and design research.
About six years ago I had the opportunity to attend the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution held at my then home campus, Indiana University in Bloomington. By the time of the meetings, I had fully immersed myself in the study and culture of evolutionary biology. I maintained affiliations with at least two different labs in the department and well as a few different research paths, all as I was finishing my undergraduate degree in biology. What I remember most clearly from the meeting was the sort of call to arms that took place at a town hall meeting of the society. There was the perceived threat that an insurgence in creationist policy maneuvering would reduce funding for evolutionary biology at the federal level. All of the sudden, evolutionary biologists had to do some PR and identity management of their own so that their message and relevance was clear to all. The result was a whitepaper that spelled out the relevance of contemporary evolutionary biology for society.
It struck me later that this seemed an entirely disingenuous reason for organizing and thinking critically about how evolution and evolutionary biology is portrayed publicly. Granted, we rarely act unless our livelihood compels us to do so, yet for an organization of people committed to teaching and researching the many facets of the theory, I was surprised that we wouldnÂt be more concerned about the image and images arising out of their practice. Now that six years have elapsed and the nation has witnessed another in a series of sustained policy and legal debates concerning creationism and evolution in the public schools, I am again left wondering why more effort isnÂt being directed towards perceptions of evolution and evolutionary biology as opposed to the linguistic wordplay that dominates most public debates on the controversy. After attending the symposium composed of participants from the Kitzmiller v. Dover legal case at the Society for the Study of Evolution Annual Meeting, I couldnÂt help but attune my senses for proposed solutions to these cultural conflicts. A handful of solutions were offered with the vast majority coming directly from the National Center for Science Education, but a recurrent sentiment was that evolution, as a cultural commodity, has a perception problem. When compared to the idea of creationism, evolution has produced few visual artifacts that are both broadly accessible and engaging for the mind and body. Yes, creationism did get a sizable headstart, but when beer commercials provide some of the most valuable public articulations of macroevolution, we might ask ourselves if we might do better. At the Kitzmiller v. Dover symposium everyone agreed that there is no single solution, and one respondant even suggested that we ought not engage in an image makeover or try to make evolutionary biology flashier. Yet when questioned about biologists use of visual imagery, education specialists have had limited responses in my experience, saying that indeed they seem to be important, but only as subordinate resources for text. My reading of the situation is that we need to think more critically about the images we are producing by working across different disciplinary domains.
Let me offer this. It would seem that evolutionary biologists are unaware of their audiences, or that communication design for biology is targeted for too specialized an audience. Given that evolution and evolutionary biology are firmly entrenched in social questions and problems (e.g. disease, social relationships, origins or life), biologists need to recognize that evolutionary biology has moved beyond the scientific arena to affect many aspects of life. In doing so, biologists must also recognize that they are compelled to create and distribute their findings and interpret their meanings in cooperation with other members of society. One example of this is the tension and influence of visual and verbal articulations. Verbal articulations are useful and preferred up to a point. However, we often fail to recognize that some populations and constituencies do not employ verbal methods as their preferred means of communication. Children are one of these populations.
Do-It-Yourself or collaboration among specialists?
I once corresponded with the chairperson of a major biology department about the importance of having artists and designers work in cooperation with scientists on their visual communications. At first I concurred that the democratization of illustration and imaging tools had made it easier for biologists to do it themselves, but the more I thought about it the less comfortable I was with that idea. For one thing, all of the special tools and gimmicks provided by these Âdemocratic tools tend to clutter the visual landscape and insert meanings unintended by their authors. Furthermore, it is rare that biologists are taking into account the various histories of representation, social contexts, and political consequences of visual presentations. Reliance on readymade software and drawing tools can contribute to the predominance of monocultural visual perspectives. The overwhelming majority of science is communicated with written text, as, perhaps, it should be. Still, this necessarily tends to exclude all but those well versed in the specialized terminology. That is, the verbal conventions are not shared amongst a wide audience. Visual articulations, on the other hand, can make difficult material clear while exposing hidden nuances and sources of uncertainty in the data. Nothing is hidden in the subtle phrasing of a word, and while there is subjectivity in the interpretation of the data or message one might consider the import of uncertainty to scientific communication as a preamble to wider participation and more fluid discussions of perceived risks and likely consequences.
Domino effects
The stakes for evolutionary biology are high. While it is true that science has accepted the role that evolution play in the development and diversification of living organisms, many people have cited irreconcilable differences between their beliefs and their understanding of evolutionary theory as their basis for rejecting its place in the cultural milieu. Unfortunately, misunderstanding of the basic principles of evolution all too often influences the rejection of scientific explanations outright. Conversely, scientific explanations have made little effort to reach out to diverse constituencies and expand the range of dialog and communication. What every designer knows is that his or her practice is centered on creating dialog. The scientist is intent on communicating results. Dialog does happen at public presentations and the like, but we are after widespread appreciation of the phenomena at a minimum and engagement or participation as an ideal.
