When it comes right down to it, science communication is a modern development in the ancient art of rhetoric. However as rhetoric is, at its heart, interested in how an audience may be convinced of a writer’s or speaker’s argument, the question eventually must be asked as to what ethical considerations must be taken into account when communicating scientific information to an audience.
If there’s one thing Mark Avery knows (and before any wags start up, he knows far more than just one thing…) it’s how to talk to people about nature conservation. As a twenty-five year veteran of the RSPB, thirteen of those as the organization’s conservation director, Mark has quite likely spent more time communicating about the subject through his speaking, writing, and for all I know interpretive dance, than most anyone else I’ve yet met.
It began as a simple question.
It grew as a Twitter hashtag.
It eventually took physical form as a book.
It went out over the public airwaves as a national radio interview.
Recent reports say that it is being developed into a television program in Canada.
Will it become a major motion picture next? Perhaps…
Of what do I write?
It’s really only been not much more than a century since “great stinks” caused tremendous disruptions of daily life across major world cities. Lack of sufficient public sanitation, open sewers, abattoirs, and a host of other elements of those times would combine with seasonal weather patterns and other phenomena to produce a level of stench that could not only cause people to alter the activities, they could – and in some cases did – literally bring the activities of governments to a halt.