“Don’t confuse me with facts”—how right wing populism affects trust in agencies advocating anthropogenic climate change as a reality

Everyday public denial of anthropogenically caused climate change (ACC) has complex antecedents and exists on both individual and institutional levels. Earlier research has linked ACC denial to opposition to formal science and elites, perceived threats to the industrialist capitalist order and existing system properties. Research also suggest that trust in public organizations is a key factor in determining support or opposition to climate change policies. In this paper, we explore the possibility that right wing populism and anti-elitist attitudes fuel both ACC denial and low trust in environmental institutions. We surveyed a representative sample of Norwegians (N = 3032) to measure ACC denial, how denial is linked to socio-demographic characteristics, trust in environmental institutions, attitudes toward elites and immigration, as well as environmental attitude orientations. Results show that lack of trust in environmental institutions is strongly associated with ACC denial, and furthermore that the degree of trust—or lack thereof—is partly a function of anti-elitist attitudes, opposition to migration and views of nature.

Job analyses of Earth science data librarians and data managers

This study’s purpose is to capture the skills of Earth science data managers and librarians through interviews with current job holders. Job analysis interviews were conducted of fourteen participants –six librarians and eight data managers—to assess the types and frequencies of job tasks. Participants identified tasks related to communication, including collaboration, teaching, and project management activities. Data specific tasks included data discovery, processing, and curation, which require an understanding of the data, technology, and information infrastructures to support data use, re-use, and preservation. Most respondents had formal science education and six had a master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences. Most of the knowledge, skills, and abilities for these workers were acquired through on-the-job experience, but future professionals in these careers may benefit from tailored education informed through job analyses.

Quality and Web Software Engineering Advances

In this chapter, the main avant-garde components that favor quality on the web are disclosed, especially from the perspectives of software and design. At the same time, the deviations of these components that slow down these processes from the technical-human point of view are presented. In this dualistic perspective, the role of education is included in each of the generations of users, programmers, and publishers of digital content on the web, as well as the context in which they are immersed. A triadic vision of past, present and future is presented in each of the aspects and components, directly and indirectly related, with the development of operations, models, and methods, which converge in obtaining a high quality of the web. Finally, parallels are drawn between the formal science professions and infinite semiosis in web engineering.

Biological Control

Biological Control: Global Impacts, Challenges and Future Directions of Pest Management provides a historical summary of organisms and main strategies used in biological control, as well as the key challenges confronting biological control in the 21st century. Biological control has been implemented for millennia, initially practised by growers moving beneficial species from one local area to another. Today, biological control has evolved into a formal science that provides ecosystem services to protect the environment and the resources used by humanity. With contributions from dedicated scientists and practitioners from around the world, this comprehensive book highlights important successes, failures and challenges in biological control efforts. It advocates that biological control must be viewed as a global endeavour and provides suggestions to move practices forward in a changing world. Biological Control is an invaluable resource for conservation specialists, pest management practitioners and those who research invasive species, as well as students studying pest management science.

Developing an Understanding of Science

Young children are adept at several types of scientific reasoning, yet older children and adults have difficulty mastering formal scientific ideas and practices. Why do “little scientists” often become scientifically illiterate adults? We address this question by examining the role of intuition in learning science, both as a body of knowledge and as a method of inquiry. Intuition supports children's understanding of everyday phenomena but conflicts with their ability to learn physical and biological concepts that defy firsthand observation, such as molecules, forces, genes, and germs. Likewise, intuition supports children's causal learning but provides little guidance on how to navigate higher-order constraints on scientific induction, such as the control of variables or the coordination of theory and data. We characterize the foundations of children's intuitive understanding of the natural world, as well as the conceptual scaffolds needed to bridge these intuitions with formal science.

Pot, kettle: Nonliteral titles aren’t (natural) science

Researchers may be tempted to attract attention through poetic titles for their publications, but would this be mistaken in some fields? Although poetic titles are known to be common in medicine, it is not clear whether the practice is widespread elsewhere. This article investigates the prevalence of poetic expressions in journal article titles from 1996–2019 in 3.3 million articles from all 27 Scopus broad fields. Expressions were identified by manually checking all phrases with at least five words that occurred at least 25 times, finding 149 stock phrases, idioms, sayings, literary allusions, film names, and song titles or lyrics. The expressions found are most common in the social sciences and the humanities. They are also relatively common in medicine, but almost absent from engineering and the natural and formal sciences. The differences may reflect the less hierarchical and more varied nature of the social sciences and humanities, where interesting titles may attract an audience. In engineering, natural science, and formal science fields, authors should take extra care with poetic expressions in case their choice is judged inappropriate. This includes interdisciplinary research overlapping these areas. Conversely, reviewers of interdisciplinary research involving the social sciences should be more tolerant of poetic license.

Engaging migrant and refugee communities in non-formal science learning spaces

In this era of pandemics, economic crises and civil unrest, science centres and museums have an opportunity to become truly relevant resources to society. This paper summarises a number of critical lessons from the PISEA International Symposium, a conference held the at the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art in Vienna from the 17th–18th of October 2019. The purpose of this event was to share, learn, and discuss ways in which engagement with migrants and refugee populations might be improved within informal science learning spaces. Issues around integration, inclusive art-science practice, and shifting institutional policy and language were all explored. This paper also calls for the committed reform of informal science spaces, and a renewed commitment to responsive, equitable, and inclusive practice.

Analysis of Non-Formal Education Tutor Capabilities in Exploring Assessment for Science Learning

This study aims to explore cognitive assessment techniques based on teaching experience. The method in this study uses a descriptive survey with data collection techniques using purposive sampling of tutors who have taught at PKBM for 5 years. The population in this study were PKBM (Pusat Kegiatan Masyarakat or Community Learning Center) tutors in Jakarta at Package A, Package B, and Package C, namely 158 tutors with details as follows; Package A 45 tutors, Package B 53 Tutors, and Package C 60 tutors. Data collection was done by using question forms and data analysis used descriptive translation to obtain an average frequency of learning assessment techniques. The statistical analysis used Confirmatory Factor Analysis, so that it can be seen directly and indirectly. The results showed that the dominant assessment technique used in non-formal science tutors was a written test that averaged 32 times in one semester. A group of tutors with 5 to 10 years of teaching experience using a variety of assessment techniques. Descriptively, it can be said that the use of the frequency spectrum of cognitive assessment techniques is coupled with experienced tutors with a tendency in written tests. In this study, the results show that the preparation of assessment in non-formal education there is an influence between the preparation of the assessment of the implementation of the assessment. So it is necessary to improve tutor assessment preparation.