----- Forwarded message from NewsAlert -----
NEWSALERT: Friday, March 22, 2002 @ 1504 GMT --------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Astronomy Now and Spaceflight Now
[...]
NEW EVIDENCE: EXPANSION OF UNIVERSE IS ACCELERATING --------------------------------------------------- A team of UK and Australian astronomers has discovered new, independent evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Their findings have just appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
A team of 27 astronomers led by Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge has published strong evidence for the existence of dark energy using an entirely different technique.
Their results show that the universe is full of dark energy, completely consistent with the earlier supernovae results. "Dark energy appears to exist and to dominate over more conventional types of matter" says Professor Efstathiou. "An explanation of the dark energy may involve String Theory, extra dimensions or even what happened before the Big Bang. At present nobody knows. The ball is now firmly in the theorists court."
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/22expansion/
[...]
----- End of forwarded message from NewsAlert -----
Cze�� wszysce,
NEW EVIDENCE: EXPANSION OF UNIVERSE IS ACCELERATING
A team of UK and Australian astronomers has discovered new, independent evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Their findings have just appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
A team of 27 astronomers led by Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge has published strong evidence for the existence of dark energy using an entirely different technique.
Their results show that the universe is full of dark energy, completely consistent with the earlier supernovae results. "Dark energy appears to exist and to dominate over more conventional types of matter" says Professor Efstathiou. "An explanation of the dark energy may involve String Theory, extra dimensions or even what happened before the Big Bang. At present nobody knows. The ball is now firmly in the theorists court."
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/22expansion/
You're right Andrzej, the 2dF galaxy z survey people invest pretty heavily in propaganda about rather modest results! But they need to justify their funding under the Rupert Murdoch/IMF/WTO/WB media/political regime which opposes rational discussion and balanced publication of empirical data... So we can't really blame them for struggling for survival! And nothing seems to be incorrect in the RAS news release, it is just misleading by omission - which is a perfectly standard method of propaganda in democracies. (See http://www.medialens.org or http://www.mwaw.org for media criticism from the heart of what's left of Her Majesty's Empire.)
Anyways, here's the article: http://de.arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109152 "Evidence for a non-zero Lambda and a low matter density from a combined analysis of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies"
They don't even bother to cite the paper based on the 2dF *quasar* z survey, posted three months earlier:
http://de.arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0106135
which has evidence for a non-zero Lambda and a low matter density from analysis of a *single* survey, the 2QZ-10K early release.
Gary Mamon thinks we should spend some time in making propaganda, sorry, "media relations", for our result, but I think it's better to concentrate on getting new results which cannot be ignored. ;) And then the best way for a propaganda campaign, sorry, for public relations, will be to release a GNU/Linux self-contained easy-to-compile and run software package which any cosmologist can easily run for herself and be convinced of the results...
BTW, Efstathiou et al. use maximum likelihood, which means, if I understand it correctly, that they really only show that a non-zero Lambda, low Omega_m model is *more* likely than other models, they don't reject a zero-Lambda model.
In contrast, we use absolute probabilities of null hypothesis rejection, so we *do* reject the zero-Lambda model and high matter density models.
Pozdrawiam Boud
But they need to justify their funding under the Rupert Murdoch/IMF/WTO/WB media/political regime which opposes rational discussion and balanced publication of empirical data... So we can't really blame them for struggling for survival! And nothing seems to be incorrect in the RAS news release,
Just to clarify this: what I disseminated was the part of spacefightnow.com service which is owned by Pole Star Publications Ltd. and (apparently) *they*, not RAS, are responsible for making that propaganda (or "propaganda"). I have no idea whether PSP is a part of Rupert Murdoch/IMF/WTO/WB imperium as well I have no idea whether RAS is.
A.M.
On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Andrzej Marecki wrote:
Gary Mamon thinks we should spend some time in making propaganda,
Well, you could simply react to what spaceflightnow.com has announced and just write to them. If they ignore you then, indeed, they are probabably biased. :-)
A.M.
Hi Andrzej, I agree with the idea of writing to them, but if we're going to spend time on this sort of thing, then in order to minimise wasted energy and avoid misunderstandings - or at least have a public record of media relations - it would be good to have a dedicated mailing list. There might be very few subscribers, but the important thing is to have the archive. (I had this sort of idea earlier when Ken Grimes and Alison Boyle asked about topology, but didn't think the question would come up again this quickly.)
So... could you please create the following list, with a configuration similar to the others (no access restrictions):
---------------------------------------------------------------------- name: cosmo-media
purpose (short): For openness in interactions between TCfA cosmologists (including students) and science journalists, either as subscribers or using cc: copies.
purpose (long): This list is for discussions with the media on cosmology research results. Suggested usage is to cc: messages to the media to this list, so that they know that the emails are on the public record. Science journalists could choose to subscribe to the list, or else to email to the list as non-subscribers and send confirming emails each time. Any TCfA cosmology people - including students - wishing to discuss with the media should feel welcome to use and cc: to the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Any comments, anyone, on the suggested definition of the list?
BTW: I'm confused about your earlier message (but I'm restricting the thread to cosmo-torun, I don't think it's interesting enough for all Polish cosmologists ;) ...). On the page:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/22expansion/
there is:
New evidence: expansion of universe is accelerating ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY NEWS RELEASE Posted: March 22, 2002
A team of UK and
...
Seems to me the RAS is responsible for the document.
Cze�� Boud
[...]
So... could you please create the following list, with a configuration similar to the others (no access restrictions):
OK, but... tomorrow. ;-)
BTW: I'm confused about your earlier message (but I'm restricting the thread to cosmo-torun, I don't think it's interesting enough for all Polish cosmologists ;) ...). On the page:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/22expansion/
there is:
New evidence: expansion of universe is accelerating ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY NEWS RELEASE Posted: March 22, 2002
A team of UK and
...
Seems to me the RAS is responsible for the document.
Yes, it's on http://www.ras.org.uk/press/pn02-06.htm and this is IMO absolutely OK (whoever stands behind RAS). This is IMHO *not* making propaganda - I'm sure that there are members of RAS among those 27 people listed in the masthead of the MNRAS article so RAS has a right to "be proud" of them and their publication in RAS's own journal and so RAS has a right to issue a press release on *their* website. By the same token we we have a right prepare press releases on ours.
Why spaceflightnow.com reposts RAS PRs? - is a good question. Would spaceflightnow.com repost TCfA PRs? - is even a better question. :-)
A.
Hi again Andrzej,
: Yes, it's on http://www.ras.org.uk/press/pn02-06.htm and this is IMO : absolutely OK (whoever stands behind RAS). This is IMHO *not* making : propaganda - I'm sure that there are members of RAS among those 27 people : listed in the masthead of the MNRAS article so RAS has a right to "be : proud" of them and their publication in RAS's own journal and so RAS has a : right to issue a press release on *their* website. By the same token we : we have a right prepare press releases on ours.
I agree that it's more or less OK and that the RAS certainly has a right to publicise the results from MNRAS articles.
However, although they do not *state* that they have the first non-SNe-Ia evidence for a non-zero cosmo constant, their omission of any reference to totally independent results, such as our own, but also others (e.g. weak grav lensing), makes it easy for the non-expert (and/or non-alert) reader to falsely conclude that it *is* the first.
Instead of:
... and many have been reluctant to accept the results of the supernovae teams.
Now, a team of 27 astronomers led by Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge has published strong evidence for the existence of dark energy using an entirely different technique. They used the clustering...
there should have been something like
< ... and many < have been reluctant to accept the < results of the supernovae teams. < < However, several teams from around the world < have published strong evidence for the < existence of dark energy using entirely different techniques. < < One of these is a team of 27 astronomers led by < Professor George Efstathiou of the < University of Cambridge. They used the clustering...
Wouldn't this have been more honest?
: This is IMHO *not* making : propaganda
Edward Bernays is to the public relations industry something like what Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, et al are to modern cosmology. Bernays' basic 1928 book on the subject was called "Propaganda".
http://www.authentic-breathing.com/propaganda_in_a_democracy.htm
When Edward Bernays, proclaimed by many as the father of public relations, published his book Propaganda in 1928, few people realized the far reaching influence that the new discipline of public relations would have on society. Propaganda, Bernays claims, is not something pernicious that one government or group inflicts on another, but is rather an integral part of democracy itself.
...
Of course, one could easily say that we in the west are better off than people living in communist countries or under dictatorships, because their propaganda is far more rigid and insidious than our own. This argument is a misleading one, however, for the simple reason that their propaganda is more visible and easier to perceive than our own. By its very nature, a democratic society offers so many choices to its citizens that we would have neither the time nor the energy to narrow them down without a whole industry of communications professionals dedicated to just that. Our propagandists do not use rope, barbed wire, mental hospitals, and the militia to make their point; no-they use the latest communication techniques disseminated through the print and electronic media in the guise of ?giving us what we really want.?
What is truly pernicious about much of the propaganda that surrounds us in the west is the very ?reasonableness? of it-the way in which we are taught to believe that it somehow represents our real needs. For the goal of a propagandist-no matter what his or her stripe-is to make a sale of some kind by seeking to convince us that they understand our inner or outer needs and goals and are responding to them. In this regard, a newspaper editor or TV anchorman trying to tell the news in a way that will attract readers or watchers is no better or worse than a public relations professional attempting to improve the public?s perception of a company or product.
And here are google's favorite sites on the keywords "advertising propaganda":
http://www.sonic.net/~gic/articles/adv.html
Advertising is propaganda whose purpose is to develop allegiance to a product or corporation instead of a government.
http://members.aol.com/MrDonnUnits/Propaganda.html
The word propaganda refers to any technique that attempts to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of a group, in order to benefit the sponsor. The purpose of propaganda is to persuade. That pretty much takes in the entire advertising community, since that is their job.
You had some other comments:
Why spaceflightnow.com reposts RAS PRs? - is a good question.
Ah well, I think that's way beyond the scope of what I have time to study quantitatively. But my guess is that it's related to propaganda/advertising in the West in general:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html
Would spaceflightnow.com repost TCfA PRs? - is even a better question. :-)
Well, I don't know about spaceflightnow.com in particular, but since our research work does not directly threaten any large authoritarian corporations or authoritarian governments or democratic governments, except indirectly because it shows that people in a non-US/UK country do good science, I think that if one or more people were willing to spend the time talking to journalists and explaining stuff to them, e.g. via cosmo-media, then there's actually a fairly good chance they would publish stuff.
E.g., you would be most welcome to use cosmo-media to prepare a press release on your young radio galaxy results. You could prepare a draft on the list - and do both po polsku and English versions, but ask journalists to wait until the article is accepted before they use the press release. But it would be a good idea to ask a journalist to work through it with you - and IMHO it would require work... It takes time and thought to explain things to non-astronomers - or even to astronomers ;) ...
One idea for reducing the amount of work and making sure the article is easily understandable - and for getting publicity to people who really *do* want to know what we're doing, who do *not* just want to blindly learn how to repeat words and sentences which are useful for making polite conversation and sounding educated - would be to invite readers of the Usenet group:
http://groups.google.com.pl/groups?hl=pl&group=pl.sci.kosmos
to comment and criticise and draft versions of the press release.
A question to be debated would be whether we want Usenet readers to subscribe and/or post to cosmo-media or to keep the discussion to pl.sci.kosmos. My preference would be the latter.
Cze�� Boud
Instead of:
... and many have been reluctant to accept the results of the supernovae teams.
Now, a team of 27 astronomers led by Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge has published strong evidence for the existence of dark energy using an entirely different technique. They used the clustering...
there should have been something like
< ... and many < have been reluctant to accept the < results of the supernovae teams. < < However, several teams from around the world < have published strong evidence for the < existence of dark energy using entirely different techniques. < < One of these is a team of 27 astronomers led by < Professor George Efstathiou of the < University of Cambridge. They used the clustering...
Wouldn't this have been more honest?
YES, IT CERTAINLY WOULD!!!
But...
although I have no interest in defending RAS I think it is always honest to tend to narrow down the responsibility to particular persons. In this case the person to blame is the *referee* who allowed the authors to ommit the reference(s) to other groups work.
Now the good question emerges: who on Earth wrote that $&%@ PR??!!! The authors of the original paper themselves?
[...]
Well, I don't know about spaceflightnow.com in particular, but since our research work does not directly threaten any large authoritarian corporations or authoritarian governments or democratic governments, except indirectly because it shows that people in a non-US/UK country
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
do good science, I think that if one or more people were willing to
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
spend the time talking to journalists and explaining stuff to them, e.g. via cosmo-media, then there's actually a fairly good chance they would publish stuff.
IMO the best way to show that is... to publish in US/UK journals. If Roukema, Mamon & Bajtlik paper were published in MNRAS and not in A&A then maybe... ;-)
But OK, you're right, we have to talk to journalists and explain things to them. Preferably we have to talk to US/UK journalists... Because if we talk e.g. to Polish journalists then there is hardly any impact. Example: recently Udalski et al. discovered a few dozens of extraterrestrial plants in "one go". There was a large (front page) coverage of this discovery in the largest Polish daily newspaper. Now how about spaceflightnow.com et al.? NOTHING! So maybe there *is* an Anglo-American mafia censorship. But maybe not. If only Udalski et al. published in ApJ or MNRAS and not in Acta Astronomica.... :-)
-- Andrzej
<cross-post to cosmo-torun & cosmo-media, please follow up to *cosmo-media*>
Cze�� Andrzej, Thanks for starting the cosmo-media list. :) This way we can separate out public relations/marketing/propaganda questions from core research questions...
On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Andrzej Marecki wrote:
Instead of:
...
Wouldn't this have been more honest?
YES, IT CERTAINLY WOULD!!!
Good, we agree here :).
But...
although I have no interest in defending RAS I think it is always honest to tend to narrow down the responsibility to particular persons. In this case the person to blame is the *referee* who allowed the authors to ommit the reference(s) to other groups work.
Now the good question emerges: who on Earth wrote that $&%@ PR??!!! The authors of the original paper themselves?
I don't think blaming individuals would be effective (supposing that we were to "investigate" this particular case). I think it's much more likely to be a systematic problem.
[...]
Well, I don't know about spaceflightnow.com in particular, but since our research work does not directly threaten any large authoritarian corporations or authoritarian governments or democratic governments, except indirectly because it shows that people in a non-US/UK country
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^do good science, I think that if one or more people were willing to
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
spend the time talking to journalists and explaining stuff to them, e.g. via cosmo-media, then there's actually a fairly good chance they would publish stuff.
IMO the best way to show that is... to publish in US/UK journals. If Roukema, Mamon & Bajtlik paper were published in MNRAS and not in A&A then maybe... ;-)
I'm not convinced. My ApJ papers have barely been cited at all. But anyway, this is about the research community, it's different to the general public.
But OK, you're right, we have to talk to journalists and explain things to them. Preferably we have to talk to US/UK journalists... Because if we talk e.g. to Polish journalists then there is hardly any impact. Example: recently Udalski et al. discovered a few dozens of extraterrestrial plants in "one go". There was a large (front page) coverage of this discovery in the largest Polish daily newspaper. Now how about spaceflightnow.com et al.?
There was a lot of impact in Poland - random people I met (e.g. on the train) had heard about this. But apparently even you ;) have fallen into the media trap of attempting to explain things in an easy way and introducing errors...
I think this is the article you are referring to:
http://de.arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0202320
in which case *none* of these 42 multiple transit detection Jupiters/brown dwarfs/M dwarfs are considered confirmed as planets!! So even if the result is exciting, the Polish journalists jumped ahead of the research results.
NOTHING! So maybe there *is* an Anglo-American mafia censorship. But maybe not. If only Udalski et al. published in ApJ or MNRAS and not in Acta Astronomica.... :-)
Regarding this whole discussion, in case you didn't notice it ;), I was offered a faculty position in a university in Poland, called UMK - and I accepted it.
I accepted it because not only does Poland have a rich scientific and cultural tradition, but it is also materially and socially a rich country. By the financial exchange rate, Poland is a middle ranked country, and it is simply wrong to say that Poland is poor. It is poorer than the richest countries in the world, but is richer than the poorest countries.
And I would prefer to support these local traditions and existing structures (and their decentralised, networked evolution) rather than contribute to their destruction. It is true that their are big problems such as unemployment and the destruction of social services etc., but I think that the underlying social fabric and infrastructure is still very strong.
I think that accepting the idea that everything is centralised in the US/UK would just be following the Soviet (ZSSR) tradition of centralisation. Poles had to accept the dominance of the ZSSR when forced to, but I don't see why we should accept the dominance of the US/UK any more than we really have to.
In terms of our scientific publications, I think that publication in A&A is realistic and supportive of Poland as part of Europe, and since it has a significant amount of cosmology articles, I don't see any reason not to support it. (I don't mind submitting a few co-authored articles to MNRAS or ApJ, but it's a priority for me.)
For popular articles/press releases, if you really have time to invest, then I think that local support should be a priority. That doesn't mean that we should ignore UK/US popular magazines, but I think that distributing our information locally in a way that locals can directly support us makes sense. In any case, if I find a moment to spare this is what I would like to do... And thanks to the mailing list cosmo-media, if the local magazines stuff up (convert correct, clear explanations into confusing and/or wrong explanations), then at least those people with internet access and curiosity can find where/how the stuff-ups occurred...
[BTW, I happen to have had contact with a US magazine because they contacted me, and I also happened to do a French->English translation of a book on exoplanets for Cambridge Uni Press. So I admit compromising here. ;) But I would prefer to balance this by local publications if I have time...]
Pozdrawiam serdecznie Boud
-
Andrzej Marecki -
Boud Roukema