Link: Can Social Media Save NASA?

Selena Larson of ReadWrite made an interesting conclusion: For NASA's 55th anniversary on October 1, it got a government shutdown and completely frozen funding. 97% of its employees, many scientists and other highly educated professionals, have been furloughed. However, while Congress only has a 10 percent approval rating, NASA is much-beloved.

Third-party efforts seek to use social media to restore at least partial funding to its operations, and science-loving folks everywhere are down to do just that. This is a case where twitter gets political in a frustrating situation where it seems like ordinary people have no power to change things.

As if millions lots of voices employees suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced

Especially young people. As an example, Larson reports on NASA's own social media strategies to build buzz. Invoking the name of a major celebrity popular with young girls had a dramatic effect:

One big push for NASA is to find ways to reach more young people to encourage an interest in science and technology. Twitter has been a successful platform for engaging a younger audience, including megastar Justin Bieber and his almost 45 million followers. After tweeting an invitation to help the young musician take his act into space, NASA saw a huge uptick in its follower count, including many female fans whom it might have struggled to reach through traditional means.

We all have something to say about Mr. Beiber, but his name and his media carry weight and they mean something enormous to people: people that NASA needs now more than ever. There are connections between the media that we love, media that we may consider less important than the likes of our space program, and how active we are in perceiving issues. 

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Are Banned Books and Bad Science Connected?

According to Kevin C. Pyle  author of upcoming book Bad For You, an exploration of the 'war on fun', and Scott Cunningham: Yes. And they answer it with a comic.

The 'he' being Fredric Wertham, and the answer being 'no.'

In the wake of Banned Books Week, it's easy to ride the outrage at a seemingly over-protective and offensive decision to limit access to media. The inherent wrongness in shushing up Harry Potter and locking away Catcher in the Rye seems like a no-brainer.

Is it, though? What kind of thought (or lack of thought) went into this kind of conclusion? It's easy to dismiss it as merely a regressive political agenda, or the hysteria of an over-protective backlash to popular culture. The states with the most challenged books, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and California all struggle with anti-science legislation and the push for creationism in classrooms, and book bannings are part of that anti-intellectual substitute-for-science culture. Texas needs no comment; it's host to the anti-science think tank the Institute for Creation Research,. California has a 'Creation Museum.' Pennsylvania was host to the first direct challenge to a school district that included Intelligent Design as a part of curriculum. Illinois and Wisconsin are battleground states for the issue.

But why might this be true? And what does keeping Fifty Shades of Grey off the shelves have anything to do with it?

The subject of the mini-presentation is comic books specifically, and the 'scientific' conclusion written about by Fredric Wertham’s Anti-comic manuscript Seduction of the Innocent, and its later influence on the formation of the restrictive Comics Code Authority. Pyle and Cunningham explain how Wertham's failure to adhere to the scientific method produced biased results, resulting in real-life media restrictions.

Incidentally, the method that Wertham used, is exactly the same method that some think tanks use when creating material supporting anti-science or otherwise restrictive material: starting with a conclusion, and then looking for evidence to 'support' it.

The same things that threaten science education and critical thinking in the USA are the same things that cause book bannings, 'violent video games' as a talking point, and general devaluing of otherwise very important media. These things are connected, and to let comic books slip by is what lets Intelligent Design stick its un-evolving foot in the door.

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