Communicating the science of climate change

[profpr]

I've seen the following table in a friend's page a week or so ago. The full story  in Physics Today is equally interesting.

Terms that have different meanings for scientists and the public
Scientific term	Public meaning	Better choice
enhance	improve	intensify, increase
aerosol	spray can	tiny atmospheric particle
positive trend	good trend	upward trend
positive feedback	good response, praise	vicious cycle, self-reinforcing cycle
theory	hunch, speculation	scientific understanding
uncertainty	ignorance	range
error	mistake, wrong, incorrect	difference from exact true number
bias	distortion, political motive	offset from an observation
sign	indication, astrological sign	plus or minus sign
values	ethics, monetary value	numbers, quantity
manipulation	illicit tampering	scientific data processing
scheme	devious plot	systematic plan
anomaly	abnormal occurrence	change from long-term average

Comments

[mashats.livejournal.com]

wow!
thanks for sharing
didn't realize how scientifically biased I am ;)))

[profpr.livejournal.com]

У меня вошло в привычку всегда проговаривать сомнительные случаи словами даже когда я студентам лекцмю читаю. Вообще ЖЖ меня очень многому научил. Мыже все время в очень узком слое общаемся.