The Good, The Bad, The Spin

Oregon Coast abstract landscape photograph near Newport and Depoe Bay.

Stories rule. Not in the sense of them being great, which they often are. Stories rule because they are what pique our interest. My story, your story, our friends’ stories, our family stories.

Each is important, and each is in need of validation.

And those stories are also utterly unrepresentative of what actually is. Stories attract us because the good ones capture our interest and relate to us on visceral levels. We are story seekers, story tellers and story makers.

(The Public Relations Society of America even offers teleseminars on how to better tell your story, presumably to better capture the interest of audiences.)

Yet stories are only small, albeit powerful, parts of a larger picture. Collections of strong anecdotes, while gaining much of our attention, really tell little when compared with, say a strong statistical analysis about a phenomenon. Such analyses coupled with peer-review are designed to strip away the inherent biases we each hold so that phenomenon are viewed more objectively. (more…)

How wild horse advocates spin-doctor a volatile issue and spread misinformation

They are one of Nevada’s most misunderstood attributes. From long eyelashes in Disney movies to the ongoing anthropomorphic attitudes expressed by all stripes of mostly well-intentioned folks, Nevada’s wild horses are universally admired. They are also endlessly mired in controversy.

This is to be expected. As our “backyard pets,” that appear essentially harmless and carefree, it is easy to understand why people would be offended as the suggestion of removal of horses from rangelands—or human interference of any kind.

These good intentions are driven by emotion and passion, which frequently step in the way of reason and the desire to seek out science-based knowledge of the issue, especially if such information ends up unpleasant or contradictory to one’s beliefs. Nothing exemplifies this more than the uproar recently stirred when none other than Willie Nelson and Snoop Dog recorded audio commercials urging people to call Nevada’s governor to “intervene on behalf of our wild horses.” (more…)

Yesterday could have been fun. One of what is bound to be many wildfires this summer started up just behind my house, about 45 minutes from where I work. It started ironically right about the time that I was on the phone with a reporter discussing one of Nevada’s greatest environmental threats: fire.

Despite my sideline preaching to the few who will listen, issues such as mercury, arsenic, air pollution from cars, mines and so on, while important, aren’t nearly as critical as the issue of why there are so many wildfires in the state, how the situation came to be as it is and, most critically, what is likely not going to be done about it. (more…)