For what it is worth, the power to visual communication as conjured up in a million soil cores that Jon alluded to is nicely demonstrated in a recent multimedia presentation within a NYT Science article.
But with sand rather than soil in this case. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/05/science/06sandmap.html -Gene On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Jonathan Nelson <[email protected]> wrote: > Andy Martin wrote: > >> Aesthetics are a good substitute argument for some current >> environmentalism. As much as we may dislike it, it's doubtless you'll get >> more public support from a single baby pygmy hippo video (our dancing D-list >> celebrity) than from a million soil cores. One would prefer to use moral >> standings (intrinsic value), or survival/health (can't survive without a >> working ecosystem), but human nature is to not care about something until >> it's in one's face. The strengthened cries for investment in alternative >> energy last summer, silenced as soon as gas dropped below $2.50/gallon, >> showed that beautifully. As soon as it hit the pocketbook, people were >> willing to conserve and embrace alternatives. >> > > Peter Singer's version of utilitarian ethics has some interesting > environmental components that do not rely on aesthetic arguments. His book > _Practical Ethics_ is easy to find and I don't recall the environment > chapter being long. > > Personally, I find using an aesthetic basis a bit questionable unless > aesthetics is itself based in the relationship between "ourselves in the > world" and our perceptions of "ourselves in the world." There is a pretty > argument to be made that beauty has something to do with the relationship > between what we have experienced and what we currently perceive. > > Heading a little further off-topic here: > > The other difficulty is that we have a hard time comprehending things when > we can't see the big picture, much less actually coping with problems on the > big-picture scale. And the difficulty is worse when information is merely > communicated rather than gained through direct experience. But there are > different qualities and kinds of communication. Some of the great nature > writers, documentarians, photographers, teachers, etc., are able to share > their inspiration... which shares their informed experience with those of us > would not otherwise observe the interactions shaping our environment. > > I was inspired by Andy's reference to "a million soil cores." > > A single soil core is often uninteresting (though there are certainly > exceptions!) while millions of soil cores can't help but tell at least one > fascinating story. Millions of soil cores are a landscape in the same way > millions of people are a landscape. The others give context to the > individual. > > This is an intersection between information and communication; in > particular, it's a great topic for a visual rhetoritician. Communicating > that kind of information through appropriate visualization, sonification, > interactivity, or anything else non-linear can be powerful because it puts a > whole concept forward in a way that no explanation can: all at once, a > little bit like real experience (even if the data is abstract). > > We all know how powerful a good map can be. > > Some of us may have opportunities to take advantage of colleagues or > contacts who specialize in communicating complex or overwhelming data in > more accessible ways. We need to take advantage of those people and learn > from their approaches. > > Jon >
