Happy Halloween! This evening will bring kids to your door seeking tricks or treats. Mostly, their costumes will reflect cultural themes, like characters from movies or comics. And often, those characters and costumes have some unfortunate tie to science.<\/p>\n
Much to the chagrin of those of who care about and support research, science is the vehicle by which many people scare themselves silly. There\u2019s the mad scientist. The botched or out-of-control lab experiment. The apocalyptic climate disaster. The bizarre genetic mutation. The deadly leaked\u2014or worse, weaponized\u2014virus. The artificial intelligence that develops a mind of its own….<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well known that we fear what we don\u2019t understand. Hello, science! People\u2019s lack of understanding of science\u2014be it climate science, genetics, virology, epidemiology, machine learning\u2014can easily become the stuff of nightmares. And that fear can impede progress.<\/p>\n
But as evidenced in the work reflected in this newsletter every month, despite what Hollywood (and Halloween) shows us, science is more commonly a force for good. In the grape and wine industry alone, research has helped grow yields and reduce resource use. It\u2019s helped us be more sustainable, lowering our impact on the environment, and being both better employers and stewards of the land. It\u2019s helped us thwart threats and adapt to change. It\u2019s helped us broaden the footprint of our industry, deliver greater economic impact and produce more\u2014and more delicious\u2014products.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it\u2019s incumbent upon the community of grape researchers and supporters to communicate clearly about science\u2014and all its benefits. I often ask speakers to ditch the dendrograms and acronyms, and speak in plain language that most people (non-scientists) can understand. Give people an \u201cin\u201d to scientific concepts so they can see what can be achieved\u2026and\/or what\u2019s at stake if we don\u2019t try.<\/p>\n
Because, if you’re a grape (or grape grower or wine producer or juice processor), a world without science truly is terrifying!<\/p>\n
Donnell Brown<\/strong> Happy Halloween! This evening will bring kids to your door seeking tricks or treats. Mostly, their costumes will reflect cultural themes, like characters from movies or comics. And often, those characters and costumes have some unfortunate tie to science. Much to the chagrin of those of who care about and support research, science is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ngwi-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3986,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions\/3986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNGRA President
\nOctober 31, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"