New to the Physics Department this year, James Wanliss likes to write. His articles published in scientific journals line the bulletin board outside his Richardson Hall office. He describes this type of writing as rigid in its standards: an introduction, data, "some theory and how you used it to demonstrate what you're going to demonstrate." He needs to be succinct with a "smashing abstract" and a very good introduction "because if people are going to read anything, that's what they're going to read. You cannot just have verbal diarrhea." Some journals, Nature for one, limit articles to two pages, he says, and "if you can't do it in two pages, then sorry, even if it's fantastic work, it won't be accepted. Scientists don't want you to waste their time. That's just the way it is."
In space physics the process from research to writing to publication takes anywhere from one year to five years or longer. Wanliss frequently collaborates on research and articles. When he is first author, he writes the initial draft, "the bone structure," and sends it to his fellow authors, asking them to add to or modify it. Sometimes the writing can be truly collaborative, but "the reader can tell," Wanliss says. In a paper he is currently working on, "parts that I wrote read very differently from the first author's." While he would prefer to rewrite the whole article, he wonders how much rewriting the first author will accept. In working with reviewers and editors, Wanliss says, "I have to fight very, very hard to try to convince people that the ideas are worth looking at." He goes back and forth with the reviewers until they decide that it is "a much better paper worth publishing."
Popular Writing
Popular writing to make science
clear to nonscientists, on the other hand, allows him more freedom
than scientific writing. In physics, "Data are talking. I'm
saying what they're telling me." In popular pieces he can
use metaphors: "I use word pictures when I speak to people,
so to write scientifically stunts me a little bit." As a
college student, Wanliss began explaining science in his church's
monthly newsletter.
The first few words of two articles demonstrate the difference between his scientific and popular writing. He begins "Space Storm as Phase Transition" in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics: "Fluctuations of the SYM-H index were analyzed. . . . The article for a general audience entitled "What in the World is Chaos?" opens: "Three months ago I was privileged to visit Niagara Falls. . . . I imagined two pieces of wood rushing towards the precipice and then over the top." Wanliss goes on to mention a dripping tap, a stormy weather system, stock market data, the beating of the human heart, a hockey puck--all everyday examples to describe chaos.
Current Writing Project
His current popular writing project,
a book with the metaphorical title The Green Dragon, arose
from an honors course called "The Politics and the Science
of Fear" he taught at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.
The course examined how changes in science are sometimes driven
by fear. In the course text The Skeptical Environmentalist,
author and Greenpeace member Bjørn Lomborg investigated
the science behind the claims made by environmentalists and found
many unsupported by analysis of the relevant data, thus challenging
the establishment views advocated by Al Gore et al.
The course encouraged students to be skeptical, "to question and keep questioning as scientists should." According to Wanliss, "Science doesn't work by consensus.That's politics, not science." His showing of the film The Great Global Warming Swindle alongside Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth caused somewhat of a storm, leading to an article in the Daytona Beach News Journal Online and criticism from some colleagues. The news article by Mark Harper states that Wanliss "doesn't necessarily subscribe to either film, but believes his students -- and the public -- should remain skeptical of theories such as Gore's explanation of global warming. Wanliss argues that both films overstate the science as a means to a political end."
He responded to his critics by writing.
His work-in-progress asserts that the modern incarnation of the
environmental movement is not consistent with Christian beliefs
about stewardship of the earth and the role of people. Environmentalism
affects the church, he says, and his book attempts to answer how
and why by exploring the roots of the movement. He has no publisher
yet, but his audience is practicing Christians. In working on
this book, Wanliss can indulge his interest in philosophy and
history, as well as in science and religion. Now at chapter five
after three years of writing in his "spare time," he
envisions another two chapters to complete the project. by
Jill Frey and Lauren Johnson
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