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"I too think one of the most remarkable parts of Ostrom’s research is her passion to ensure common understanding by all. She is able to define the components of a successful system while still strongly focusing on the importance of relaying her message clearly. Something that has recently come to my attention is the difficultly that comes with deciphering so many of these scientific papers as I continue my research for our final project. So many scientists engage in years of research in the hopes of making an ecological difference and try to relay all of their work in a single paper. That single paper can often be very cryptic. And the truth of the matter is when they hand off their respective papers to the general public or directly to someone who may have the power to make that change or difference, it’s important for the paper to be easily understood but still have all of the relevant information and data. But does that mean that there should be a change in the formation of scientific papers and methods of presentation in order to ensure that the information is presented in a more simplistic manner and can then further affect public policy? Can increased simplicity be a method of bridging the gap between science and policy? Or is it more important for people to recognize the amount of information that may be lost if we ask for these papers to be ‘dumbed down’? And is that what in turn leads to Ostrom’s problem with public policy being too general and overarching because people do not put forth the effort or time to recognize and further their understanding of the ecological problems?"
--( posted on Nov 12, 2013, commenting on the post Letting The Common Man Learn To Manage The Commons )
 
"Damla, I really like how you were able to pick up on the change in writing in the respective papers we were assigned and your appreciation for Cardinale's use of images. I don't think I would have realized how much of a strong factor that would be towards readers, but in hindsight it is a big contributor. Things like additional tables, graphs and diagrams do grab the attention of the reader and in a complicated topic such as the repercussions of human action on biodiversity they are more than helpful. In our constant discussion of understanding ecosystems and recognizing the importance of our actions we forget to realize the significance of how we output that information to the public. It’s an interesting topic that you touched on. Frequently scientists make interesting discoveries that may be very useful to the general public, especially for the changes in ecosystems and they feel the only way to reach out to people is by making connections to economic issues and quantifying all of these issues into monetary issues. But we forget to realize how vital the means of conveying the information is. Maybe other people have more suggestions as how to better convey this kind of information?"
--( posted on Oct 1, 2013, commenting on the post Biodiversity Loss and Its Impact on Human Activity )
 
"I think all the points you've raised are very interesting. I feel that no matter how you perceive evolution or the growth of natural organisms that surround us there's an objective reality that all organisms have grown and evolve to respective extents, while others that once flourished become extinct. It's part of evolution and the growth of different organisms. Certain life forms live while others die. Land masses shift and some even disappear. There are certain cycles within nature. Quite frequently I feel we are taken out the perspective and people view us as 'extra terrestrials' to the ecosystem. We are a part of that cycle. I do agree with you that we may abuse our roles and as we have progressed and advanced we may be hurting our surroundings and ourselves. But we cannot forget that humans are a part of nature. Sadly, people find it difficult to live amongst their surroundings with the notion that 'nature invited us in' because naturally we know we are a part of the ecosystem so we strive to dominate. The only way to get to people to care and treat nature correctly is to show them that through these forms of growth we are only hurting ourselves and our progress."
--( posted on Sep 11, 2013, commenting on the post Can Everything Be Quantified? )