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Getting The Public To Listen To Good Science

Posted by kdawson on from the i'm-your-doctor-dammit dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We all know that false or misleading science headlines are all too common these days and that misleading media combined with an apathetic and undereducated public lead to widespread ignorance. But the real question is, how can this trend be reversed? At a session at the recent AAAS meeting, a study was discussed indicating that what matters most is how the information is portrayed. While people are willing to defer to experts on matters of low concern, for things that affect them directly, such as breast cancer or childhood diseases, expertise only counts for as much as giving off a 'sense of honesty and openness,' and that it matters far less than creating a sense of empathy in deciding who people will listen to. In other words, it's not enough to merely report on it as an expert. You need to make sure your report exudes a sense of honesty, openness, empathy, and maybe even a hint of humor."

20 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, but can you 'prove' it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The biggest problem is getting the public to listen to good science is to make them understand the scientific method and the philosophy of science. Otherwise it is just another type of belief to them.

    But how to you start to explain the difference between a priori and a posteriori without people rolling their eyes and walking off?

  2. Think globally, act locally by bperkins · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stop running crappy stories like these:
      http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/0340238 http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/03/1644252

    and uninformed editorializing like this:
      http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/20/0031238

  3. Simple. by Ransak · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Give parents a tax break based on how well their children do in school.

    The hard part would be implementing it. Standardized testing that can be agreed upon is probably a pipe dream for something like this, but if it could be done you'd never see parents take more of an interest in their child's education.

    --
    "Powers. I have them."
    1. Re:Simple. by icegreentea · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How do you deal with kids with mental disabilities? Kids who just 'dont get math' or 'dont get chemistry'? I'm still in highschool (in fact I'm enrolled in a somewhat prestigious private school), and I know a bunch of kids who are by no means 'dumb' or 'uncreative' (some of them are incredible writers, or musicians, or artists) but just don't get math or sciences. And how do you deal with kids in crappy schools? Really the idea despite the appeal it might carry is not only impractical, but also elitist, and discrimitory. When we're trying to make people listen to 'us', the last thing we need is to make them pay more money.

    2. Re:Simple. by PPH · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Standardized testing and a standardized curriculum will never be accepted by a large portion of the public. Unless the standard happens to be teaching out of the bible.

      Look at all the moaning and crying people do over a mention of evolution in a science text. Or attempts to slip creationist material into schools.

      If you try to implement this nationally, you will run into the tradition of local control over schools. That's a brick wall you will spend the rest of your life beating your head against.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  4. Re:Entertainment value by johnsonav · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Look how Discovery channel etc get hyped and dramatized and facts removed to make for a more entertaining package. Even the news is infotainment. I think this is a perfect example of how the situation is improving. Before things like TLC or Discovery, there were almost no infotainment outlets. Even though the balance is skewed more towards the "tainment," and less toward the "info," it is still a net positive.

    Science education, world-wide if not in the US, has never been better. Scientists and engineers make up a larger share of our society than ever before in the history of mankind. Religion and ignorance have lost ground, while knowledge and understanding have gained.

    Is there more to be done? Are we where we want to be in terms of scientific understanding? No, but we are on the right track as a species. The only things we can do is continue pushing the veil of ignorance steadily back, and doing our best to educate children in the way science actually works.
    --
    ... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
  5. Re:What we have here by couchslug · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "What we have here is a failure to communicate .."

    What we have here is a marketing failure.
    The average person is not very bright, is superstitious/religious, and only relates to the world in emotional terms. Instead of trying to change them, figure out how to do what their leaders do and "sell" them what you want them to think. Scientific method is for reaching future scientists/geeks/techies, but we need to get some leverage with the average schmuck on the street.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  6. Don't let facts get in the way of good fun by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Sure, Good Science need not be completely dry and boring, but Discovery Channel etc edit for entertainment value, not fact. At the end of the day they are generating material which competes for eyeballs with sitcoms and Reality TV etc. No eyeballs means no ad revenue which means no airtime. Simple.

    Is it really a net positive for science if it gives a very skewed version of what science is and how science works?

    I would argue that the USA's peak of scientific interest was during the late 1960s when the space program was a national obsession and every second kid had a Nasa poster on their bedroom wall. Perhaps we have a lot of scientists and engineers now, but that is mainly a generational lag thing. Perhaps we know more about science now, but the interest is long gone. The current national obsessions (it there are any) are Britney Spears etc. The USA sure is not seeding the next generation of scientists.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Don't let facts get in the way of good fun by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is it really a net positive for science if it gives a very skewed version of what science is and how science works?

      My daughter got into Discovery's shows about fishes, and now sincerely wants to become a marine biologist so she can learn more about them. Yeah, I'd say it's a net positive.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:Don't let facts get in the way of good fun by Jerry · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What James Burke pointed out was that the difference between Science and Humanities is that Science is involved with discovering that which has never been known before, while Humanities is merely the re-arrangement of previously expressed thoughts.

      A friend of mine was working toward a Masters in English. I was working toward a Masters in Biochemistry. After the graduation we compared our theses. Hers was 350 pages and took her one year to write. Mine was 52 pages long. She asked how I could get by "so easily" with only a 52 page thesis. I showed her one page on which was the elucidation of a new chemical which was a non-toxic, broad-spectrum anti-biotic active at 1 mg/L, 3-Amino-3,4-diHydrox-carbostyril. (It's been over 40 years, I hope I remembered that correctly!) "See that page?", I asked. "It took a full year to be able to write that one page alone".

      While the pharmaceuticals looked at that compound they did not market it because they discovered that my research was public domain because the Welch Foundation Research grants (The Grape people) are all public domain.

      I also pointed out that if ANY other researcher published ahead of me I would have to go back to square one and start over because my work would no longer have been original. (The only way she would have to start over was if she was caught plagiarizing but then she could never start over unless another school accepted her, which is doubtful.)

      --

      Running with Linux for over 20 years!

  7. Re:immunization by Secrity · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am all for immunizations; my kids and cats have had all of their recommended shots. I do not know her reason for not trusting immunizations, but I can understand why she might not trust immunizations. There are serious questions regarding the safety of immunizations, especially regarding thimerosal preservatives.

  8. Re:What we have here by arotenbe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course, one big problem is that the scientific method is usually taught incorrectly. People frame it as if the scientific method explained everything about how actual scientists do actual science; there's this weird image that scientists just mechanically follow a set of steps, and science results. Exactly. I was taught in school that all scientists must follow some 7-step process I can't remember now, except to the extent that every single hypothesis, regardless of triviality, must be formally written down or it isn't science. Also, all scientists post their findings on three-panel cardboard sheets and display them at fairs.
    --
    Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
  9. There have always been stupid people by MC2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is not a new problem. People have always been ignorant of science. The current trend actually seems to be going in the right direction. These days there are far less people burned for being witches than in the past. Ignorance is a human flaw, and it can never be completely eradicated. I'm not saying that ignorance towards science isn't a problem, just that when you look at the big picture, the world is much better off today than ever before.

  10. Re:Socrates was right by DigiShaman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With programs like 3.2.1. Contact, Mr wizard's World, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and Myth Busters; Socrates would've been proud!

    Also worth noting, he would be crying in shame if he saw how our public educational system was ran...like a prison.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  11. Re:Obscurantism by philspear · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While we can definitely spot a phony in our own fields, our policing is somewhat toothless in the public sphere.

    If Dr. Smith from Bob Jones university gets on Fox news and says "Stem cells are made of ground up newborn babies and have absolutely no scientific merit, they just like killing babies," I can write angry letters but I can't actually arrest him (legally). There's no recourse there.

    The poisonous lies are already out there, readily absorbed by anyone who is inclined to be opposed to stem cells because their pastor says they're wrong, cementing their opinion into place. Even if someone competent were to appear on that same show and immediately point out the flaws with that, people would walk away with what they wanted, which is not always the correct rebuttal. They'll remember "Stem cells are babies! That's terrible! Ought to be a crime!" And they'll vote.

    Also, I think saying "anyone claiming 'the debate is over' on an area of active scientific dispute should be ignored" is pretty circular. Furthermore, debates are often over on a serious academic level while to non-academics the shouting match has just begun. Evolution is a good example of that. The debate is over, but the fundamentalists though will continue to argue for years to come.

    As for consensus, most of the public won't spend more than 5 minutes thinking about something. It would be great if we could get them to realize the truth in scientific facts through education, but if you try to teach someone about the fundamentals of natural selection, walk them through the proof, they're going to change the channel rapidly and still be swayed the other way. If you point out that 99.999% of scientists agree on natural selection, they're going to be resistant to that .001% and christian fundamentalists.

  12. Re:What we have here by bloody_liberal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Then it's not "science". It's just one more religion / belief system in a pile of others out to get converts.

    I hate to shake your tree, but in my view "science" is a system of beliefs; one that we inherited from the period of the Enlightenment, and we have been developing in the western world for a few centuries, and that has been working out remarkably well, and as such we wish to extend it and support it and spread it. However, there is no denying that it is "one more" belief system, and in some cases, not the best one to adhere to (as anyone who was healed from cancer through integrative medicine would testify).

    I am an academic and a scientist, and I believe in all my heart that in most cases science is the best thing we've got, and that its promotion is essential to the well being of our society.

    However, it is self-deception to think science is beyond being yet another system of beliefs, and a socially-constructed one (particularly in the case of social science). That in itself doesn't disqualify science from being the right thing to do; it just requires us, as scientists, to remember that we are being funded by the people, and for the people. And while Democracy and Science might be occasionally in opposition, we cannot afford to ignore either element of the equation...

  13. Just heard a talk from Henry Jenkins by csoto · · Score: 2, Interesting

    See http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html for bio. It was an interesting "invitation" for academics (scientists) to start blogging. Essentially, it's a different sort of "review" that helps academics write about their work in a more approachable fashion. Of course, the danger is to not presume to "dumb down" the research, but rather using the real-time feedback of the online community (whatever nerds happen to follow your field or recognize you as an expert in the field) to massage your message to assure it's understood correctly. He's an interesting speaker, but then again, he's an expert in "media" so, you'll find a lot of stuff that basically makes a lot of (cynical) nerds tune out...

    --
    There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
  14. Bring science to the people... by darekana · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At CureHunter we try to bring "Evidence Based Medicine" to the people.
    Data mining and mapping peer-reviewed research to find all the effective treatment options for any given disease.

    Taking "obesity" as an example, you can quickly see strong relationships with "insulin" and "exercise".
    And in a few clicks you can read the supporting article abstracts.

    Whether or not average people want to read scientific journal articles is debatable, but we can cut through the pharma marketing noise and bring them the sourced research that matters to them.

    With goal seeking algorithms and peer-reviewed source data I think information overload and Google spam can be fought.

    --
    Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
  15. If everyone was a scientist by lazy+genes · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am not very happy with the TV science programs. I did enjoy pbs absolute zero (now online at pbs .org or maybe .com) I think they did a very good job explaining the history of the chase and the personality traits of the scientists. They showed that not all scientists are driven by ego and greed. I Personally think, if everyone was a scientist society would quickly fail. The same could be said about politics and religion. But if you randomly mix the three it seems to work, or i should say survive. Only a small percentage of people are interested in science, and it wouldnt hurt to stop dumbing down the shows, it may help.

  16. Mythbusters! by slashbart · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mythbusters team attempts to show scientific reasoning, variable elimination, repeatability and other tenets of doing science. They also show the joy of it. And then they blow stuff up, which is enjoyable in itself :-)

    Many of the 'real' science programs on TV spend far less time on explaining the process of science, and instead present the subject (whatever it is), as a sequence of 'facts', with little discussion.

    I really think that Mythbusters is probably the best science promotion show on TV.