Getting The Public To Listen To Good Science

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."

Comments

Yeah, but can you 'prove' it?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Think globally, act locally

[bperkins]

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

Simple.

[Ransak]

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.

Re:Entertainment value

[johnsonav]

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.

Re:What we have here

[couchslug]

"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.

Re:Obscurantism

[philspear]

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.