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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."
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?
People have been taught, for several generations now, that causality is optional, that science is for geeks, that geeks are there to serve the jocks, that man needs to serve the state, and that perception is reality. Why would they care about your silly little experiments?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Well when a major chunk of the population believes the earth is only umpteen thousands of years old, I don't think a presentation of any style or quality is going to get them to listen to what science has to say in any meaningful capacity unless it easily and directly benefits them.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Anyway, what is Good Science? A lot of the more entertaining science is Bad Science. For example, Discovery Channel segments on dinosaurs often feature people making roaring extrapolations: find a tooth fragment and say that they have found something from a dinosaur that would have been 25 ft long and run at 40 mph. What bullshit.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Unfortunately, this is a war that we are unlikely to win. The hearts and minds of the populace are mostly centered between the stomach and groin. What the AAS report is basically saying is that science has to "advertise" - just like everything else.
Then it's not "science". It's just one more religion / belief system in a pile of others out to get converts.
The only thing we can do is teach the scientific method - in schools, at home, in conversations. It's the only weapon we've got, however small.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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
the only way we're going to see the public at large be able to evaluate claims and discard the "bad scinece"/pseudoscience is by starting in the schools. As long as there is a problem conveying basic science concepts to the younger members of our population, there is no hope of solving the problem in adults. Dover, Florida, Kansas etc. all examples where science was dumbed down, misrepresented or ignored entirely in favor of teaching pseudoscience that contributes nothing to the understanding of the world around people. It's terribly disturbing as a biologist to see that the educational system is as it stands, a complete and utter failure especially in regard to the major sciences and that there are little or no plans to remedy the situation.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The lack of emphasis on Science, Maths and good ol' Logic during schooling, especially in the earlier years, is to blame for the lack of public interest in real science. Many of my relatives and friends just don't care about how things work, as long as they do. That, the natural curiosity to find answers for the "how" questions, is what is lacking in society today in general. The only time people want to know it seems, is if they are in danger or if their wallets are involved.
The problem is, the majority of the "ruling class" in management, government and all other areas are generally not scientifically inclined nor are they actively promoting science. They influence education policy and funding for research, which trickles down to the education system and the public's view of science.
I personally found algebra and calculus to be interesting and challenging, the latter is what drove a lot of my friends away, when I first learned it ages ago. I know that if I had worst teachers or if my father weren't an engineer, my feelings towards would have been quite different. Until scientists are more popular than movie stars and mathematicians are more well known than recording artists, the root of the problem will still be that science is just not popular enough to be seen as interesting or useful.
The fact that people actually care about Paris Hilton is also a nice solid data point in my suggestion that people's perspective on what's interesting and important is just waaaay off the mark from reality.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
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."
Except that Global Warming people actually have EVIDENCE. You don't.
The current problem is that we have too many people who are willing to tell lies to support their political views. They have found that the lies are much more acceptable when you have an authority figure telling them to the populace. Thus, you get Creationists pretending to be scientists when speaking to the public. The same goes with Global Warming deniers and other followers of Pseudoscience.
People don't trust science anymore because they have been lied to by people like you for so long they don't know what to trust or who to believe. One group of "scientists" tell them one thing and the next day another tells them something else.
We have gotten into this mess because people like you started to believe that Science somehow had to reflect their own political opinions, no matter what the evidence. (Like the melting polar icecaps.)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
The Toronto Star, the largest daily circulation newspaper in Canada, ran a story a few weeks back about an "inventor" who has discovered a method to get energy out of nothing, with a few electric motors and magnets.
The idiots at The Star ran the story with a straight face, including the financial backing that the "inventor" has raised. Now, I don't know if the "inventor" is an honest kook or a fraudster, but the sad fact is that a major newspaper has no one on staff who ever took a physics course or has any scientific knowledge. YOU CAN'T GET ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING!!!
Sadly, the idiocy at The Star is not limited to science. And this "inventor" is going to bilk quite a few idiots out of their savings and/or venture capital.
At some point you have to say there's one born every minute.
You seem to be a pretty good example of how pseudo-scientists try to paint themselves as victims, and thus serve the cause of disillusioning the public to science by misinformation, strawmen and outright lies.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Wow, I rarely get to see so many strawman arguments in one post.
Anyway, this does raise an interesting question: is it ok to use such sensationalism even though it's based on good science? It seems to be the only way to get people to listen.
End transmission.
And to insinuate that weather and climate are the same thing pretty much indicates you don't have the foggiest notion what the hell you're talking about, which leads me to believe that you are probably the last person on Earth I'd want to get information on a climatological debate with.
All science is tentative, but thus far the denier community has tried to push that to an extreme, and are even invoking similar kinds of arguments (invoking conspiracies, questioning the peer-review process, getting lists of "scientists" who disagree with global warming that often include non-climatologists and even non-scientists) that evolution-deniers use.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh well. I still regard him as the greatest American.
Greater than George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Oooookaaaaayyy...
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
"Do not attempt to stop chainsaw with hands or genitals."
The moment you say "do not" someone will. Therefore that chainsaw manufacturer is helping humanity.
I don't preview or spellcheck.
I have a "special" dentists chair in my basement. It's very comfortable so they don't "need" to move. Then I make the air really humid so that they don't need to blink which really helps make the toothpicks in their eyes much more tolerable. Then I just play them simple, repeatative educational videos for a short time... say about 72 hours or so. I find people are rather receptive to new ideas in the right environment.
If you put all idiots on an island and make a reality tv show out of it, who would watch it?
See Most scientific papers are probably wrong for details.
Maybe we have to be a little less sensitive. When her baby dies (or is left sterile, or with heart damage) from one of those diseases everyone gets immunized against, someone (better yet lots of someones) should point out that she killed him. The news should carry the story.
I'm irritated that my health plan doesn't properly cover real medical expenses like wisdom tooth extraction or eye exams, but it does cover naturopathy. Why do I have to pay for someone's placebo habit?
It's not my responsibility to "reverse the trend" - it's my responsibility to make certain that people that choose to be stupid don't get in my way. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone of average intelligence not taking the time to try to understand the world around them.
Ignorance has consequences. Teach people to be responsible for their own learning, and you don't need to "dumb it down" for them. Pander to them and you're stuck as their babysitter for the rest of their lives.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
Part of the problem, at least here in the U.S. (land of self-centeredness and instant gratification) is that science often fails to give people the answers they want to hear, or the results they want to have.
This is especially true when it comes to medical science. As far as medicine has advanced, there are still diseases and maladies that cannot be cured or even mitigated by current knowledge and practices. It can be very hard, if you are someone suffering from something of that sort, to accept that there may be little, or even nothing, that can be done. Desperation can cause even basically level-headed people to seek out untested or even already debunked alternative treatments that may at best have a mild placebo effect, more likely will do nothing to alleviate their suffering, and at worst can worsen the condition or hasten the person's ultimate demise.
Religion, obviously, can be a powerful impediment to acceptance of science as well. If your faith stands or falls with a literal reading of Genesis, then you will not, indeed CANnot accept scientific evidence to the contrary.
Finally, one thing I've always noted about humans is that we don't like "grey areas." We want answers that are complete, definitive, and satisfying. The fact that science can sometimes be wrong, and theories changed as more evidence is gathered, is unsettling to those who don't understand the scientific method, and leads them to have little faith in its conclusions.
This can only be remedied by not only pushing basic science courses hard and early in school (something way more comprehensive than that which produces the mere ability to answer a few multiple-choice questions on some standardized test), but instruction in reasoning and critical thinking as well. And I don't see that happening, not by a long shot. If you have a child, and want him or her to be scientifically literate, you pretty much have to teach them yourself. Schools today are about establishing minimal (very minimal) levels of ability, and high (very high) levels of conformity. Teaching too much science threatens the former goal, while instruction in critical thinking thwarts the latter.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Making a baby twin of yourself, WHAT is the big deal? It's like an offspring, or a younger orphaned sibling in your legal guardianship. The media talk about it like it's some kind of proven heresy or something. I'm not worried about clones at all.
You can't take the sky from me...
Then again, every once in a while, someone hits on a previously unknown fundamental breakthrough that turns the rules as we know them on their head. Think Gallileo, Newton, Einsten, et al. It DOES happen.
That said, it's highly unlikely that the inventor of the "free energy" stuff is actually on to anything. I take his claims with a truckload of salt, but am willing to see what is really going on there.
It is possible that he hit on something, but pretty highly unlikely.
"YOU CAN'T GET ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING"
Very true. But if someone DOES hit on a way to tap into something we've been heretofore unaware of, that doesn't make it energy from nothing, just energy from something we didn't know about before -- the same as fusion, fission, and antimatter anniahlation would have been unthinkable in 1670.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an exceptional (and entertaining - bonus) piece in 1994 about selling Evolution to the lay public - combating the Creationist spin that evolution is 'only a theory' by calling it a 'scientific fact'. He justified this with... well crap, I should let the good Professor say it much better than I could: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html
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.
There are other examples that are not political - a lot of the "safety reminders" on products come to mind. For an amusing view on this, I'd recommend 2 the Ranting Gryphon's rant on America. He's a knucklehead, but he's not an idiot and he's funny.
I read somewhere recently that a recent study determined that 25% of the American public sincerely doesn't want to think. They sincerely want to be told what to do and what to think. That they tend to be religious only makes sense. The problem is these people don't want SCIENTIFIC truth, which is always tentative and only true until proven otherwise. This is especially so with the larger questions - where did life start, how did the universe come to be, etc. Sure, we have scientific ideas, but they tend to change over time, and that is something these dunderheads can't cope with. They need UNCHANGING ABSOLUTE TRUTH (tm), and if it comes from some nonsensical piece of crap written by obscure semiliterate Israeli goatherders 3000 years ago, all the better.
Seriously - people don't want science. They want TRUTH, and scientific truth just doesn't cut it - it requires a sense of doubt, and that is something their 1/2 watt brains can't seem to muster. Things are VERY VERY bad, and they are not getting better, and odly, science isn't doing it for them.
Why? Because for every bible thumping retard, there's a dozen who go along with it because it works. How?
1. day care
2. community
3. elder care
4. entertainment
5. The Club
thee are more than that - many more - but churches provide things in the USA that secular society doesn't, and it's the "glue" type things that are not only valuable, but REQUIRED to keep a society together. Example: if you don't have much family in the area (and given the mobile nature of the USA, who does...) you need a baby sitter. Well, so and so from church has a teenager... You need to get some food to granny, but aren't goign to be able to do it. Call so and so from church who lives near her. They owe you a favour anyway... And ten there are the church picnics where people get together and the kids play and it's a nice way to blow a sunday afternoon. And then there's the church youth groups where the kids learn abstinence and practice giving blow jobs. It goes on and on. Yes, it is horrible, yes it is stupid, but in its own stumpy retarded way, it WORKS as long as people don't think too much or often about what the fuck it's all really about or for. THAT requires DOUBT, and that leads to SCIENCE.
So, I don't think tarting up science is going to amount to a hill of beans as long as American society spends half its wealth on the military industrial complex, a quarter on the infrastructure, and some tiny amount on culture and the things that make culture work. Other societies don't have this problem. The USA does, and as long as secular society refuses to step up to the plate and provide the REQUIRED social services for a functioning society, religion will be there to fill in the gap and own the minds and hearts of the retarded half of America.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Why do I have to pay for someone's placebo habit?
Presumably because they're cheaper than real medicine.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How many of your local papers had big articles about high school seniors signing letters of intent to attend one college or another on the football team?
How many had articles about students being accepted to academically prestigious schools (e.g. MIT, CalTech, etc.)?
How much funding is there for new locker room equipment? How much for science labs? (my daughter's high school still has the lab benches installed when the school was built 30 years ago.. they also have artificial turf in the football stadium.)
It sounds more like you don't like the side that's cheering that agenda, so this ends up a case of guilty by association.
"I'll never understand it" is the typical reply when I show someone one of my papers, and many of these same papers were praised by reviewers as "well-written". I attempt to clarify, and they dismiss it out-of-hand. Part of the problem is the requirement that scientific language must possess a fairly high degree of sophistication to be published - academic writing is very far from the 5th grade level you're supposed to generally write at to be understood. You can't cater to both the reviewers and the general public, it seems.
:)
I don't talk down to people I show my research, but the very act of presenting the research to them in its unadulterated form is tantamount to talking down without saying anything. For that matter, a lot of scientists won't get much of it either, but there's some sort of unwritten rule that says you're supposed to act as if you understand everything written in any paper you ever read on the first run-through - I guess it's there to preserve scientists' egos or something
Obscurantism (from the Latin obscurans, "darkening") is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known. There are two common senses of this: (1) opposition to the spread of knowledge--a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. One serious problem is scientists (and policy makers) deliberately misleading people with pseudo-science. Scientists regularly use their credentials and objective observers to try to promote their own political or ideological agendas. The solution to this part of the problem isnt just better education for the public - its the scientific community doing a better job of policing itself. For example, anyone claiming "the debate is over" on an area of active scientific dispute should be ignored. Same goes for anyone claiming consensus=science. http://tinyurl.com/23p4la Not surprisingly, these ostensibly credentialed snake oil salesmen are most often found at the intersection of public policy.
"The clear message of the session was that a command of facts is never going to be good enough to convince most segments of the public, whether they're parents or Congress. How the information is conveyed can matter more than its content, and different forms of communication may be necessary for different audiences."
Translation: Sophistry trumps logic in public debate.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
... is a big problem. Your report could look honest, open, have some humor etc etc, and that will have nothing to do with the fact that it is good or bad science. You can even honestly think that your are an expert in whatever topic is about. But still, it could be very wrong. As in the universe there is no single atom of justice (Pratchett dixit), the same goes for that kind of bells and whistles you want to see in the "truth" (or how it is presented). Wonder how much scientific reports presenting that the earth were flat, or the center of the universe, or that we were created by a superior being had all those attributes, even with the addendum of being of "common sense" at that time.
Still is pending how you distinguish good from bad science, of both can be presented in similar ways. Maybe some trusted authority/organization/etc can say that it is good, or at least, that the followed methodology is right.
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.
There are serious questions regarding the safety of immunizations, especially regarding thimerosal preservatives.
Thimerosal preservatives haven't been used in vaccines for children in years. Long enough, in fact, that the much ballyhooed (but never demonstrated) link between that and autism has been disproven because autism rates haven't decreased since the discontinuance of thimerosal.
-- Alastair
Unfortunately this is not longer the case. It is also the case that a naturapath may pay as much and spend as much time for their certificate as an educated medical professional. It is a very worrying series of confidence tricks that is being perpetrated on students as well as the sick. To be quite serious a roleplaying game book contains more credible information on herbs than some of the stuff these people are given to read.
Clearly we should find a way for Britney Spears to popularize good science.
What, you mean like Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics?
-- Alastair
The problem is that it goes both ways. If you look at the data on the chicken pox vaccine, it is clear that it was pushed through for profit reasons and not because of good science. So, should we mock the people that did or did not get their kid the chicken pox vaccine that lead to their death, or at the very least didn't prevent it. Now, I'm not saying that all vaccines are bad, but if a more suspicious individual than me took a look at the chicken pox vaccine, I can certainly understand why they would start getting nervous about other vaccines.
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
Uh huh. Sure it is. Got any real references? You talk about "scientific realities" but I don't see any peer reviewed references. Even if you come up with a bad vaccination that might do harm to a small minority of recipients, occasionally (which happens - we just had a bad batch of mumps vaccine during an outbreak about three months ago), that is a LONG way from showing that getting vaccinated in general is a bad idea. Please note the conspicuous absence of polio (which can cause paralysis to the point where the victim may not be able to breathe unassisted), rubella, (which causes all sorts of nasty effects if a pregnant woman gets it), smallpox (which kills or maims), measles (estimated to have killed 200 million worldwide in the last 150 years), and mumps (can cause infertility and hearing loss). Yes, those are wikipedia articles. Yes, each one references the important statements with multiple peer reviewed sources.
Take mumps for example (probably the least dangerous of the group). In that outbreak I mentioned, with the tainted vaccine, there were three people who had mild allergic reactions. No long term damage. The nasty side effects from mumps are fairly rare, but without a vaccine the disease used to be VERY common, so those rare complications affected a good number of people. Far more than are hurt (even in minor ways) by the vaccine itself.
I realise I'm probably wasting my time replying, but you never know.
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
Would you listen to someone who views you in that way?
People don't listen to geeky experts because
- The average person has much greater emotional intelligence than the average geek. I had to learn that the hard way. We think we are communicating factually, and the average Joe is hearing something completely different, because he is listening on a broader and higher level. The things he is hearing don't invite trust.
- Experts are so 1950's. I grew up in the 60's, when "Question Authority" was a radical slogan to put on your bumper. Now days, no one accepts authority automatically, but I remember when they did. Bottom line, the experts put forth a lot of bad information that led many people to do things they deeply regretted. Remember the insulin treatments in "A Beautiful Mind"? That's why I don't trust experts, either.
- People learned long ago that experts are just as political and dogmatic as fundamentalists, and they can be just as misguided.
BTW, some of the postings make me embarrassed to be a geek. I don't see disrespect as a sign of intelligence.Which is why the should teach scientific method in school and not just scientific "facts" (which change all the time anyways, as they should). For most people science is "what most scientists believe", or worse, "what the press thinks scientists believe", as opposed to a very successful method for uncovering the laws of nature.
You don't seem to understand the problem at all. The problem isn't that the chicken pox vaccine causes a small amount of side effects. The problem is that the vaccine DELAYS infections of chicken pox. With polio, even if the vaccine only delays the desease, you are better off being paralized as an adult is better than as a child. Every day you don't have the desease is a win. Chicken pox on the other hand is a major childhood illness, but if delayed into adulthood becomes seriously life threatening. Your comment that children who get chicken pox would "presumably died anyway" is exactly the kind of belief in bad science that you are complaining about. Catching chicken pox as an otherwise healthy child is less dangerous than playing high school football. On the other hand, if people do not regularly get their vaccine, they massivly increase the risk getting the disease as an adult, which is truely life threatening. The problem isn't that there is contaminated chicken pox vaccines. The problem is that the specific vaccine is a trade of short term profits and saving a week of hassle for a very serious threat to life as an adult.
So, given your post, you are clearly a victim of bad science.
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.
Probably the most misleading instance where science has been ignored or seriously damaged is the teaching of creationism in science courses or downgrading of evolution by christians who do not like it because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. To teach creationism as coming anywhere near science or being something of which there is any real positive evidence of it is simply lying to children. Evolution is an extremely well supported scientific theory that has a large amount of physical evidence to back it up. Science must be based on physical evidence, not religious superstitions and fantasies. To mention creationism in the same breath as science and suggest it is a competitor to evolution is an insult to everything that science is and that which has made so much progress to our understanding the world better and getting the truths about the universe. If religious fantasy had prevailed, we would still think the earth was flat and stars were little fires several miles above the surface, and that the edge of the earth dropped off into an abyss populated by monsters who ate ships that dared fall into it. Creationism like these theories should be in social studies where it belongs or used only as an example of old, outdated absurd ideas that science has proven wrong.
In this long list of comments, if this point has already been made and I missed it, please accept my apologies. The main outlet for scientific information is what most call 'main stream media'. As long as those in that industry have an agenda (and make no mistake - they do) you will get anything that is reported spun to their way of thinking no matter what the facts are. They are not the only ones, of course. The so called 'expert scientists' also have their own agendas and most have nothing to do with advancing science. So any findings they may produce will also get skewed so as to further those agendas, whatever they may be. How do you get integrity in these two fields? Many claim it but few seem to deliver it. And many who do are silenced by the agenda driven. These are normal human failings. I don't have a solution. But until you can insure what the public digests is not tainted with personal opinions and agendas you will never get what you are striving for - the acceptance of real science by that public.
I think a major barrier to science education in America is our refusal to adopt (what is here called) the metric system.
"Gram" and "millimeter" may as well be Martian.
There's an advantage to reporting your mass in kilograms - the numbers are smaller so you feel better about them!