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Do Scientists Understand the Public?
Mab_Mass writes "The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has an interesting article on the relationship between scientists and the public. [Here's the paper itself, as a PDF.] Rather than point the finger at an 'ignorant' public, this article chastises the scientists for a poor understanding of how to communicate with non-technical people. With a look at the issues of climate change, nuclear waste disposal, genetics, and the future of the Internet, the article provides examples of how the experts in these fields are failing to present their message in a way that encourages public discussion and support."
That would not end well for the scientists.... Their brains would explode from having to dumb everything down for "public consumption."
While it would certainly be nice if scientists, as a class, were better at public communication, I think that this consideration misses an important point:
If somebody happens to be the best available information source on a given issue, failure to communicate with them is a major failing on your part.
All men may be created equal; but only some of them are worth consulting for advice.
The Media already has a monopoly on informing the public, scientific discoveries included.
Scientists strive to be factual and complete. Media strives to be sensational and give people what they expect, or want, to hear.
Some of the most exciting discoveries are those that indicate existing beliefs are incorrect. That doesn't jive with...well, you can see where I'm going with this: insert faith here.
Many scientists need to realize that their goals, ideals, and ethical standards may not be universal.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Thank you very much. Science is hard. If you're not willing to work at it, you won't understand it. If you're not willing to work at it, you won't. That's not the scientist's fault.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The public doesn't necessarily have to understand science. It's not their job.
I would say, however, that it's their job to at least not actively be misled, and that's the rub here. When you don't understand something, you can be neutral, and you haven't made life any worse for anybody.
But being vocal in the opposite direction, and showing an active aversion to learning it... that's something no scientist can fix. Worse, the more a scientist tries, the more you can take the multiple attempts to dumb it down as evidence that it can't be explained.
Scientists do need to learn to explain well, and that's an ongoing challenge to be met. But the vocal and anti-science part of the public is not a problem that can be met. That's damage that has to be worked around.
Science had a *huge* positive mind-share during the 20th Century, and the participants basically didn't have much problem with trickle-down to an eager public.
What has changed is that religions out of synch with reality and corporations that don't want to spend the money it takes to deal with reality have been running huge propaganda campaigns to cast doubt on many of the major findings of science, if not on the potential of science itself.
What scientists have to realize is that the nest of little chicks with hungry mouths turned up has been partly replaced with a nest of well-funded vipers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Unless they're anthropologists, or involved in some related field, they shouldn't be concerned with the public. They should focus on their field of expertise. When they deviate from this they're out of their element, thus just another laymen.
It seems ridiculously broad, since it contains all of those topics. Better to focus on one issue that is not being understood by the public, and find out the cause.
The public doesn't understand the meaning of words. Thus, they are not able to understand science. We agonize of the words we use in our publications, because we want it to be unambiguous. The public lacks the ability to care about the subtle differences between words.
The public doesn't necessarily have to understand science. It's not their job.
The median US citizen goes to school for 12 years. During that time, they all have to take at least one course on science. If after spending an entire course studying science (and probably many more than one class) they don't have an understanding of what science is and how it works, then I'd say the average US citizen has failed in their duty to become a rational and thinking being.
Science is one of the most basic and important mental tools for forming opinions based upon reason instead of irrational methods. Everyone should understand science, as well as some other, basic, tools for reasoning such as mathematics, logic, and critical evaluation. These should be core elements of every education.
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
That said, I'm having a hard time figuring out how one would explain Special Relativity - or, in my case, SVD-decompositions and unsupervised machine learning - to a six-year old.
Of course, that could simply mean I don't, in fact, understand either one.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
We're not general publics. We're people used to reading and understanding technical stuff. No matter if you're math/cs/science/engineer, you're nowhere near general public.
Communication is also a science. Like all other fields, it can be done ad hoc, or it can be taken seriously, studied, and used methodologically. I do say its the scientists fault if he/she refuses to take the time to work at and understand communication. Just as much as the public's inability to relate to the scientist.
Here is one big tip to all techies out there - listen. Do not jump to solutions. Do not tell people what they should do or want without the other person fully explaining themselves even though you may know the answer. Instead, listen, use deflective listening (rephrasing what the person said and lead them to continue), and lead them in a way that opens up your answer in clearer light. Consider it the foreplay to a response. Easy, and applicable to your occupation, friends, and significant other.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
The job of science is to seek, explore, and prove truths. It's not their job to be spin-doctors and make it palatable to hicks, politicians, corporations, and Bible-thumpers.
We don't need scientists to become more PR savvy, what we need is less sensationalist journalism, less politicizing of science, and less junk science originating from entities (corporate, political, social, or religious) invested in getting certain results that are all result in a woefully misinformed public, often stirred into a frenzy, with a mixture of half-truths or outright lies.
Maybe the scientists could promote ideas better with more social skill, and maybe the public could understand the science better with more science education, but none of that matters when there's a machine in the middle drowning out the communication with it's own noise.
Damn straight. I keep getting told that I need to communicate better with my managers. I didn't become an engineer because of my fantastic communication skills, but my managers became managers because of their communication skills.
Scientists aren't the ones who need to explain it to 'normal' people, we need layers from scientists, through press offices, to journalists, who all need to do their job without claiming every minor discovery will change the world.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
What's so damn special about a scientist that they've absolved from any social interaction with the public? Are they elite minds of an ivory temple never to be questioned or expect a layman answer from? While there is no rule that states scientist should try and understand the public, there isn't a rule stating they shouldn't either. What ever happened to the concept of contributing to society through teaching those that don't know?
I could, but I find it more likely to blame the assholes whose continued paychecks depend on not understanding it.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
From the article, "Republicans who are college graduates are considerably less likely to accept the scientific consensus on climate change than those who have received less education."
That's the crux of the problem right there. No, not Republicans - irrationality, distrust and dishonesty. It's not communication skills that we're short on, it's moral and intellectual honesty.
The reason scientists are not believed now is because there is a deliberate campaign in place to discredit them by any means. Because they know most people can't or won't read the actual journals, the same cynical geniuses who bald-faced lied about the effects of smoking are teaching a new generation that scientists as a class are motivated by the same venality, mendacity and say-anything-to-get-approval motivations as are the rest of the world.
It's pretty easy for people to believe this, because we recognise that there's some of this in all of us. Indeed, it's trivially easy to find individual examples of greed, jealousy, laziness and other human weaknesses in any field. But it's a lie, of course, because it's not true of scientists as a class, and therefore not true of Science. Science, by definition, is the removal of these weaknesses from the pursuit of knowledge.
The problem is that doubt is a stronger weed than trust. When we are no longer honest as a society, we cannot conceive of honesty in others, let alone in systems.
This problem can't be fixed by explaining or communicating better, because anyone with the patience to listen is almost certainly not part of the problem group. The problem is that those with an unreasoning, idée fixe view of the world are no longer focused on the redeeming elements of human nature such as charity, kindness and respect. They've been transformed into crusaders [sic] against everything that's wrong in the world. As a result the dominant elements of modern culture today are intolerance, distrust, and cynicism deeper than we've seen in generations.
The biggest problem facing scientists today, therefore, is bad timing. They're trying to save a world that doesn't trust them to help.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
FTFY.
. But I think it's a mistake to take the current theories of the day as "The Truth" (they're so often over turned by later research)
A good scientist is a professional skeptic and will absolutely agree with that. "The Truth" is not the goal of science. It's not even a possible outcome. Science cannot guarantee that we're moving our knowledge closer to "The Truth." It is pretty good at moving our knowledge in a medium-term useful direction. And when we discover something wildly new, like relativity or quantum mechanics, we branch off in a new direction while simultaneously continuing in the old. The most flexible and brilliant scientists send a feeler off toward totally new territory, ***maybe*** making it somewhat more likely that we're approaching "The Truth" in a long term sense... but probably if we're moving toward "Truth," it is purely by accident.
It's still always possible that human science started with some sort of bias (sensory, cognitive) that makes us very, very wrong in a big picture sense. I think it's important to remember that such a possibility exists, but that it's a matter of philosophy until you can present some evidence for that idea.
Science is a way to discard those ideas that are obviously wrong while keeping around a bunch of useful ideas that haven't been shown to be wrong yet. That's what it's for, and it is the best system we've got for that.
I think it's really important that the public understands that scientists are trying to understand the universe but that many of them are deep skeptics who would be willing to completely change everything they think if presented with appropriate EVIDENCE. That's what makes science so useful and strong. It frustrates me that so much of the media discourse about science is focusing on the internal disagreements and the constant overturning of old ideas and pointing to it like it's a BAD thing. It's frustrating. It's kind of like having someone point at you in grade school and call out to all your schoolmates that you're stupid because you're WEARING GLASSES. It should be totally obvious to everyone who's ever seen you that you wear glasses, and yet, in certain social circumstances, people can wield power by pointing out an obvious fact and saying loudly enough that it's a negative thing.
You're absolutely right that you shouldn't look for "Truth" in science. Any good scientist should be on board with you on that. Our most important job is to be professional skeptics and to construct ideas and gather evidence that disproves other ideas and results. That's scientific progress, and having people point at you and make fun of you for doing that shows a certain immaturity, just the same as winning friends by making fun of someone's glasses.
Here's an idea. Go study some fucking climatology for yourself and figure out what's going on instead of sitting in an armchair bitching about "hiding the decline" and making slimy ad hominem attacks about grant dollars.
Too many members of the general public are ignorant of science, what its basic tenants are, how it works, why it has been so successful and therefore why it deserves everyone's respect and attention, especially when scientists warn us about things like tornados, the AIDS virus, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, lead based paint, and releasing too much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, teaching people the facts about the universe we live in is difficult and expensive. But when society fails to educate its members sufficiently about science, to teach them to think critically, then the purveyors of disinformation -- typically organized religions and corporate marketing departments -- are always there to enlighten them with their own versions of the truth.
What can we do about this? First, never cut back on education. An enlightened society is an educated one and maintaining it as such is a endless task. Second, make education accessible to everyone at no cost. Three, we have to be hard on ourselves to ensure that our teachers and educational institutions continue to live up to the highest standards. Four... spend money on marketing facts that are both generally accepted by the scientific community and important to society.
How do we pay for all that? Higher basic taxes, I guess (it will eventually pay for itself), but perhaps also by levying a tax on top of what those purveyors of disinformation spend on advertising.
All the talking past each other that is going on in this thread.
On one hand we have the non-scientists, who are arguing that someone who has spent the last decade or so in science-related postgraduate work should also be perfectly capable of explaining that work to a layman.
On the other hand, we have the scientists assuming the high horse and arguing that "we don't have to explain it to you; if you can't understand it you should learn more science or just take our word for it."
Surprisingly enough, the best answer is (as usual) found somewhere in the middle ground.
There are some topics that can't be explained in simple terms and require a certain level of expertise to understand. For example, I wouldn't expect a scientist to be able to understand the intricate nature of 20th century literary criticism any more than I expect to be able to understand anything other than basic physics concepts.
(cue a reductive joke about Literature here - the best ones tend to come from computer science majors who think that literature is "easy" and their "Intro to poetry" class gave them all the knowledge they will ever need to understand deconstruction, allowing them to crack a joke that betrays the fact that they know absolutely nothing about it)
I know that was alot of words just to say "some people are better at certain things than others, and people who are experts at certain things often gain that expertise at the expense of other things." But looking at the comments section for this article honestly makes the article seem more accurate - there is quite a bit of self aggrandization going on here and not much actual communication.
There are lots of reasons people have lost faith in science, Chernobyl, Bhopal, Challenger, Vioxx, WMDs, Cold Fusion, and the general lack of trust in authority that has grown since the 60s.
With the exception of Cold Fusion, these examples seem to be reasons to not trust corporations and political expediency - nothing to do with science. As for Cold Fusion, I guess some optimists have been saying it's "ten years away" for 25 years and some frauds have been perpetrated but I don't see how science as a whole is painted with that brush.
And really there is no reason to blindly believe scientists or anyone else: it's kind of health to ask for proof, as long as you don't keep denying once you receive it.
Sure, but I think evolution is on pretty solid ground which makes about 40% of US citizens deniers and another 20% uninformed at best.
Incidentally, you blame corporations, but a lot of the anti-science movement corresponds to the anti-corporation movement as well: the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO propaganda isn't coming from corporations any more than the anti-evolutionists.
There are crack pots on both sides of most issues, but I think a lot of the anti-corparate based hysteria is a reaction to the fact that they have a pretty bad record when it comes to "science" effecting public safety. I'm all for holding their feet to the fire. On a final note, I think any anti-evolutionists that say they are "questioning authority" are delusional since they are typically "answering to a higher authority."
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
"there is no valid [hypothesis, to test, to theory] path, inasmuch as no AGW hypothesis can be described as any more than a projection into the future. Which is why it cannot be said that there is a valid AGW theory."
RF=5.35ln(c1/c2) - Fourier 1824.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
While there is some merit to the argument that many scientists can be poor communicators, the best communication skills are going to be stumped when faced with massive cognitive dissonance. Far too many of the US public wallow in deliberate ignorance or the rants of people who cater to their prejudices. You have a huge segment of the media industry there that is based around stimulating emotional reactions to trump reasoned arguments. Their opponents hold most of the media propagation cards, but it's the scientists' fault for being poor communicators. Talk about blaming the victim.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
We don't NEED to communicate with non-technical people. It has worked so far for well over 100 years of outstanding technological progress - why stop now? The drones can go on mopping floors, cleaning windows, and building buildings and we will go on doing our thing yeah? It's called specialization. Just like I don't expect my builder to understand or be interested in the carnitine shuffle, I have neither the time nor desire to get into the details of the local building code regarding a particular section of wall.
The author deserves an "F" for failing to understand that specialization is a good thing, and specialized fields REQUIRE their own efficient technical jargon. When two doctors speak "lingua medica" it's because it's faster, more convenient and more specific than common English. It's not to "say bad things about patients without them understanding". However why should any technical person lower themselves to the level of the common burger-flipper?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.