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Scientists Seen As Competent But Not Trusted By Americans
cold fjord writes The Woodrow Wilson School reports, "If scientists want the public to trust their research suggestions, they may want to appear a bit 'warmer,' according to a new review published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The review, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that while Americans view scientists as competent, they are not entirely trusted. This may be because they are not perceived to be friendly or warm. In particular, Americans seem wary of researchers seeking grant funding and do not trust scientists pushing persuasive agendas. Instead, the public leans toward impartiality. 'Scientists have earned the respect of Americans but not necessarily their trust,' said lead author Susan Fiske, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs. 'But this gap can be filled by showing concern for humanity and the environment. Rather than persuading, scientists may better serve citizens by discussing, teaching and sharing information to convey trustworthy intentions.'"
Fox news goes on and on to perpetuate the idea that scientists would rather be shamed and discredited by releasing junk science to receive grant money than be honored as brilliant to discover something profound. I swear those people are nitwits.
I pity USA scientists. It must be hard to live and work in a country where the powers that be turned all facts into opinions.
Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
The entire goddamn point of science is that you prove the theory using experiment, publish a paper explaining what you did and how you did it, and then anybody else [who is competent] can go read the paper and reproduce similar results for themselves.
The real issue here is the part I put in square brackets as an aside: "anybody [who is competent]." It's true that if you're not competent then you need to trust something. But what you need to trust is not the individual scientists themselves, but rather that competent people will, as a group, follow the process and weed out the disproven theories.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's very challenging for non-scientists to tell the difference between good science, obsolete science that is used to sell defective products, and charlatan science - 'lipstick on a pig'.
If real scientists want respect, they need to call out Wall Street for all the ways it profits from the obesity epidemic.
Maybe scientists would be friendlier if the 'average American' wasn't a proctologic habersashery.
It is not a scientists job to teach people science. Their job is to do science. Furthermore, the "climategate" scandal has demonstrated very clearly that if a scientist dares try to engage the public to any meaningful extent, then they'd be inundated with either trolls, or assholes who insist on pushing their own personal politics.
And then, of course, scientists will get raked over the coals because they are not allowed to be a human being, who gets frustrated and bitchy when being forced to deal with such crap.
The problem is that there is no one clear problem. The media don't know jack about science, but insist on reporting it. North American culture in general has become profoundly anti-intellectual. There are other issues as well, but those are the most directly relevant.
What we need are more *spokespersons* for science. More Neil deGrasse Tysons. People who BOTH understand the science AND have the skill to teach it to laypeople. Hell, IMO general media should be banned outright from discussing scientific topics, since they don't seem to be able to do anything BUT screw it up.
I'd rather trust an elected government than corporate leaders I can do nothing about. Politicians are far from perfect, but they are one step up from capitalists, and unlike capitalists, the people have the power to kick them out every four or so years.
I'd wager this has much less to do with scientists coming off as "warm/fuzzy" and more to do with most people’s innate distrust of those that deliver either information they don't agree with (or more specifically that doesn't agree with their preconceived notions) or information that makes them feel stupid - when the majority hears about something they are too ignorant to understand, they don't like/trust the person with that idea - but that's just human nature.
While "scientists" do have their problems (journals / peer review circle-jerks / et al) I fear the only way they'll come across as "warm/fuzzy" would be if they "dumb it down" even more and that's not a direction we should be going, as we're already down to -11.
True, but when it comes down to it, I'll trust a scientists' word about something scientific over a celebrity's word or a preacher's word.
For example, Scientist A, a respected immunologist, says that vaccines prevent disease and are good. Celebrity M, a former Playboy model, says they're filled with icky stuff and should be banned. Too many Americans would listen to the celebrity over the scientist or give their views equal weight when there is no comparison: The scientist should win out.
For another example, Scientist B, a geologist, says that the evidence points to the Earth being 4.54 billion years. Preacher Z claims that the Bible says it is only 10,000 years old. Again, too many Americans would either give them equal weight or would side with the preacher.
Avoiding the authority fallacy is a good thing, but this doesn't mean that a person's knowledge of a field should be disregarded in all cases.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Hey come on, you're talking about a group of people who voted for Bush instead of Kerry because they'd rather have a beer with Bush.
Forgetting that Bush is a recovering alcoholic.
Have fun drinking with that guy!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Rather than persuading, scientists may better serve citizens by discussing, teaching and sharing information to convey trustworthy intentions.'"
So, the study calls for presenters rather than scientists? It is difficult to find balance, but I'm inclined to think that scents should just do the science, and they'd better be well left alone. It's up to the (gasp!) media or to their institution's press department to sensibilise the public in general to the science being done and what it means.
This isn't a problem unique to science. For decades, IT people have been told that they need to focus less on technology and more on "the business".
F**K! If they don't focus on the technology, who will? Or can? Might as well not have technology people.
Yes, there is very much a place for the people who can plant feet in two different worlds. But don't go around expecting much progress if you demand that everybody be that kind of person.
Trust is a pretty big thing here in America. Gravity? sure, i get it, i use that every day (unless its not still free. i do have a budget you know.) But sir isaac newton? seriously shady guy. how can i trust someone that looks that much like Weird Al Yankovik but never once dropped a mix tape...you have to approach the guy kinda carefully. dispersive prisms are sweet, but did you know that Pink Floyds dark side of the moon album uses them too? Isaac newton probably invented them so he could have a mix tape, but through the magic of Pink Floyd (prisms help roger waters rock harder) +1 to Isaac for helping out (maybe he can be trusted now. maybe.)
and climate change? sure, i get that and its been explained and it helped al gore invent the internet and now flights to florida are a lot cheaper than before. But 300 scientists around the world? hold on. can they be trusted? i mean what if they dont wash their hands after going to the bathroom? You cant trust people who dont use their turn signals either, so those guys are right out. What if climate change was secretly used in 9/11? do those scientists support the troops? EXACTLY. these are important questions about science that keep us up at night. Also if I disagree with it, then that makes it a THEORY and not a science fact, which means it can only be used in movies until they make it come true.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Stop paying your landlord, or utility companies and see what happens.
If you stop paying your landlord, you no longer get to use someone else's land and buildings. This comes as a shock to you?
If you own the land instead, and stop paying your property taxes, the government will take your property away.
Your argument for trusting politicians over landlords seems silly.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Reasonable grammar is for conformist sheep!
An intelligent leader does not need to be a scientist, however, an intelligent leader needs to be scientifically literate. I feel that the lack of scientific literacy and statistical literacy as a whole has created a great gap between understanding what is going on and trusting people who have the bests interests of the people at heart. However, some exceptions exist. I honestly feel Pope Francis has been one of the best leaders of the Catholic church in the last century. I don't know if he will exceed Pope John Paul II or not, but in a short time, he has undone a lot of damage that his predecessor did. I feel his scientific background has assisted in this.
On top of that, we have an economy built on short term gains. This has created a lot of negative perceptions on things that need to be done. We can't push alternative energy because we will destroy the economy, but China and Germany have been doing just that and their economies are booming.
Sadly, what we are being told by this study is that our researchers need a PR team. Everyone can imagine what that will do to the cost of research and development. On a positive note, we might now have justification for employing the people who spent all of that time getting marketing degrees.
Place something witty here
>Peer review has nothing to do with trust
Of course it does - not with trustng the scientists, but with trusting the results. Every single human is rife with personal bias, self deception, and carelessness. Peer review is the process in which you distinguish the results that are reflective of reality, that can be trusted, from those that are reflective of human faliability. People are right not to trust the findings of individual scientists - neither do scientists. It wasn't until that distrust was incorporated into the heart of the scientific method that science began making rapid leaps forward - because those results that pass the gauntlet of scientific distrust are solid enough to build upon.
The question is how do we explain to the non-scientific public the fact that scientists saying X one day and the opposite a few years later is a GOOD thing - that it's the the result of scientists double- and triple-checking each other's results because they know they're all falliabe human beings. And that it means something VERY different when hundreds or thouands of scientists say something than it does when only a handful are making the claim.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
than that.
It's not that the public doesn't trust the abilities of scientists.
It's that they don't trust their motives. We have a long literary tradition that meditates on scientists that "only cared about whether they could, not whether they should," and the politicization of sciences makes people wonder not whether scientists are incompetent, but whether they have "an agenda," i.e. whether scientists are basically lying through their teeth and/or pursuing their own political agendas in the interest of their own gain, rather than the public's.
At that point, it's not that the public thinks "If I argue loudly enough, I can change nature," but rather "I don't understand what this scientist does, and I'm sure he/she is smart, but I don't believe they're telling me about nature; rather, they're using their smarts to pull the wool over my eyes about nature and profit/benefit somehow."
So the public isn't trying to bend the laws of nature through discourse, but rather simply doesn't believe the people that are telling them about the laws of nature, because they suspect those people as not acting in good faith.
That's where a kinder, warmer scientific community comes in. R1 academics with million-dollar grants may sneer at someone like Alan Alda on Scientific American Frontiers, but that sneering is counterproductive; the public won't understand (and doesn't want to) the rigorous, nuanced state of the research on most topics. It will have to be given to them in simplified form; Alan Alda and others in that space did so, and the scientific community needs to support (more of) that, rather than sneer at it.
The sneering just reinforces the public notion that "this guy may be smarter than me, but he also thinks he's better and more deserving than me, so I can't trust that what he's telling me is really what he thinks/knows, rather than what he needs to tell me in order to get my stuff and/or come out on top in society, deserving or not."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Too many people listen to the celebrity because the media is all too willing to give them a platform to spread their misinformation.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs