Skip to content

Unscientific Australia

The other night I was watching TV when on came a piece about Chris Mooney’s and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s book Unscientific America. I haven’t said anything about it because Chris promised me he’d send me a copy, and I haven’t yet received it (miscommunication at the publisher).

Chris acquitted himself very well as you can see here. He said nothing with which I would disagree, and certainly nothing that would justify the response to his book that PZ Mosquito and Larry Moran have been giving. Since I haven’t read the book, I can’t speak to this yet, but if the problem they have is that Chris thinks scientists don’t communicate well to the public, well, not only I but several of the scientists interviewed in the segment agree.

Chris’ interview has triggered off a reaction by the AGW skeptics here, too, and Chris replies at his blog.

But I will say this: I was the media person for a tertiary institution for five years, the publishing guy for a large university for eight, and the communications director for a medical research institution for ten. I’ve seen a lot of scientists communicating science. Even with training and the very best of intentions (and believe me, if anyone ought to be able to deal with public communication in difficult contexts, it was the public spokesperson for the medical institute I worked for) they do a fairly poor job. It’s not their fault: the media themselves are simply not designed to get information across. Instead they are designed (that is, they evolved) to get attitudes across, and information is secondary. Science won’t pass that filter easily, if at all.

Several of my favourite writers, like Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong, work very hard to communicate science and they have a fine grasp of how much information can be pumped through the attitudinal firehose. Think of it like this: at the end of that hose is a filter with very small holes in it, and only the smallest of factoids can pass through, though a great volume of attitude can. No scientist would be comfortable with such small items of information when dealing with an important topic.

A parallel case occurs when philosophers go public: the arguments get lost in bite sized assertions that are vaguely connected but not in a way any professional philosopher would be happy with. Some venues, like the New Yorker or other magazines that permit the writing of 3000 word articles, can carry the bandwidth needed to get a full argument or a good presentation of facts and theory, but few have the patience to read this unless they are already inclined to read such material. In other words, they aren’t the target audience.

So I am prepared to give a lot more credence to Chris’ and his colleagues claims that there is a place for science journalism in communication that scientists simply cannot fill, than PZ or Larry or the other critics. But I also think this, too, is a losing proposition. If the communications medium is wrong for the task, doing what little can be done well will have, in the end, the smallest impact on the problem of science literacy and critical thinking in the wider community.

Perhaps we simply can’t achieve scientific literacy that way. I tend to think that early and consistent good scientific education is what is needed. Even if only a minority of the population ends up understanding science well enough to see through stupid antivaxxers and vitamin supplement detoxers and anti-global warmers, if that minority passes some threshold, like a herd immunity due to vaccination, it will deflate the widespread purveyance of these falsehoods, and expose the interests behind them to ridicule.

But calling for better education itself becomes a political football. I don’t know what the solution is. I do not think the media, whether print or broadcast or electronic, is the solution, but it is important. Perhaps we win this by increments and persistence. Perhaps we don’t, and eventually we lose the social benefits of knowledge. If that happens, I’m moving to a country that does value science. I speak a little German, maybe…

When and if the book turns up, I’ll tell you what I think. In the meantime, consider this my statement of intent and belief. Like my views on accommodationism, I don’t think it will remain unremarked.

Late note: Tim Lambert demolishes the lies of Marohasy that Chris reported on his blog. Tim shows how those active in climate research are almost to a person convinced of anthropogenic global warming.

31 Comments

  1. Neil Rickert Neil Rickert

    So the problem is that the press is concerned about getting attitudes across.

    Sorry, but if that is a problem, then science is failing to communicate. In fact science is all about attitudes. Facts can easily be recorded in databases, reference books, etc, and need not be memorized. It is the attitudes that need to be conveyed. And, too often, science in the schools fails because it overemphasizes facts and underemphasizes attitudes.

    That empirical facts, acquired by reliable methods, are important is an attitude. That we need to have well tested standards, such as those used in dating methods, is an attitude. The importance of experimental testing and peer review is an attitude.

  2. Margaret Margaret

    I’ve thought about this for a long time and have no answer to the issue.
    Scientists aren’t trained to communicate to the media, though I am reluctant to expect us to be; where in any academic course would that fit in, and what would be lost as a result? It isn’t as if science students sit around all day doing not a lot!
    If we aren’t careful, we will extend education to the point where PhDs take 7 or 8 years.

    We need to ask different questions, not of scientists, but of the media and the public.

    Why do the media prefer to report science so inaccurately?

    I for one would not accept a surgeon who had the same work ethic as news editors. Would you?

    I am very reluctant to censor the press. However, I am now beginning to think we may have to. How much time and money is spent explaining that the nonsense in the press is clearly nonsense?

    One newspaper here in the UK was printing scare stories about the cervical cancer vaccine, while the sister newspaper in Ireland, at the same time, was campaigning to force the Irish government to change their policy and introduce the same vaccine as discussed on the BadScience Blog.
    Some would say this results from a poor understanding of science. I’m really not so sure.
    Isn’t science being abused to increase sales, and if so training scientists to talk to the media will not change how science is reported in the media.
    Isn’t it unrealistic to have the public view the information provided in the press as likely to be poor in quality and then expect the same public to understand important health information in the press such as HIV prevention? Either the media are honest, or they are not. Should they have it both ways?
    Science is not ‘Celebrity’ and there is no reason why it should be.

  3. ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

    One of the considerations in the interaction between scientists and the media is that, in my opinion, competing areas of science are more and more dependent on attitude (=politics?) for their support (funding) and the media are willy-nilly brokers of this. Topicality and glamour gets the grants (maybe a bit cynical, but when scientists compete for limited funding, what can you do?)

    Not sure what the answer is, but scientists are not entirely without blame for some of the spin that occurs between the groves of academe and the real world.

  4. Oddly, it has been my experience that it is Chris who condemns the journalists and damns them for their ineptitude. It is Chris, recall, who is saying that communicating science is up to the scientists, not the journalists. And it is the education of scientists which should be rearranged, not journalists. More irritating to me, it is, according to him, the fault of the scientists, not journalists/politicians/etc., that nothing has been done in climate policy in 20 years. (I happen to be in that area, and have been for, er, 20 years.)

    I’ve mentioned the idea to him (in blog, by email) that scientists learn how to do science. And journalism/communication is a different skilled area. I think we’d be better off if the folks who were talented and interested in communication were to be the ones doing communication, and the ones talented and interested in science were doing science. We need discussion between the two to get communication off the scientist desks and in to the media outlets. I think. Chris’s solution instead is to blame the scientists, and say that the scientists should be journalists instead or on top of being scientists.

    I think good journalism is a highly skilled activity that one needs both some talent, and a fair amount of focused training towards being able to do well. I’m always glad to encounter a good journalist. Chris’s position, oddly, really says that journalism is a trivial skill that takes no particular talent — it’s something that can be taught to someone who went through their entire school through to graduate school without ever evidencing either skill or interest. And done as a peripheral matter to earning a PhD in science. Really? I knew a number of journalism students when I was in college. They certainly seemed to me to be doing more work than could be done by someone with no prior evidence of talent or interest, as a part time activity on their way to a degree in a wholly unrelated field that was extremely demanding of both specialized (unrelated to journalism) talent and time. Certainly looked like something that took concerted effort and some definite talent to make work.

    Over at my blog I opened a thread on ‘what is scientific literacy?’. New comments welcome. So far, at least, very little if any of what readers have suggested to me has looked to be amenable to mass-media approaches. The exceptions are important, perhaps. But few and far between. That, itself, may say something about goals and methods.

  5. I have read the book and was not impressed by it. For one thing, the authors go off on too many tangents, making a fuss about peripheral issues that are dear to their hearts, such as the downgrading of Pluto to a dwarf planet or the activities of Pee-Zed.

    But that’s not to dispute that they are writing about a serious problem. It’s just difficult to know who has the responsibility (or the ability) to solve it. Dumping even more workload on PhD students won’t be effective. What just might work is better education in science at all levels of the system – “better” as in assuming, then following through with, the idea that all knowledge is consilient, and that even the humanities should be studied in a way that is consistent with science.

    At the moment, much of what goes on in the humanities at university level is actually hostile to science.

    But how this should be changed without impinging too far on academic freedom is beyond me. Besides, much of the problem is at lower educational levels. How do we get the general population to develop some scientific literacy as a matter of course during the K-12 years?

  6. ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

    …even the humanities should be studied in a way that is consistent with science.

    As a scientist with a daughter who is a painter and musician, I would welcome elaboration on this point (…I know that if I tried to discuss her art with her from a viewpoint “consistent with science” it would not be a pretty sight!!)

  7. Rorschach Rorschach

    I tend to think that early and consistent good scientific education is what is needed. Even if only a minority of the population ends up understanding science well enough to see through stupid antivaxxers and vitamin supplement detoxers and anti-global warmers, if that minority passes some threshold, like a herd immunity due to vaccination, it will deflate the widespread purveyance of these falsehoods, and expose the interests behind them to ridicule.

    John,

    my education in Germany was nothing spectacular,public school of garden variety,but I was told about advertising and its false equivalences and equivocations,about anti-vaxxers, and all sorts of other loons,including religionists.
    The fact is that Australia is 3rd world in education nor first,so let’s admit that and try to change it.
    As to M&K,time to stop chickening out with the “publisher didnt send me a copy” spiel and take a position !
    “Let’s be nice and accept any lunacy as a valid position” as proposed by M&K just is not an option.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Having written a book myself, and had people criticise me in other contexts for things I do not say, I feel it is only fair that I read it before I comment. Not that this stops me from saying how I read the situation. Quite apart from anything else I had over two decades working in the media communicating ideas before I became a philosopher.

      I am somewhat bemused that you know enough about Australian education to say anything. I have no doubt Germany’s education system is first rate, but it seems that even that won’t counter prejudice and intemperate conclusion jumping.

  8. Rorschach Rorschach

    Russell B said

    How do we get the general population to develop some scientific literacy as a matter of course during the K-12 years?

    Ahem.
    By improving the school curriculum maybe? Or making attendance mandatory?
    Like, in the first world?
    (There is other issues here, like having one school system with good and bad students all under one roof until they eventually drop out,all the while the bad ones hold the good ones back and the good ones frustrate the bad ones,but that’s for another day)

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      There is indeed other issues, like learning when to make subject and number agree…

  9. ckc, are you seriously suggesting that you should discuss her art from a viewpoint that is inconsistent with science?

    • ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

      nice elaboration

  10. John Wilkins says,

    So I am prepared to give a lot more credence to Chris’ and his colleagues claims that there is a place for science journalism in communication that scientists simply cannot fill, than PZ or Larry or the other critics.

    I agree that science journalists are the professionals who should take the lead in communicating science to the general public.

    This is what they are supposed to do and this is what they claim to be doing.

    Chris points out that science literacy is a problem in America, and elsewhere. He notes that our society has failed miserably when it comes to educating the general public about science.

    As a science journalist, he has the tools and the connections to write very popular books about science and science education. In his latest book he is highly critical of the people he thinks are responsible for the sad state of science literacy.

    So, who does he blame for the fact that science has not been communicated properly to the general public? I’m not going to reveal the answer but I’ll give you a bit of a hint … it’s not his own profession—the one whose business is communicating science.

    John, I’ve been saying for years that science journalists are essential. We need good science journalists and science writers and I’ve been trying to give credit to those I know of. At the same time, I criticize those science writers who are doing more harm than good; unfortunately, the bad ones seem to be the majority.

    Chris makes two important mistakes. He blames the wrong people and he doesn’t understand what scientists can and cannot do. The framing disaster that he got himself tangled up in was clear evidence that he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Then we are pretty much in the same place (irrespective of what Chris may have said or not).

      However, I still think that the problem is the nature of the media, as well as the present state of media business models, not the writers per se.

  11. Wes Wes

    To be fair to PZ, he was upset because the book attacks him personally, and over something extremely trivial (so-called “crackergate”). If I had received similar treatment, I probably would have been angry, too.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Yeah, well I don’t like personal attacks of any kind. It is counterproductive and basically not polite. So if that is what the book does, that is what I will criticise. But I also don’t take anyone’s word for it one way or the other.

      I count PZ as a personal friend, and I know he is a good man and an honest one. I thought Crackergate was silly, but that’s all, just silly. Not something to be constantly repeating and debating. And it made Paul’s point, which would also be mine: that the ideas underpinning transsubstantiation are false, scientifically. Still I would be satisfied with just stating that.

      I do get angry when people impugn me, as they have done. And that is entirely appropriate.

  12. The problematic wing of the humanities is the part that went for the mindless “there is no reality and science doesn’t study it” approach. Sane humanities, on the other hand, have no conflict. Even those humanities which were most infected by the antiscientific narrative have no intrinsic problem as fields with science, nor vice versa. imnsho, of course. If they would just drop the ‘science is nothing but story telling’ sorts of nonsense, that’d be the end of any real conflict between science and humanities. People studying any given field will always think that theirs is the best/most interesting/… so that part won’t be changing, nor, really, should it.

    As to art. Dunno about your daughter specifically, but there is plenty of beauty in science for an artist to look to. Mathematics gets involved very fundamentally as soon as she tries to draw something in perspective. She can read up, and see wonderful artwork from, the development of perspective painting in the Renaissance. If her interest is piqued, you could also hand her a book on projective geometry, which is a weird and wonderful thing of its own, quite different from the Euclidean she’d encounter in school.

    You can also move in to the physics and psychology of color. Why is it that projective color is RGB but reflective is CMY? How, really, does Seurat’s pointilism work? If I remember correctly, Helmholtz wrote more than a little about the topic from a physics perspective. And there are certainly modern books around for it.

    • If her interest is piqued, you could also hand her a book on projective geometry, which is a weird and wonderful thing of its own, quite different from the Euclidean she’d encounter in school.

      I can’t speak for other countries but the basics of projective geometry are taught in German schools.

    • ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

      My problem is with the concern that education be “consistent with science” as a blanket requirement (and my lack of understanding of what that actually means). Her art programme has certainly included elements that were sufficiently scientific, and more importantly, rational, but when she explains to me some of the sources of her inspiration, and some of the meaning (for her) in her work – the interplay between the subject and the medium, humour, etc., I don’t feel any urge to introduce the science behind what she’s doing – it will not enhance either her or my enjoyment or understanding of her art.

    • jeff jeff

      Even those humanities which were most infected by the antiscientific narrative have no intrinsic problem as fields with science, nor vice versa.

      So… Hamlet should not have any ghosts in it? Or should Shakespeare texts issue a disclaimer? Why not just redact that whole section (and many others like it) from all literature. We all need to think in terms consistent with current science, you see.

  13. Jeb Jeb

    I can only speak from my own experience of university but their was no engagement between art and science in my subject, which is to the detriment of learning. I don’t think that the problem lies entirely within the arts.

    Had I been aware of the interest of biology and its philosophy with culture I would certainly have studied biology or most certainly it’s philosophy as an outside subject as an undergrad. But doing so would have lead to difficulties in my own core subject areas, as issues like the meme would have proved problematic and somewhat difficult to deal with.

    I think that art and popular culture has taken a particular interest in aspects of science medicine and philosophy and stories surrounding such subjects are part of the fabric of our culture and have been for a long time.

    I am not suggesting that science is all about storytelling I think that is far from the case, but it has a relationship and history of engagement with popular culture, art and literature from the medieval period onwards and that history remains in part unexplored.

    Lack of engagement and understanding between the arts and sciences is problematic and very frustrating at times. I find it very difficult dealing with science but see it as key to developing a full understanding of my subject.

    What hope for educating a wider public when highly educated people often have extreme difficulty in grasping outside disciplines and dealing with very different academic subjects and cultures?

  14. I’ve thought for a long time that the most important thing we can do is to work to increase the scientific knowledge of otherwise educated people because acquiring leverage with an influential minority is more likely to be politically effective than the pursuit of the rather Quixotic project of universal enlightenment. For the majority, we should take the same attitude about science that the Catholic church takes about theology: enough that the parishioners pay their tithes, no need to confuse them with the higher mysteries.

  15. bob koepp bob koepp

    I just don’t get the notion that scientists are not the people to reach out to the public. Who better to explain “the point” of a theory than the people who developed it and work with it? If they have mastered the rudiments of speaking to non-specialists, then remedial education seems to be the order of the day. So what am I missing?

  16. bob koepp bob koepp

    oops… “If they have _not_ mastered the rudiments…. “

    • If they have not mastered the rudiments of writing sentences…

  17. Jeb Jeb

    I think once ideas are dressed up, enter the cultural realm and become entrenched, it becomes rather hard to overturn when things move forward. As they generaly entangle themselves in a number of subjects and diffrent cultural areas to ensure repitition and survival; so rejection from one realm is not enough to ensure they die. As the belief has become reinforced from a number of diffrent directions.

    It makes me wonder when you see articles expressing an interest in for example accurate representation of science in movies and popular culture.

    You find the perfect vehicle that proves rather popular and end up with something like the barnacle goose.

    Acceptable in it’s day but difficult to shift once the goose is cooked and embedded.

    Explanation does seem best coming straight and direct from the horses mouth.

  18. jeb jeb

    Saying that once explanation is out in the wild it’s going to be subject to theft, disguise, and promiscuous cultural breeding if value is found and it successfully captures the public imagination.

    Its cultural “fitness” may not necessarily lie completely in the fact that it is a valid scientific theory.

  19. bob koepp bob koepp

    Thony – I can take the instruction if you can give it. 🙂

    • When I’ve learnt how to do it myself then I’ll give you instruction 😉

  20. Ian H Spedding, FCD Ian H Spedding, FCD

    In a past life, I also worked for a period with science journalists and even tried my hand at it for a few months. It is not as easy as the best writers make it look but then that is a hallmark of great talent which, by definition, is rare.

    In a sense, though, that is neither here nor there. I tend to agree with John that the problem is that the mass media themselves are not well-suited to communicating scientific information. Unfortunately, one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, they are not well-suited is that their audience, by and large, is not interested in hearing it.

    All media are in competition with each other for audience share. If no one reads what you write or listens to what you broadcast then, pretty soon, you will not be asked to write or say anything. This applies to science like anything else.

    For example, suppose research finds new evidence about the role of a particular gene in a particular cancer that may lead to a better understanding of what causes the disease and may, in time, lead to better treatments. Does anyone think that such a cautious but accurate description will be read with interest by anyone but oncologists? Of course not. Blazon it under headline like “Cancer Cure Near!” and it will get read.

    If it’s written with a little more punch.

    Maybe.

    Obviously, this comes back to the Framing Wars and in this I am on the side of the framers at least where ‘framing’ doesn’t mean ‘blatantly inaccurate’ or ‘downright lies’.

    I am sure I would be fascinated by the work done by PZ or Larry but I know a lot of people who simply would not understand what all the fuss was about. If – and that’s a big ‘if’ – they could be persuaded to sit down and listen to the two of them for long enough, I’m sure both of them could do a good job of getting across why their work is so interesting.

    If.

    In real life, though, the only people who are going to hear that are those who choose to sign up for their courses. But they are the rare ones. They are not the audience that science needs to reach.

    I am interested in string theory, for example, but functionally innumerate. I have read of string theorists who say that you cannot fully appreciate the finer points of the theory without a good understanding of mathematics. Such a theorist could try to explain the theory to me by referring to the esoteric mathematics he or she uses ’til they are blue in the face and I would not understand a word – or a number – of it. And not understanding means pretty soon I would stop listening.

    How could science journalists help? Well, they could dumb the subject down enough so that I could at least understand the broad outline. It may not be much but it is better than nothing.

    The better answer, though, would be to teach me enough math that I could understand what the hell they were talking about in the first place.

    In other words, I would go along with John on this in that the best answer – if there is such a convenient thing as a simple answer – is better science education from a very early age.

    I think there are a lot of very good scientists who are simply no good at getting their science across to a lay audience that does not have to listen if it doesn’t want to. Good science journalists can help but they are not the solution.

  21. ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

    Several thoughts:

    …not all science is inherently interesting to the “general public” (no matter how crestfallen this may make the scientist involved feel) – a related point is that a system that rewards (funds) science based on its ability to interest the general public is, shall we say, somewhat “iffy”

    …science presented to the general public with a whiff of the temple (“science or nothing”) puts a lot of people off (sorry, was that too accommodating?)

    …science as a method has a meagre place in the education system – how much of this is a fault of the system and how much is an inherent feature of the disconnect between science and life (“how much science do I need to know to get by?”) – I don’t know

    …science as a body of knowledge is better represented, but without the grounding in understanding the method, it’s just mere facts (or, in the views of e.g. creationists, lies)

    I think scientists should continue to press for improvements in science education and (what we call in my area) extension. Scientists who feel that the ONLY valid knowledge, pursued or acquired, is “scientific”, had best be ready to explain or justify.

Comments are closed.

Optimized by Optimole