Hello Nature Network!
This is my first blog post, so let me start out by telling you a little bit about myself. I’m 37, I have been working as a nurse (the outcome of my first undergrad degree) for 12 years, I am a US Army veteran (I did a 4 year term back during the first US scrum with Iraq in the 90s). More recently I have begun working on another degree, this time in cell and molecular biology. I’m attending the University of South Florida, where they consider me a junior.
One of the reasons (there are many!) why I decided to step back into the role of student is a frustration with how science is communicated to the average person, and an interest in why that communication is often ineffective. For example: Evolution.
How is it that scientists have failed to convince millions of people around the world, especially in western countries, that evolution is a fact? The world of science is filled with brilliant communicators. Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse-Tyson, Carl Zimmer, Matt Ridley, Ernst Mayr, Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, and dozens more. We have evidence, overwhelming evidence, on our side.
No impartial jury in the world could consider the evidence available and not reach the simple conclusion that evolution is a fact.
Yet there are still millions who will not accept our evidence and arguments.
I don’t think there is a simple answer. One major hurdle in communicating science to people is the growing complexity and technical nature of new concepts. The more complex an explanation required, the less interested most people are. The bacterial flagellum, often used as a whip to beat new life into what should be a dead horse, is explained by opponents of evolution as too complex to have evolved. The opposition explanation is simple: It is complex, all complex things are designed, and therefore the flagellum was designed. Most people can spot the flaw in that argument, but it has a certain intuitive appeal. The explanation of how the flagellum could have evolved, on the other hand, requires a 15 minute lecture with a PowerPoint presentation. Science has a real problem to overcome here.
I also see people conflate explanation with prevarication. Many people think if you take more than a few seconds to make a point you don’t really know what you are talking about.
The modern media has also contributed to the problems of science communication. There is an appalling lack of science knowledge among reporters, and often they resort to just quoting. This is fine, as long as the person they quote is a legitimate source of information on the topic they are reporting. Another flaw, more insidious, in media coverage of science is the false idea that all issues have at least two equally valid “sides”. I understand that the news division has to make a profit in today’s world, but the Spingeresque “debates” that drive ratings on the tabloid style news programs go too far.
I have long felt that the greatest problem in science communication, when it comes to issues like evolution, is one of trust. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science—Bloom and Weisberg 316 (5827): 996—Science , lends some weight to this argument.
To quote:
“Resistance to certain scientific ideas derives in large part from assumptions and biases that can be demonstrated experimentally in young children and that may persist into adulthood. In particular, both adults and children resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains. Additionally, when learning information from other people, both adults and children are sensitive to the trustworthiness of the source of that information. Resistance to science, then, is particularly exaggerated in societies where nonscientific ideologies have the advantages of being both grounded in common sense and transmitted by trustworthy sources.”
(bolding mine)
When communicating to the average non-scientist this is, I think, of vital importance. Science communication cannot convince those who do not trust science (or scientists) of the veracity of claims that contradict what other sources (that they trust) tell them.
How can science communicators adapt with this new data and become more effective at communicating science to those who currently reject major concepts like evolution? I don’t know, but I agree with Randy Olson when he says we better figure it out.