Blue Collar Scientist

Ruth Cronje, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and I agree that science education and communication must focus on the scientific process, not on scientific data, in order to be meaningful. She has published a letter in the journal Science which ought not to be ignored by the UC Davis PR apparatus and anyone else trying to communicate scientific issues.

Martin at Aardvarchaeology has a terrific post on scientism that we’ve blogged about before, that touches on these issues. Martin is rightly pointing out that physical scientists interpret their data, and that the interpretation of the data is where the scientific work gets done. Data is just data, and it is neither interesting nor useful until you’ve come up with a way to draw some conclusions about it. That realization, which came to me while doing research on minor solar system bodies, has guided my science education efforts ever since. If you go to one of my talks, you are going to see a slide about the scientific method, and you are going to hear how we learned what we know about the subject. Without that fundamental material, any attempt to communicate a scientific concept is worse than wasted: I believe that science communication divorced from method is harmful and that the culture of science communicators needs to change drastically.

Dr. Cronje is reacting to science framing. Framing is a rhetorical technique used for many hundreds of years in politics, which is well adapted to influencing opinions about subjects in which there is no clear-cut right answer. Its application to science communication has been puerile, ham-fisted, amateurish, and devastatingly damaging to the public perception of science.

Some highlights of the letter, with my emphasis:

[C]onfining science messages to just the facts interferes with public understanding of science as a systematic, logical process of human inquiry and effaces the distinction between data and scientists’ reasoning about data.

Scientists tend to shy away from revealing the intrinsic skepticism of science to the public, fearful that it will open the door to doubt about the validity of their conclusions. But communicating only the facts of science (framed or unframed) destabilizes public confidence in science. A fact doesn’t allow science communicators to reveal, justify, and ultimately promote the skeptical reasoning process that helps make scientists more confident that their reasoning is correct.

A “just the facts” strategy can and often does backfire, ultimately fueling public alienation from science. When scientists inform the public of “facts” (like the “fact” widely disseminated in the 1970s that all dietary fats are bad for us), and then that “fact” is refined or altered (now we’re told olive oil is good for us), the public is justifiably confused. Studies suggest that the public tends to regard normal scientific refinement and self-correction as equivocation or incompetence.

“Successful” science communication should not be regarded as any message that enlists public support for science. Rather, we should define “success” in scientific communication as achieving a public that celebrates scientific reasoning procedures.

I think that Dr. Cronje is absolutely correct when she asserts¹ that scientists frequently focus on facts because they are afraid. I will be forgiven, I hope, for expecting researchers to be as brave about explaining their own research as I am when I explain it.

And Dr. Cronje’s exposition explains admirably why I consider the UC Davis press release I blogged about to be a negative contribution to science communication - that is, something that actively harms the public reputation of science.

I hate to quote so much material and have so little to add. Many of my thoughts were recently written up in the post about the UC Davis press release - to which UC Davis responded by saying, essentially, “oh, we’re not so bad,” while failing to provide any methodological context for the facts asserted in their terrible press release. They don’t get it. I don’t expect them to give any real thought to what I say, but perhaps Dr. Cronje will have more influence.

Hat tip to Larry Moran, who reproduces the letter in its entirety.

1. She provides citations in her letter to sources that support her various views, including this one. [↩]

Tags: communication, education, framing, public outreach, Ruth Cronje, science, science communication, science education

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 1:43 pm and is filed under education and public outreach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.