Follow your head AND your heart

[ugly_boy]

Adam Frank makes some interesting points in his NPR blog post entitled Science Deniers: Hand Over Your Cellphones! One passage in particular reminded me of an issue that I feel is often overlooked:

In [climate change deniers'] worldview the scientists are in it for the money or the fame or the power. Scientists are overstating the case. They are

Comments

[ugly_boy]

I think what you're saying is that scientists often are not great at addressing the social implications of their research, and that a greater emphasis should be placed on this aspect of science. I completely agree. I think there are several factors that contribute to the problem. Some scientists may not care much about what "laypeople" think, some simply have a hard time understanding how non-scientists view the issue and why they do, and others probably value this but aren't good at participating in non-technical discussions of the problem(s).

I'm only an undergraduate, but I find myself suffering from all three problems, and they tend to reinforce one another. I generally do care about the public perception of science and the practical-political, economic, even cultural-barriers to implementing good science-based policy, but I sometimes get frustrated by the non-scientific or even denialist approach that people use to argue about issues. I try to be sympathetic to the way that people without scientific training view the issue at hand, but it's quite challenging because I can't "unknow" what I know. Communicating what I know to people without my background is difficult. It's hard to know where to start, where to find the common ground. This is true with regard to both specific details like the physics of greenhouse gases and more general issues like how scientists approach problems and assess claims.

I think we should place particular emphasis on improving non-technical communication. It's important for students to learn to use technical language correctly and learn the fundamental facts of their discipline, and I think we do a pretty good job of that, but the fact that many of us can't communicate these ideas to people who haven't had the same training is a major problem. Communicating with the public is something I value, and desperately want to get better at, but it takes time to develop that skill and I wish that more of my coursework had emphasized this. One of the best assignments I've ever had was to summarize a journal article in the style of a newspaper article aimed at the general public. The challenge was twofold, and I think both aspects of it were worthwhile. We had to both understand an article from the primary literature and accurately summarize its major findings (and their social implications) in a manner that the average reader could understand. I wish I had had more assignments like this.

[ken_roberts]

How to communicate effectively with the public (group or person) is something that can be taught, and learned. The assignment you mention sounds like an excellent exercise. I recall, from Ben Franklin's autobiography, that he taught himself to write clearly, by reading a section of an explanatory work, closing the book, and writing out his own paraphrase of what he had read -- then he compared his version with the original, and saw what he had misunderstood or had not explained well. Empathy, or something like it, is an important aspect of writing well. Also, I think it helps to have a particular reader in mind; the others who read your words are "listening in" and will make the effort to follow the conversation. People are really good at inferential learning.

You said "only an undergraduate". Drop the "only" in my opinion. I'm an undergraduate too, in my university's method of classification. That does not impair my ability to learn. Being free of the pressures of faculty role can be liberating; one can ask questions or exhibit ignorance without losing status. Ditto with enthusiasm -- one can really enjoy new ideas.

Your first paragraph is an important observation. What I was getting at, though, was slightly different. I think those of us who know science, and hence have important information and perspective to contribute to public policy matters such as the energy, pollution, climate change etc discussions, are not up to our customary self-imposed community standard of discourse when it comes to how society changes. Suppose, for instance, that we were trying to get a pendulum to oscillate. Random experience might be that, if we whack it repeatedly, sometimes it oscillates a lot. However, an understanding of physics -- both the concept vocabulary of physics, and its practical methods of calculation -- might suggest particular times to apply impulse to the pendulum, for best effect. In business organizations, I've certainly seen the importance of timing in one's actions and utterances. Why should that be different in public affairs?

[ugly_boy]

Communication skills definitely can be taught, but at least in my experience almost no emphasis is placed on non-technical communication or on applying science to social issues. It's a shame. I have done some of that in college, but not enough.

I see what you were getting at now, and I think that's a great idea. I had never thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense. The only problem I see is the difference between the cultures of science and business, and politics for that matter. The sort of careful timing you speak of is built into the way that politicians and businesspeople view their endeavors, but I wonder how we could introduce this virtue to scientists. Not only is it absent from science, but I would even say that it contradicts scientific ideals, at least if not handled carefully. Knowingly withholding information until a more opportune would be unethical, and possibly fraudulent. I realize this is not quite what you're suggesting, but I wonder how science can learn from business without abandoning its core values. We should definitely be scientific in deciding how best to present information to the public, and without being at all dishonest.

One solution would be to identify scientists who would make good spokespeople for their respective fields. Tap the savvy communicators and encourage them to participate visibly in the debate. Finding allies in other fields, and training professionals such as teachers and journalists to understand and communicate science is also important. I still think scientists themselves should strive to interact with the public more effectively, but other strategies would also help our cause overall. To extend the business analogy, the people who invent the products typically aren't also in charge of PR. A division of labor is often appropriate.

[ken_roberts]

There's no need to delay publishing. Early availability of data is worthwhile. However, it is recognized eg in teaching courses, that a person new to a field should receive info in a sequenced manner for best learning.

My concern was more that scientifically trained people, when in general discussion, and faced with a statement like "nothing can be done about (such and such), because (glib opinion about how the world works)", do not recognize how simple such a statement is. They take it at face value; end of discussion!

Yet they would doubt a scientific article that said something like "cathodic rays cannot be particles, because when passed between two charged plates, they did not deflect", instead asking "did you consider eliminating the air between the plates", and "what if the cathodic rays are particles moving really fast?"

Scientific thinking applies to all aspects of life, not just the laboratory and technical topics.

[ugly_boy]

Now I get it! It's fascinating that people can grapple with the intricacies of some complex systems and not others. We tend to think that some people have a mind for business or engineering or politics, but I wonder how different these mental tasks truly are.

Are you familiar with the skeptical movement? Its purpose is to promote critical thinking in all domains. There's a lot of overlap with the scientific community, but it's interesting to see how people who are dedicated to applying the same standards to all problems sometimes approach things differently than, say, a practicing scientist faced with something outside of his or her field.

[ken_roberts]

I was not familiar with the "skeptical movement" but just took a look, at www.speptic.com. Very interesting.

I'm not entirely sure that's for me, though, as I treasure unusual hypotheses as a source of inspiration.

For example, regarding flying saucers, I'm prompted to look at frisbees and wonder how a flying disk might be designed as a viable aircraft for human scale. Another example: the Ebola outbreak in Zaire, some years ago, should logically have spread to Sweden and other countries whose medical personnel came to help; that there were no cases outside Zaire prompted me to speculate on the societal context, eg perhaps chlorinated water, or even tooth-brushing with flouridated toothpaste.

Most such hypotheses are necessarily wrong. If I do not make enough mistakes, I cannot get some right guesses; it is like prospecting; one must look at lots of rocks to find valuable ore.

So joining a society which might augment the already prevalent social pressure to go-along, might be high risk for me.

[ugly_boy]

Fair enough. It appears to me that you practice skepticism most of the time, but I can certainly understand not wanting to take up the cause and all of its trappings. One thing I will say in defense of skeptics is that the only real pressure is to consistently science and critical thinking to all areas of life.

[ken_roberts]

Thanks! Good discussion. Got to move on now. Another lecture attended yesterday, interesting topic, models of stellar formation.

Met someone in coffee shop after, who gave me three new perspectives, on meteoroid velocity distribution, angular momentum transfer from rotating cloud via mag field lines, and whether there is entropic approach to mag field line stretching. And have found lots of new info about trillium species, and the "Lambert W function" which relates to closed form solutions of problems like Wein's displacement law. Wow! A day at the univ can stack up a lot of opportunity for learning! Also obtained a small mike that might be good for listening to lawn mower.

By the way, the lecture attended was the PhD public lecture for someone. If you have chance you might enjoy attending some of those. It is a chance to see what people are really doing at leading edges. Most I don't understand of course. Does not matter. Just allow osmosis to occur.