tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/anti-science-16370/articlesAnti-science – The Conversation2024-01-30T13:35:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208312024-01-30T13:35:29Z2024-01-30T13:35:29ZBacklash to transgender health care isn’t new − but the faulty science used to justify it has changed to meet the times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571543/original/file-20240125-15-cirbso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5778%2C3252&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-trans legislation adjudicates the bodily autonomy of those who do not conform to gender norms.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TransgenderRights/5105bf799bb64a7b88d180c1a410463a">Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past century, there have been three waves of opposition to transgender health care. </p>
<p>In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/90-years-on-the-destruction-of-the-institute-of-sexual-science/">cracked down on</a> transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe. In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M22-1480">led to the closure</a> of the most well-respected clinics in the United States. And since 2021, when <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183344228/arkansas-2021-gender-affirming-care-ban-transgender-blocked">Arkansas became the first U.S. state</a> among now <a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/healthcare_youth_medical_care_bans">at least 21 other states</a> banning gender-affirming care for minors, we have been living in a third wave.</p>
<p>In my work as a <a href="https://gsrosenthal.com">scholar of transgender history</a>, I study the <a href="https://theconversation.com/gender-affirming-care-has-a-long-history-in-the-us-and-not-just-for-transgender-people-201752">long history of gender-affirming care</a> in the U.S., which has been practiced since at least the 1940s. Puberty blockers, hormone therapies and anatomical surgeries are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-28/opinion-gender-affirming-care-is-not-new-or-experimental">neither experimental nor untested</a> and have been safely administered to cisgender, transgender and intersex adults and children for decades.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the archives of transgender medicine demonstrate that backlash against these practices has historically been rooted in pseudoscience. And today, an anti-science movement that aims to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-movement-is-escalating-going-global-and-killing-thousands/">discredit science altogether</a> is fueling the fire of the current wave of anti-trans panic.</p>
<h2>The 1930s − eugenics and sexology collide</h2>
<p>In the 1920s, the new science of hormones was just reaching maturation and <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674858/wondrous-transformations/">entering mainstream consciousness</a>. In the field of sexology – the study of human sexuality, founded in 19th century Europe – scientists were excited about research on animals demonstrating that removing or transplanting gonads could effectively change an organism’s sex.</p>
<p>In 1919, the German sexologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-early-20th-century-german-trans-rights-activist-who-transformed-the-worlds-view-of-gender-and-sexuality-106278">Magnus Hirschfeld</a> founded the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/">Institut für Sexualwissenschaft</a> in Berlin, which became the world’s leading center for queer and transgender research and clinical practice. Hirschfeld worked closely with trans women as co-researchers throughout the 1920s. Several trans women also received care at the institute, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F26895269.2020.1749921">orchiectomies</a> that halted the production of testosterone in their bodies.</p>
<p>Within months of Hitler’s rise to power in early 1933, a <a href="https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/6-may-1933-looting-of-the-institute-of-sexology/">mob of far-right students</a> broke into and shuttered the institute for being “<a href="https://daily.jstor.org/90-years-on-the-destruction-of-the-institute-of-sexual-science/">un-German</a>.” Some of the <a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa26364">most famous images</a> of Nazi book burning show the institute’s library set ablaze in an outdoor plaza.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white photo of person in uniform throwing books into a bonfire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571540/original/file-20240125-21-rigby5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Members of the Nazi party confiscated and burned ‘un-German’ books, including those from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa26364">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park</a></span>
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<p>Nazi ideology was based on another prominent field of science of that time: <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism">eugenics</a>, the belief that certain superior populations should survive while inferior populations must be exterminated. In fact, Hirschfeld’s sexology and Nazi race science had common roots in the Enlightenment-era effort to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2020.1794161">classify and categorize</a> the world’s life forms. </p>
<p>But in the late 19th century, many scientists went a step further and <a href="https://theconversation.com/proposed-1920s-orphanage-study-just-one-example-in-history-of-scientific-racism-37015">developed a hierarchy of human types</a> based on race, gender and sexuality. They were inspired by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-Darwinism">social Darwinism</a>, a set of pseudoscientific beliefs applying the theory of survival of the fittest to human differences. As race scientists imagined a fixed number of human races of varying intelligence, sexologists simultaneously sought to classify sexual behaviors as innate, inherited states of being: <a href="https://www.beacon.org/A-Queer-History-of-the-United-States-P1426.aspx">the “homosexual”</a> in the 1860s and <a href="https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/news/2016-08-die-transvestiten-sexology-and-pivotal-moments-in-trans-history">the “transvestite,”</a> a term coined by Hirschfeld himself, in 1910.</p>
<p>But where Hirschfeld and other sexologists saw the classification of queer and trans people as justifications for legal emancipation, eugenicists of the early 20th century <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/eugenic-sterilization-in-virginia/">in the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eugenics">Europe</a> believed sexually transgressive people <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">should be sterilized</a> and ultimately eradicated.</p>
<p>Based on this premise, the Nazis <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765155/pink-triangle-legacies/">murdered thousands of LGBTQ people</a> in the Holocaust.</p>
<h2>The 1970s − making model citizens</h2>
<p>In the 1950s and 1960s, transgender medicine bounced back in the U.S. Scientists and clinicians at several universities began experimenting with new <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo156724705.html">hormonal and surgical interventions</a>. In 1966, Johns Hopkins became the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/hopkins-medical-archives/gender-identity-clinic-press-conference-1966">first university hospital in the world</a> to offer trans health care. </p>
<p>By the 1970s, trans medicine went mainstream. <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674013797">Nearly two dozen university hospitals</a> were operating gender identity clinics and treating thousands of transgender Americans. Several trans women and men wrote <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/01/29/the-conundrum-of-conundrum/">popular autobiographical accounts</a> of their transitions. Trans people were even <a href="https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-cc0tq5s22t">on television</a>, talking about their bodies and fighting for their rights. </p>
<p>Yet trouble was brewing behind the scenes. Jon Meyer, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, was skeptical of whether medical interventions really helped transgender people. In 1979, Meyer, along with his secretary Donna Reter, published a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780090096010">short academic paper</a> that ushered in the second wave of historic backlash to trans medicine.</p>
<p>In their study, Meyer and Reter contacted previous patients of the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic. To understand whether surgery had improved patients’ lives, the authors developed an “adjustment scoring system.” They assigned points to patients who were in heterosexual marriages and had achieved economic security since their operations, while deducting points from those who continued to engage in gender nonconformity, homosexuality, criminality, or sought mental health care.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white image of transgender artist Coccinelle smiling beside her husband Francis Paul Bonnet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571547/original/file-20240125-31-t8e03l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Some researchers defined a successful medical transition as one that resulted in visible conformity to gender norms and heterosexuality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/artiste-transgenre-coccinelle-et-son-mari-francis-paul-news-photo/1505597233">Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Meyer and Reter believed that gender-affirming surgeries were successful only if they made model citizens out of transgender people: straight, married and law-abiding.</p>
<p>In their results, the authors found no negative effects from surgery, and no patients expressed regret. They concluded that “sex reassignment surgery confers no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation,” but it is “subjectively satisfying” to the patients themselves. This was not a damning conclusion. </p>
<p>Yet, within two months, Johns Hopkins had <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M22-1480">shuttered its clinic</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/02/archives/benefits-of-transsexual-surgery-disputed-as-leading-hospital-halts.html">The New York Times</a> reported that universities would feel pressure to similarly “curtail their operations and discourage others from starting to do them.” Indeed, only a <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M22-1480">handful of clinics remained</a> by the 1990s. Transgender medicine did not return to Johns Hopkins <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/long-shadow-cast-by-psychiatrist-on-transgender-issues-finally-recedes-at-johns-hopkins/2017/04/05/e851e56e-0d85-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html">until 2017</a>.</p>
<p>In requiring trans patients to enter straight marriages and hold gender-appropriate jobs to be considered successful, Meyer and Reter’s study was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02115944">homophobic and classist in design</a>. The study exemplified the <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479899371/trans-medicine/">pseudoscientific beliefs</a> at the heart of transgender medicine in the 1960s through the 1980s, that patients had to conform to societal norms – including heterosexuality, gender conformity, domesticity and marriage – in order to receive care. This was not an ideology rooted in science but in bigotry.</p>
<h2>The 2020s − distrust in science</h2>
<p>As in the 1930s, opposition to trans medicine today is part of a broad reactionary movement against what some far-right groups consider the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/15/project-2025-policy-manifesto-lgbtq-rights">toxic normalization</a>” of LGBTQ people. </p>
<p>Legislators have <a href="https://theconversation.com/penguin-random-house-pen-america-authors-and-parents-sue-florida-county-for-removing-books-on-race-and-lgbtq-themes-205945">removed books with LGBTQ content</a> from libraries and <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article254903187.html">disparaged them as “filth</a>.” A recent law in Florida <a href="https://www.them.us/story/florida-trans-bathroom-law">threatens trans people with arrest</a> for using public restrooms. Both Florida and Texas have pursued efforts to <a href="https://www.them.us/story/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-state-data-on-trans-texans">compile data on their trans citizens</a>. Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-lgbtq-transgender-community-protections/676139/">campaign platform</a> calls for a nationwide ban on trans health care for minors and severe restrictions for adults.</p>
<p>And similar to the 1970s, opponents of trans medicine today frame gender-affirming care as a “debate,” even though <a href="https://glaad.org/medical-association-statements-supporting-trans-youth-healthcare-and-against-discriminatory/">all major U.S. medical associations</a> support these practices <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-states-stop-interfering-health-care-transgender-children">as medically necessary</a> and lifesaving. </p>
<p>But widespread <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/andrew-jewett-science-under-fire/">distrust in science and medicine</a> in the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/anti-science-is-a-systematic-issueand-its-not-going-away/">wake of the COVID-19 pandemic</a> has affected how Americans perceive trans health care. Prohibitions on gender-affirming care have occurred simultaneously with the relaxing of pandemic restrictions, and some scholars argue that the movement against trans health care is part of a <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2022/04/11/what-anti-gender-and-anti-vaccines-politics-have-in-common-the-construction-of-gender-and-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-right-wing-discourses/">broader movement</a> aimed at discrediting scientific consensus.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Back of person wearing trans flag at the back of a legislative hearing room with a rotunda" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571550/original/file-20240125-28-zetkg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A rash of legislation restricting access to gender-affirming care claims to protect the health of children, despite lack of support from major U.S. medical associations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TransgenderHealthMissouri/442b19097c7f44a0a0864c4046aa5acb">Charlie Riedel/AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>Yet the adage “<a href="https://www.nsta.org/journal-college-science-teaching/journal-college-science-teaching-mayjune-2022/why-do-people-say-i">believe in science</a>” is not an effective rejoinder to these anti-trans policies. Instead, many trans activists today call for diminishing the role of medical authority altogether in <a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/macroscope/its-time-to-stop-gatekeeping-medical-transition">gatekeeping access to trans health care</a>. Medical gatekeeping occurs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2022.2100644">through stringent guidelines</a> that govern access to trans health care, including mandated psychiatric evaluations and extended waiting periods that limit and control patient choice. </p>
<p>Trans activists have <a href="https://filtermag.org/wpath-trans-nonbinary-health-care/">fought with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health</a>, the organization that maintains these standards of care, by demanding greater bodily autonomy and depathologizing transsexuality. This includes pivoting to an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdad019">informed consent model</a> where patients make decisions about their own bodies after discussing the pros and cons with their doctors. Trans activists have been rallying against medical authority since the early 1970s, including calling for <a href="https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/downloads/th83kz57z">access to hormones and surgeries on demand</a>.</p>
<p>It is not clear how the current third wave of backlash to transgender medicine will end. For now, trans health care remains a question dominated by medical experts on one hand and people who question science on the other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Samantha Rosenthal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For as long as trans medicine has been around, so has its opposition. The tactics of prior waves of anti-trans policies are still in play today.G. Samantha Rosenthal, Associate Professor of History, Roanoke CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1897302022-09-12T16:41:22Z2022-09-12T16:41:22ZHow fake science websites hijack our trust in experts to misinform and confuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483536/original/file-20220908-2774-wek486.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=245%2C0%2C3396%2C2152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fake science websites are dressing up their content as verified and authoritative.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-caucasian-farmer-biologist-white-protective-1754747408">M_Agency/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scientific method is rigorous. Claims and premises are supported with evidence. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-to-trust-and-not-to-trust-peer-reviewed-science-99365">peer review system</a> is designed to ensure that research is scrutinised by experts before publication. And whenever researchers lack certainty, they’ll emphasise that “further research is necessary” to land on the truth.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, fake science websites are learning to appear equally rigorous in order to trick their audiences into believing fringe, debunked and bogus theories. These websites seek to take advantage of our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02210-z">trust in experts</a>, and the methods we use to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-bogus-science-stories-and-read-the-news-like-a-scientist-133828">verify information</a>, to lend authority to anti-science positions. </p>
<p>Some even hyperlink to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/10/predatory-publishers-the-journals-who-churn-out-fake-science">fake science</a> published in what appear to be peer-reviewed journals but are in fact open access publishers who will accept anything submitted, provided their fees are paid. </p>
<p>Research shows that the anti-science movement is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1286457920301581">escalating and globalising</a>. In a <a href="https://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/A-Global-Study-on-Information-Literacy-1.pdf">recent global survey</a>, almost 50% of respondents said they see false or misleading information online every day. Over half of those who shared such information did so because they thought it was true at the time. </p>
<p>Fake science that masquerades as trustworthy and authoritative information is harder to spot. But by understanding the methods fake science websites are using, we can adjust our verification techniques to ensure we don’t fall for their deception.</p>
<h2>Source material</h2>
<p>Fake science websites use extensive <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17524032.2018.1527378">hyperlinking</a> to facilitate the appearance of trustworthiness. Hyperlinks act as <a href="https://mediarep.org/bitstream/handle/doc/3258/NECSUS_2_1_2013_83-112_Niederer_Global_Warming_.pdf?sequence=8">visual markers of credibility</a>, appearing to connect content to a source. The mere presence of a link can provide readers with a sense that a particular claim is verified and that the author has done their research.</p>
<p>You’ll know from your own browsing that checking every hyperlink to read and evaluate the information cited requires effort. For those who are not well-versed in scientific principles, methodology and analytical techniques, it is even more demanding. For convenience, we often trust the presence of a link or citation as proof that the information expressed is credible. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-bogus-science-stories-and-read-the-news-like-a-scientist-133828">How to spot bogus science stories and read the news like a scientist</a>
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<p>Repeated posts also add to the appearance of credibility. Research has found that virtually any claim uttered by a contrarian scientist, whether it challenges the consensus on anthropogenic climate change or calls into question individual scientists, immediately gets <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203876213-19/climate-change-denial-riley-dunlap-aaron-mccright?context=ubx&refId=8528df14-28d1-4b3d-8a97-f88ec2960818">picked up and shared</a> through the climate change blogosphere.</p>
<p>This content is copied from one site to another until dozens of websites feature the same information. The aim is not only to increase the content’s visibility, but also to ensure search engine results pages are populated with the same <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2018.1527378?scroll=top&needAccess=true">repeated content</a>. </p>
<p>Readers who attempt to verify information through “<a href="https://purl.stanford.edu/yk133ht8603">lateral reading</a>”, or opening a series of tabs to read a selection of different articles, may come across several pages of results that appear to corroborate what they read on a single fake science website. Research has found <a href="https://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/A-Global-Study-on-Information-Literacy-1.pdf">24% of people</a> say they use this verification technique. Fake science articles also hyperlink to this repeated content, increasing the likelihood that readers will see it as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/17524032.2018.1527378?scroll=top">legitimate</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A magnifying glass on a laptop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483537/original/file-20220908-18-49d3q0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Lateral reading’ may present web users with more of the same misinformation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/selective-focus-on-keyboard-magnifier-searching-494287042">silvabom/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many fake science websites never actually produce any original articles. They regurgitate anything that supports their position in order to make that position more visible, hoping that web users won’t have time to figure out that a single article has been copied dozens of times.</p>
<h2>Manufacturing doubt</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781408824832?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9ZGYBhCEARIsAEUXITVMnFRmL-tLKIDh8E_eboqI45UF9fB9OFfW5tyND90tPwrb0i2AT5IaAtcMEALw_wcB">manufacturing of doubt</a> is another common strategy used across many anti-science positions. Research has shown that <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203876213-19/climate-change-denial-riley-dunlap-aaron-mccright?context=ubx&refId=8528df14-28d1-4b3d-8a97-f88ec2960818">the tobacco industry</a> engaged with this strategy to cast doubt on links between smoking and cancer. The same strategy is now used to downplay the climate crisis.</p>
<p>Due to the sheer weight of scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming, fake science websites avoid outright climate denial and instead critique climate concerns as overblown and climate policies as extreme. The objective is not to invalidate the position but to foster doubt about the reality of climate change. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-the-dirty-tricks-climate-scientists-faced-in-three-decades-since-first-report-145126">IPCC: the dirty tricks climate scientists faced in three decades since first report</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To this end, articles again create the illusion of scientific rigour by referring to a selected body of evidence which is often <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-bogus-science-stories-and-read-the-news-like-a-scientist-133828">misinterpreted</a> or not peer-reviewed. Meanwhile, research that confirms the severity of the climate crisis is labelled “climate alarmism” and dismissed as “doom mongering”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kJzkXfxpJfs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The strategies formerly used by the tobacco industry are now applied to climate science.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Spotting fake science</h2>
<p>Fake science websites aggressively share their articles, encouraging web users to do the same, so it’s likely that they will appear in your social media or search engine feed. They’re easy to spot if you know what to look out for.</p>
<p>First, check the hyperlinks used in the article. Fake science websites will direct you to websites that aren’t reputable, to websites that aren’t relevant, or to articles identical to the one you’re reading. </p>
<p>You can also copy and paste part of a suspect article into a search engine to check how often it has been reposted. Genuine science and research is reposted on reputable websites, but fake science will be copied among a series of websites you’ve never heard of.</p>
<p>If you’re still in doubt about an article’s legitimacy, visit a website that is dedicated to unpacking misinformation and bias, such as <a href="http://mediabiasfactcheck.com/">mediabiasfactcheck.com</a>, where you can check if a website is known to feature fake science.</p>
<p>Ultimately, fake science websites can only assume the appearance of credibility. They’re hoping that web users won’t have the time or the skills to discover that what they’re reading lacks scientific proof. With that in mind, digging a little deeper can help us expose sham science from legitimate, expert sources.</p>
<p><em>This article has been amended to clarify that the research cited on how many people sometimes check information they read online on other websites relied on self-reporting.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/social-media-and-society-125586" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479539/original/file-20220817-20-g5jxhm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isobelle Clarke receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic Social and Research Council and Trinity College London. </span></em></p>Bogus science articles are attempting to take advantage of our trust in experts.Isobelle Clarke, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838752022-07-14T15:25:07Z2022-07-14T15:25:07ZUnderstanding why people reject science could lead to solutions for rebuilding trust<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473422/original/file-20220711-18-n87b1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5955%2C3880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Health-care workers in Toronto protest the Canadian truckers convoy last February that was against vaccine mandates.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rejection of science is a huge problem, with many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.006">people refusing to get vaccines</a> and denying the existence of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climate-change-is-rising-but-mainly-among-democrats/">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Why are so many people anti-science? As experts on attitudes, persuasion and how humans are impacted by scientific innovations, our recent research showed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120755119">there are four key reasons people reject scientific information</a>. </p>
<p>These reasons are that 1) the information comes from a source they perceive as non-credible; 2) they identify with groups that are anti-science; 3) the information contradicts what they believe is true, good or valuable; and 4) the information is delivered in a way that conflicts with how they think about things. </p>
<p>Understanding these psychological reasons for being anti-science is critical because it helps unpack the rejection of science across many domains and points to potential solutions for increasing scientific acceptance.</p>
<h2>Untrustworthy scientists</h2>
<p>The first key reason people are anti-science is that they don’t see scientists as credible. This happens when scientists’ expertise is questioned, when they are deemed untrustworthy and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219858654">when they appear biased</a>. Although debate among scientists is a healthy part of the scientific process, many lay people interpret legitimate scientific debate as a sign that those on <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01859">either or both sides of the issue are not truly experts on the topic</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists are often distrusted because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1317505111">they are seen as cold and unfeeling</a>. Scientists’ objectivity has also been questioned, as they are seen as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662519871881">being biased against Christian and conservative values</a>.</p>
<p>How can scientists increase their credibility? They can communicate to the public that debate is a natural part of the scientific process. To increase trustworthiness, they can convey that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211064456">their work is motivated by selfless goals</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="protesters holding a sign with a Louis Pasteur quote that begins SCIENCE KNOW NO COUNTRY" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473419/original/file-20220711-26-6du382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters at a Stand Up for Science rally in Boston held in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Resistance</h2>
<p>People also tend to reject scientific information when it conflicts with their social identities. For example, video gamers are resistant to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1998">scientific evidence for the harms of playing video games</a>. </p>
<p>People may also identify with social groups that reject scientific evidence and hate scientists or those who agree with scientists. For example, those who identify with groups that are skeptical about climate change tend to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2507">quite hostile toward climate change believers</a>.</p>
<p>To tackle this, science communicators should find a shared identity with their audience. Research has shown, for example, that when scientists offered their recycled water suggestions to a hostile audience, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.07.006">the audience was more receptive once they found a shared identity</a>.</p>
<h2>Contradictions</h2>
<p>People often reject science because of their beliefs, attitudes and values. When scientific information contradicts what people believe is true or good, they feel uncomfortable. They resolve this discomfort by simply rejecting the science. For people who have smoked their entire lives, the evidence that smoking kills is uncomfortable because it contradicts their behaviours. It is far easier to trivialize the science regarding smoking than to change a deeply ingrained habit.</p>
<p>Often, scientific information contradicts existing beliefs due to widespread misinformation. Once misinformation has been spread, it is hard to correct, especially when it provides <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0358-x">a causal explanation for the issue at hand</a>.</p>
<p>One effective strategy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17538068.2022.2044606">to combat this is prebunking</a> — which involves warning people that they are about to receive a dose of misinformation — and then refuting it so that people will be better at resisting misinformation when they encounter it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man holding a sign reading THE CLIMATE IS CHANGING WHY AREN'T WE" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473417/original/file-20220711-26-hs5dth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s easier to communicate science when the audience and the scientists have things in common.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientific evidence can also be rejected for reasons beyond the content of the message. Specifically, when science is delivered in ways that are at odds with how people think about things, they might reject the message. For example, some people find <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1049">uncertainty hard to tolerate</a>. For those people, when science is communicated in uncertain terms (as it often is), they tend to reject it.</p>
<p>Science communicators should therefore try to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167210386238">figure out how their audiences approach information and then match their style</a>. They can use the logic of targeted advertising to try and frame scientific messages in different ways to be persuasive for different audiences.</p>
<h2>Political amplification</h2>
<p>Political forces are powerful contributors to anti-science attitudes. This is because politics can trigger or amplify all four of the key reasons for being anti-science. Politics can determine <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044029">which sources seem credible</a>, exposing people with different political ideologies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x">to different scientific information</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111269">misinformation</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09637-y">Politics is also an identity</a>, and so when scientific ideas come from one’s own group, people are more amenable to them. </p>
<p>For example, when a carbon tax is described as being proposed by Republicans, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02561-z">Democrats are more likely to oppose it</a>. Additionally, when scientific information contradicts people’s politically informed moral values, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617731500">both conservatives and liberals vehemently oppose it</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, conservatives and liberals differ in their thinking styles and how they generally approach information. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00062-9">conservatives tend to be less tolerant of uncertainty than liberals</a>. These different thinking styles are linked to different degrees of being anti-science.</p>
<h2>Understanding anti-science</h2>
<p>All in all, these core determinants of anti-science attitudes help us understand what is driving rejection of diverse scientific theories and innovations, ranging from new vaccines to the evidence for climate change. </p>
<p>Fortunately, by understanding these bases for being anti-science, we can also better understand how to target such sentiments and increase scientific acceptance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Spike W. S. Lee receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aviva Philipp-Muller and Richard Petty do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To communicate scientific findings that are relevant to the public, science communicators need to understand how to overcome attitudes that are anti-science.Aviva Philipp-Muller, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Simon Fraser UniversityRichard Petty, Professor of Psychology, The Ohio State UniversitySpike W. S. Lee, Associate Professor, Management and Psychology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833882022-06-15T18:25:22Z2022-06-15T18:25:22ZQuantifying the effects of Bolsonaro’s dismal management of the Covid-19 pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468799/original/file-20220614-26-bncnqc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1024%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a notorious Covid-sceptic. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergio Lima/AFP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Along with the United States and India, Brazil is one of the three countries to have been most hit by the Covid pandemic, both in terms of deaths and confirmed cases (660,000 and 30 million respectively). The doubts we may harbour over the reliability of official data (especially for infections, but also for deaths) are not able to challenge this dismal record.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41287-021-00487-w">2021 article</a>, we shed light on the risk factors associated with infection and death from Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic (October 2020). Brazil’s high death toll can be partly explained by an array of socio-economic factors common to other countries, including the state’s poverty, <a href="https://dial.ird.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Dialogue31gb.pdf">informal economy</a>, ethno-racial inequality and the poor infrastructure of its favelas. Above all, our research shows the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, bears particular responsibility in the spread of the pandemic – we call it the “Bolsonaro effect”.</p>
<p>Two Covid waves, 500,000 more deaths, 20 million infection cases and a successful vaccine campaign later, do our conclusions still hold?</p>
<p>While it is clear that the president’s denialism has prevented the state from effectively fighting the pandemic, it is far more challenging to demonstrate how it has impacted behaviour and to quantify its victims. This is what we have attempted to do in a <a href="https://dial.ird.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DOCUMENT-TRAVAIL-2022-03.pdf">new study</a>.</p>
<h2>Measuring the ‘Bolsonaro effect"</h2>
<p>There are two theoretical approaches available to us when seeking to quantify the effects of a Bolsonaro presidency, depending on whether we opt for an individual- or geographical-level of analysis.</p>
<p>In the case of the first method, we would need to be able to access individual data of a representative sample of the population. The latter would inform us on individuals’ Covid status (infected or not, deceased or not) and socio-political profile. There is a hitch, however, as socio-economic surveys only cover the living (the dead do not talk), while epidemiological surveys and registers say little about individual characteristics (at most, sex and age, sometimes co-morbidity factors), and do not include political preferences.</p>
<p>The alternative is to conduct the analysis at a locality level. While this method fails to measure individual risks, it can be justified on other grounds:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It allows researchers to cross-reference a broad spectrum of indicators from independent databases.</p></li>
<li><p>It provides exhaustive coverage of the whole country.</p></li>
<li><p>It can capture the effects of both collective behaviour (or neighbourhood behaviour) and individual behaviour.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the face of the Bolsonaro government’s denialism, policies were conducted at the local level (states and municipalities). The analysis therefore focuses on the 5,570 municipalities in the country and involved processing tens of millions of observations.</p>
<h2>Pro-Bolsonaro communities have been more hit by Covid-19</h2>
<p>The first key finding is that Covid-19 has, all other things being equal, was deadlier in the municipalities most favourable to Jair Bolsonaro (based on the first-round votes in the 2018 presidential election).</p>
<p>The net effect is all the more noteworthy given that on average we observe the opposite trend: in fact, in absolute terms, pro-Bolsonaro municipalities were spared by Covid because they are “whiter”, better educated, richer, etc. – all factors that protect them from the pandemic to a certain degree.</p>
<p>Once these structural characteristics are taken into account, we are able to identify a specific Bolsonaro effect. This finding is both the most durable and the most robust. Apart from age, the only other factor of socio-economic inequality to be sustained over time is poverty.</p>
<p>The president’s denialism has led his supporters to engage more often in risky behaviour, resulting in an increased likelihood of infection for the general population around them.</p>
<p>The only positive thing the president has done is to carry out <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/regulation/20124">emergency cash transfers</a> to informal workers. However, this only partially protected them by allowing them to survive without a job at home at the start of the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Degrees of social distancing</h2>
<p>We also need to look at the mechanisms that led to the Bolsonaro effect. Drawing from existing datasets, we were able to test the extent to which Brazilians have followed two of the world’s main tools against Covid: social distancing and vaccination.</p>
<p>Faced with the federal government’s reticence, local authorities declared lockdowns in a piecemeal fashion. Nevertheless, such measures benefited from a remarkable following when they were taken, as evidenced by the drastic reduction in travel by Brazilians (data from Facebook and Google accounts), which reached almost 50% in the first months of the pandemic.</p>
<p>The lifting of restrictions led to a near return to normality by the end of 2020. By the second quarter of 2021, the pandemic was back, resulting in new lockdowns. This time, Brazilians took on a more carefree attitude, even though the wave was more severe than the first.</p>
<p>In this general context, our research shows the more municipalities were in favour of Bolsonaro, the less their population limited its outings. This confirms the conclusions of <a href="https://covidcrisislab.unibocconi.eu/sites/default/files/media/attach/CovidEconomics12-109-142-%25281%2529.pdf">two studies conducted at the start of the health crisis</a>.</p>
<p>This is true for all time periods, save for the end of 2020, when the pandemic was at its lowest. Similarly, a poorer municipality is associated with both higher relative mobility and higher mortality.</p>
<p>However, the benefits of lockdowns only go so far, as evidenced by the case of municipalities with elderly residents who despite cautious travel behaviour were more often affected by the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Initially vaccine-hesitant, Bolsonaro supporters eventually caught up</h2>
<p>Vaccination rates are the second potential factor through which the Bolsonaro effect may have impacted mortality.</p>
<p>Despite a slow start and Bolsonaro’s continued resistance, the vaccination campaign eventually took off, making up for the initial delay. By mid-March 2022, 180 million Brazilians had received at least one dose and 168 million the full vaccination course (85% and 74% of the population respectively) – levels comparable to those in France and other European countries.</p>
<p>This time, all other things being equal, the propensity to vote Bolsonaro has in fact no effect on the proportion vaccinated (two doses). It is even positive, if we consider those who have taken at least one dose.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, in line with our intuition, it does appear pro-Bolsono municipalities were initially less vaccinated than the others. It was only in the second phase that they caught up. It is as if the president’s supporters had initially followed his anti-vaccine propaganda before changing their minds as the national and international results became more and more convincing.</p>
<h2>A stream of blatantly false or misleading statements</h2>
<p>Finally, a body of converging evidence points to the president’s responsibility for Covid-19’s crushingly high death rate in Brazil. Revealingly, his conviction at the end of 2021 by a parliamentary commission of enquiry on 10 counts, including crimes against humanity, does not appear to have affected his popularity. He is even trying to take advantage of it in the perspective of the next presidential elections in October 2022, on the grounds that he would have… stopped the pandemic.</p>
<p>After dismissing the virus as “uma gripezinha” (small flu), Jair Bolsonaro openly broke the rules of social distancing by taking part in public meetings and mingling with crowds, most often without wearing a mask himself – thus undermining the measures taken by local authorities.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has repeatedly touted the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, claiming against all the latest studies that its effectiveness has been scientifically proven. Last August, he declared that wearing a mask had almost no effectiveness (“eficácia quase nenhuma”). In mid-October, when more than 150,000 people had officially died from Covid-19, he claimed that the pandemic was overestimated (“superdimensionada”). By mid-November, he maintained this claim and questioned the arrival of the second wave in Brazil (“conversinha de segunda onda”).</p>
<p>The announcements have not stopped. On 5 May 2021, addressing members of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/27/brazil-senators-support-criminal-charges-for-jair-bolsonaro-over-covid-crisis">Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito da Covid</a>, the parliamentary commission investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic, he called those who refuse to recognise the effectiveness of early treatment with hydroxychloroquine “scoundrels” (“canalhas”).</p>
<p>A fact-checking journalism study analysed the president’s public statements related to Covid-19 between 11 March and 11 September 2020: of 1,417 occurrences, 653 were found to be blatantly false or misleading.</p>
<p>Among the false information he relayed or invented, we find, in no particular order, the announcement that hospital beds would lie empty like the coffins supposed to contain the dead from Covid-19, that Brazil would have reached the stage of collective immunity or that the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) would have prevented him from carrying out his policy to contain the epidemic. At the start of 2022, the president even claimed that the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220112-brazil-s-bolsonaro-downplays-omicron">Omicron variant had killed no one in Brazil</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Research confirms that Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, bears heavy responsibility for the death toll in his country, at every wave of the pandemic.François Roubaud, Économiste, statisticien, directeur de recherche à l’IRD et membre de l’UMR LEDa - DIAL, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)Mireille Razafindrakoto, Directeur de recherche IRD, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1698252021-10-13T19:12:27Z2021-10-13T19:12:27Z5 Australian COVID experts on receiving abuse and trolling amid the pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426111/original/file-20211013-25-ditpr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5703%2C3799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A survey by the Australian Science Media Centre, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02741-x">published today</a>, found around 20% of the 50 Australian scientists who responded have received threats of physical or sexual violence when speaking about COVID in the media.</p>
<p>Around 62% said they’d been subjected to trolling.</p>
<p>The Centre also worked with science journal Nature to survey scientists internationally, and found 15% said they’d received death threats, and 22% were subjected to threats of physical or sexual violence.</p>
<p>The Conversation spoke to five researchers in Australia who’ve lent their expertise extensively to media and public discussion around COVID.</p>
<p>Here’s what they said about their experiences of abuse and trolling amid the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, UNSW</h2>
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<p>I’ve been subjected to abuse or threats on a regular basis after sharing my expertise on COVID in the media.</p>
<p>This has included threatening and abusive emails and abusive, bullying social media posts, often orchestrated by gangs of trolls who aim to silence and discredit me.</p>
<p>Racism and misogyny are part of it. They simultaneously spruik pseudoscience and anti-science agendas which have come to Australia from overseas.</p>
<p>Everything during this pandemic has been polarising. Public health measures for epidemic control are draconian in nature (such as masks and movement restrictions). Many people want to shoot the messenger and think they can magically return to 2019 if people who understand pandemics are silenced and discredited.</p>
<p>We really do live in a post-truth world, where pseudoscience and anti-science have become mainstream. Vaccines and masks have been polarising at different times.</p>
<p>I try to shut out negativity from my life – negative people and negative social media. I block trolls. It’s hard when people you know are part of a gang of bullies and trolls, because it feels impolite to block them – so I mute them instead.</p>
<p>It does dissuade me from sharing my expertise. I avoid media mostly and focus on my research. The pandemic will play out regardless of what media I do, so I have taken the opportunity to refer journalists to younger researchers, to give them an opportunity to do media.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-just-enjoy-hurting-others-they-also-feel-good-about-themselves-145931">New research shows trolls don't just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves</a>
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<h2>Holly Seale, Associate Professor and infectious disease social scientist, UNSW</h2>
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<p>It’s been an eye-opening experience in the last 18 months. Prior to 2020, my media appearances were more sporadic than they are now. So COVID was a baptism of fire.</p>
<p>To date, I’ve not received any threatening remarks, nor have there been any attacks on my appearance. But I have had emails, letters and phone calls questioning my judgement and expertise. I’ve also received commentary about how I respond to questions, the language and phrasing that I use.</p>
<p>All the commentary I’ve received has been from men and it has included numerous phone calls where I’ve been instructed to listen to the person outline all the reasons why I’m wrong. The sense they’re entitled to refute what I’m saying comes across the strongest during these calls.</p>
<p>Conversations with other academics have helped! Having a network of colleagues, who are often experiencing similar issues, to debrief with has also been critical.</p>
<p>Training to support media engagement must also include examples about how to navigate abuse, negative feedback and threats, and how to support your mental well-being. Media appearances happen at all hours, weekends, and weekdays. Late on a Friday night, I received a suggestive email following a TV appearance. Having a contact person to flag the email and to receive guidance about next steps (if any) may also help alleviate some anxiety.</p>
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<h2>Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia</h2>
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<p>It hasn’t been a major issue for me. Just the odd comment about people in ivory towers shouldn’t comment about what is happening in real life, and someone objecting to my style of writing! Nothing major.</p>
<p>But it is always a bit of a jolt to the system when you cop some abuse.</p>
<p>About once a week I get someone on Twitter not being very polite, and even emails from them. Things like, “How dare you say……”, and if lots of people die from being vaccinated, it will be your fault! </p>
<p>I simply ignore them – my daughter has taught me never to respond to trolls.</p>
<p>It doesn’t dissuade me from sharing my expertise at all. I think if you’re going to be a public figure, then you have to expect to cop some abuse. There will always be a small element of people who disagree with you, and are happy to say so in a rude way.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-counter-covid-misinformation-challenge-it-directly-with-the-facts-153531">How do we counter COVID misinformation? Challenge it directly with the facts</a>
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<h2>Fiona Russell, Professor and paediatrician, epidemiologist and vaccinologist, The University of Melbourne</h2>
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<p>Surprisingly I have very few trolls and I haven’t been threatened in any way. However, I have been mansplained on the topic of COVID epidemiology in children and the public health measures to keep them safe.</p>
<p>I’m a paediatrician, infectious diseases epidemiologist and vaccinologist. I have training in infectious diseases modelling. I have won Australia’s leading infectious diseases research prize (along with seven other women), and won the Chancellor’s PhD Prize from the University of Melbourne for a clinical trial that helped change WHO vaccine policy. I advise DFAT and WHO on COVID vaccine use in the region, and am a member of WHO COVID in schools advisory group. </p>
<p>And yet, I’ve been described on Twitter as having “no special skills” when it comes to interpreting clinical and public health data pertaining to COVID in children. Thanks to others on Twitter for calling this out. I’m sure many of my female colleagues and peers can relate!</p>
<h2>Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney</h2>
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<p>I’ve been writing for The Conversation now for nearly ten years, and since the outbreak of COVID, I’ve authored ten articles on medicines thought to treat either the virus or the symptoms of its infection.</p>
<p>These have included established drugs like remdesivir and interferon-beta, new drugs like sotrovimab and molnupiravir, and publicly controversial drugs like ivermectin.</p>
<p>With my pre- and post-COVID writing I have never received what I would define as abuse or threats because of what I have written.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-the-craig-kelly-in-your-life-a-guide-to-tackling-coronavirus-contrarians-154638">How to deal with the Craig Kelly in your life: a guide to tackling coronavirus contrarians</a>
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<p>Often, my articles receive quite a few comments, and occasionally I receive personal emails as well. This is especially true when I write on medicines people have strong opinions about, such as cannabis or ivermectin.</p>
<p>Usually, these sincere but condescending comments are an attempt to tell me that what I have written is wrong, and the authors usually back up their comments with links and articles. The information the commenters base their stance on is usually obviously poor quality, at least to an expert in the area, or published by organisations with a clear agenda or conflict of interest.</p>
<p>Because their comments are usually aimed at “educating me” I’ve thankfully never felt that my well-being was at risk and I’ve never needed to take measures to protect myself.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1279138174044794880"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
‘Racism and misogyny are part of it. They simultaneously spruik pseudoscience and anti-science agendas which have come to Australia from overseas,’ said one expert.Lucy Beaumont, Health + Disability EditorLiam Petterson, Deputy Politics Editor, The Conversation AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1497342020-11-12T03:32:55Z2020-11-12T03:32:55ZBiden’s pivot to science is welcome — Trump only listened to experts when it suited him<p>In his <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/8/joe-biden-acceptance-speech-full-transcript">acceptance speech</a> at the weekend, US President-Elect Joe Biden signalled a return to science as a key policy shift for the United States. </p>
<p>“Americans have called on us to […] marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time,” he said, assuring the public the <a href="https://joebiden.com/covid-plan/">Biden-Harris COVID plan</a> “will be built on the bedrock of science”. </p>
<p>His message, on its surface, is a response to the Trump administration’s disdain for scientific advice, most notably in the COVID response and withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. </p>
<p>But Biden’s remarks are deeper and more interesting than a simple spruik for science-led policy.</p>
<h2>A track record of ignoring evidence</h2>
<p>Is Trump’s administration anti-scientific? Yes and no. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/trump-has-shown-little-respect-us-science-so-why-are-some-parts-thriving">report compiled by the journal Science</a>, the Trump White House has indeed pursued an agenda of suppressing science by slashing funding. But this agenda has been largely unsuccessful. </p>
<p>During Trump’s term, funding for the National Institutes for Health rose by 39% and the budget for the National Science Foundation rose by 17%. This is explained, at least in part, by Congress resisting the White House’s efforts to defund science.</p>
<p>Setting aside direct attacks on funding, the Trump administration has also positioned itself as anti-science in other, more visible ways. </p>
<p>It has a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02814-3">track record</a> of ignoring scientific advice on issues ranging from the deadliness of COVID, to the impact of human activity on the climate, to the bizarre “<a href="https://time.com/5775953/trump-dorian-alabama-sharpiegate-noaa/">Sharpiegate</a>” episode in which Trump apparently used a marker pen to alter the forecast track of Hurricane Dorian.</p>
<h2>Cherry picking to suit an agenda</h2>
<p>Yet it would be wrong to paint Trump as unequivocally anti-science. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/trump-administration-investing-1-billion-research-institutes-advance-industries-future/">poured money</a> into quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and invested heavily in space exploration, promising a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/trump-nasa-moon-2024/585880/">return to the Moon</a> this decade. And, at the risk of stretching this argument beyond breaking point, he called on civil engineering to deliver his Mexican border wall. </p>
<p>Trump also used science to win an election. Let’s not forget the pivotal role of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html">Cambridge Analytica</a> in his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. A mixture of data science and empirical psychology delivered voters to Trump in the millions. </p>
<p>While it is difficult to know exactly what methods Cambridge Analytica used, it is possible that a method known as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03880-4">psychographic targeting</a> was part of their approach. This involves analysing users’ behaviour on social media sites such as Facebook — for example, by tracking the content that individuals “like” — as a basis for delivering targeted advertising that fits a person’s personality.</p>
<p>It is perhaps no accident, then, that quantum computing and artificial intelligence got the thumbs-up. In the world of voter manipulation, it is hard to think of a scientific investment that would yield a better return.</p>
<p>Painting Trump’s administration as entirely anti-intellectual overlooks one of the key factors that delivered him electoral success in the first place. His 2016 victory was in one sense a scientific achievement, delivered by technological algorithms designed to exploit publicly available data with unprecedented effectiveness. </p>
<p>Such a result is absolutely repeatable. As long as methods such as psychographic targeting go unregulated in the political sphere, future candidates could leverage data science in much the way Trump did to win the White House.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview-127168">Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview</a>
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<h2>Science in the public interest</h2>
<p>Biden’s approach is not just a pivot back to respecting expertise, but also a pledge to embrace science in the public interest. The <a href="https://joebiden.com/covid-plan/">Biden-Harris COVID plan</a>, for example, will be founded on expert advice but will also, as Biden explained, “be constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern”. </p>
<p>Hopefully this heralds an end to the use of science to achieve narrow and selfish political ends, and a return to the appropriation of science for the common good. </p>
<p>While I applaud the kind of science Biden wants to embrace, I daresay he faces a difficult choice. If he refuses to use science to further any partisan political ends, his party runs the risk of getting rolled in the next election by a demagogue who does not suffer the same burden of decency. </p>
<p>Perhaps he can get ahead of this by asking us all to have a serious conversation, on a global scale, about the use of science in winning elections. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-is-political-scientific-american-has-endorsed-joe-biden-over-trump-for-president-australia-should-take-note-146394">'Science is political': Scientific American has endorsed Joe Biden over Trump for president. Australia should take note</a>
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<p>At the very least, we should reject the narrative that the Trump administration repudiates science in its entirety. That only makes it harder to see the danger the improper use of science poses to democracy. </p>
<p>We are, it is often said, living in a post-truth world. The Trump administration’s denial of evidence, and its capacity to lie about everything from coronavirus cures to election results, provide several classic examples. After four years of “alternative facts”, Biden’s vocal support for scientific expertise was a breath of fresh air. </p>
<p>But, perhaps unintentionally, Biden has also revealed a dangerous faultline of democracy. By positioning his administration as one that uses science only for the common good, he is tacitly acknowledging democracy’s vulnerability to science and technology. </p>
<p>Biden’s words remind us that technological advances threaten to propel us into a world where political differences become irreconcilable, and respect for democratic norms is not guaranteed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Baron receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Hopefully, Joe Biden’s presidency will mark the end of using cherry-picked science to suit a political agenda. As Trump’s successor, however, he’s placed in a difficult position.Sam Baron, Associate professor, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1249802020-07-23T12:18:27Z2020-07-23T12:18:27ZScience elicits hope in Americans – its positive brand doesn’t need to be partisan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349004/original/file-20200722-28-l3vz45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=299%2C46%2C4822%2C3379&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"Science" makes people think optimistically about the future.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/glowing-liquid-in-a-test-tube-royalty-free-image/554144941">WIN-Initiative/Stone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Harley-Davidson is one of the most iconic brands in the world. Harley-Davidson, however, doesn’t sell motorcycles – it sells a lifestyle. Look at any Harley-Davidson advertisement and you will see someone riding the open road. The Harley-Davidson brand is about freedom. Attitude. Living by your own rules. </p>
<p>A brand is the unspoken starting point when you first encounter any object, person or idea. It’s the emotional, sensory and cognitive reflex that shapes how subsequent information is gauged. A key to successful marketing, therefore, is understanding that starting point.</p>
<p>By the same token, effective science communication depends on understanding the factors that influence public perceptions of science so that those doing the communicating – such as the research community, health professionals or governmental agencies – can advance greater public understanding of the science or motivate the actions of individuals, groups or society. </p>
<p>Through the marketing lens, then, what is the “brand” of science as an enterprise? It’s an especially important question during the COVID-19 pandemic, when headlines around the world have shifted global attention to the science surrounding the coronavirus.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/people-financially-affected-by-covid-19-outbreak-are-experiencing-more-psychological-distress-than-others/">March 2020 Pew Research survey</a> asked Americans how they had felt about the coronavirus over the previous week. People reported experiencing nervousness, anxiety, depression and even physical reactions, at least a little of the time.</p>
<p>But despite these uneasy feelings, nearly 3 in 4 Americans indicated they felt hopeful for the future. </p>
<p>As my communications colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=r7G9f0wAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">and I</a> find, hope is the starting point for how the public thinks and feels about science.</p>
<h2>Hope for the future, based in science</h2>
<p>ScienceCounts, <a href="https://sciencecounts.org/about-us/">a nonprofit organization working to strengthen public support for science </a> which I collaborate with, conducted a couple of polls that ask respondents a multiple choice question about what comes to mind when they hear the word “science.” What they found was clear: The U.S. public feels “hope.”</p>
<p><iframe id="nQYUx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nQYUx/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.sciencecounts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ReportBenchmark.pdf">2018 ScienceCounts survey</a>, 63% of respondents said when they hear the word “science,” “hope” comes to mind. The next most common responses, at only 9% and 6%, were “fear” and “joy.”</p>
<p>More important, the feeling of “hope” held across different demographics, regardless of political ideology. A survey scheduled for fall 2020 will test if these associations still remain, amid the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>Hope is a complex emotion and it’s not new to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018776019">science communication research</a>. It’s a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain outcome. In other words, hope is associated with a future reward, what psychologists refer to as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1995.tb01764.x">“payoff-minded” orientation</a>.</p>
<p>But what exactly is the public hoping for? Is that future payoff a coronavirus vaccine? Is it a way to address climate change? Maybe it’s finding life on another planet, or discovering a breakthrough in artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>Hope is nuanced: Numerous personal values and beliefs influence what different segments of the public hope for and why. This ambiguity, I argue, is ultimately a benefit to the scientific community. </p>
<p>Science is a utility; it takes on meaning to the public once it is connected to issues that they care about. For example, segments of the public that are dismissive of scientific evidence surrounding science issues actually become more supportive of that evidence when the policy – a set of recommendations for future action – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037963">aligns with their existing worldview</a>.</p>
<p>Connecting science to relevant societal values and beliefs is a key part of effective science communication. Leaders of the scientific community have called on scientists to <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/SciencePublic-Engagement/25084">develop closer ties to different public audiences</a>. Decades of communication research inform how different stakeholders <a href="https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/content_files/NisbetMarkowitz_StrategicSciCommOnEnvironmentalIssues_WhitePaper.pdf">frame their messaging to align with different audiences</a>.</p>
<p>But what’s at stake when there’s a disconnect between how different entities at the science-society interface position themselves in scientific debates is a fractured vision for the role science plays in society. </p>
<h2>How scientists see science</h2>
<p><a href="https://sciencecounts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Assessing-Scientist-Willingness-to-Engage-in-Science-Communication_web.pdf">In a series of follow-up surveys</a>, colleagues from <a href="https://sciencecounts.org/leadership/">ScienceCounts</a>, <a href="https://www.aldacenter.org/">the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0ssM57wAAAAJ&hl=en">Michigan State University</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WHQF1CUAAAAJ&hl=en">the University of Texas at Austin</a> and I dug into scientists’ own perspectives. We asked scientists from 27 different scientific societies as well as faculty and research staff at 62 public and private research universities the same question about how they think and feel about science. We wanted to see how their responses differed, if at all, from those of the general public.</p>
<p>What we found was a less consistent pattern: while only 6% of the public responded “joy,” 40% of scientists did. “Hope” was a close second, with 36% of scientists responding that way. </p>
<p><iframe id="2A5rx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2A5rx/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In contrast to the payoff-minded orientation of hope, joy suggests a <a href="https://sciencecounts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Assessing-Scientist-Willingness-to-Engage-in-Science-Communication_web.pdf">“process-minded orientation”</a>, where the day-to-day experience of conducting scientific research motivates the emotional response. This is not surprising: Most scientists enjoy the work that they do. </p>
<p>This gap between how scientists and non-scientists think and feel about science might have interesting implications for how one group communicates with the other about the scientific enterprise.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Girl holds up an 'I heart science' sign at a march" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349006/original/file-20200722-26-1dc6unu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science holds a positive place in most people’s hearts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-indian-student-holds-a-placard-during-the-india-march-news-photo/1160484832">SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Burnishing the brand</h2>
<p>Understanding how consumers think and feel about a product or service is the essence of branding. Brands become a form of self-expression, and the goal of any marketer is to develop a communication strategy that can capitalize on it.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>There is no doubt that science has evolved as a brand in its own right, with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2019.1652225">global March for Science</a> being one big expression of it. These demonstrations in 2017 pitted those who are “pro-science” against those they labeled “anti-science.” While many scholars have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018822081">cautioned about the use of “us vs. them” tactics</a> in science communication, the idea of a “war on science” left its mark on many citizens seeing <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-partisan-brains-exploring-the-psychology-behind-denying-science-38411">science as a partisan issue</a>, rather than a political issue.</p>
<p>Unpacking the different meanings of hope among both scientists and non-scientists is an important first step toward a unified vision for communicating the promise of science. What do people hope for within the context of science, and within what time frame? Understanding these different views of hope – and where common ground exists – is crucial for science to serve as a means to our collective well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd Newman received funding from The National Science Foundation, The Kavli Foundation, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and The Burroughs Wellcome Fund. </span></em></p>When you ask Americans what the word ‘science’ brings to mind, a majority respond ‘hope.’ Using this built-in brand can help communicate important science messages.Todd Newman, Assistant Professor of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1413352020-06-25T12:18:56Z2020-06-25T12:18:56ZCoronavirus responses highlight how humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343846/original/file-20200624-132961-fwo33u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=165%2C285%2C4547%2C3051&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The more politicized an issue, the harder it is for people to absorb contradictory evidence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flanked-by-white-house-coronavirus-response-coordinator-dr-news-photo/1213154746">Drew Angerer/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bemoaning uneven individual and state compliance with public health recommendations, top U.S. COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/anthony-fauci-coronavirus-anti-science-bias/index.html">recently blamed</a> the country’s ineffective pandemic response on an American “anti-science bias.” He called this bias “inconceivable,” because “science is truth.” Fauci compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to “anti-vaxxers” in their “amazing” refusal to listen to science. </p>
<p>It is Fauci’s profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he’s overlooking the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/denial-science-chris-mooney/">well-established science</a> of “anti-science bias,” or science denial.</p>
<p>Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/16/20964281/impeachment-hearings-trump-america-epistemic-crisis">information universes</a>. </p>
<p>Within segments of the political blogosphere, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute">global warming</a> is dismissed as either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, the science of <a href="https://www.npr.org/tags/399145964/anti-vaccination-movement">vaccine safety</a>, <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-simpler/why-portland-is-wrong-about-water-fluoridation/">fluoridated drinking water</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2016/05/17/scientists-say-gmo-foods-are-safe-public-skepticism-remains/">genetically modified foods</a> is distorted or ignored. There is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-new-survey-shows-how-republicans-and-democrats-are-responding-differently-138394">marked gap in expressed concern</a> over the coronavirus depending on political party affiliation, apparently based in part on partisan disagreements over factual issues like the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/03/partisan-differences-over-the-pandemic-response-are-growing/ps_2020-06-03_sci-am-trust_00-3/">effectiveness of social distancing</a> or <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/311408/republicans-skeptical-covid-lethality.aspx">the actual COVID-19 death rate</a>.</p>
<p>In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present strong evidence, or evidence of a strong expert consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time, when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen.</p>
<p>But things don’t work that way when scientific advice presents a picture that threatens someone’s perceived interests or ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one’s political, religious or ethnic identity quite effectively predicts one’s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/motivated-reasoning">Motivated reasoning</a>” is what social scientists call the process of deciding what evidence to accept based on the conclusion one prefers. As I explain in my book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Denial-Self-Deception-Politics/dp/0190062274">The Truth About Denial</a>,” this very human tendency applies to all kinds of facts about the physical world, economic history and current events.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312935/original/file-20200130-41527-1q4zuso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The same facts will sound different to people depending on what they already believe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Nightclub-Shooting-Florida/4d33732e41f34ce89a416c03d669a0b0/1/0">AP Photo/John Raoux</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Denial doesn’t stem from ignorance</h2>
<p>The interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon has made one thing clear: The failure of various groups to acknowledge the truth about, say, climate change, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-versus-feelings-isnt-the-way-to-think-about-communicating-science-80255">not explained by a lack of information</a> about the scientific consensus on the subject.</p>
<p>Instead, what strongly predicts denial of expertise on many controversial topics is simply one’s political persuasion.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214558393">2015 metastudy</a> showed that ideological polarization over the reality of climate change actually increases with respondents’ knowledge of politics, science and/or energy policy. The chances that a conservative is a climate science denier is <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2008/05/08/a-deeper-partisan-divide-over-global-warming/">significantly higher</a> if he or she is college educated. Conservatives scoring highest on tests for <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2182588">cognitive sophistication</a> or <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2319992">quantitative reasoning skills</a> are most susceptible to motivated reasoning about climate science. </p>
<p>Denialism is not just a problem for conservatives. Studies have found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2010.511246">liberals are less likely to accept</a> a hypothetical expert consensus on the possibility of safe storage of nuclear waste, or on the effects of concealed-carry gun laws.</p>
<h2>Denial is natural</h2>
<p>The human talent for rationalization is a product of many hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation. Our ancestors evolved in small groups, where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000968">cooperation and persuasion</a> had at least as much to do with reproductive success as holding accurate factual beliefs about the world. Assimilation into one’s tribe required assimilation into the group’s ideological belief system – regardless of whether it was grounded in science or superstition. An instinctive bias in favor of one’s “<a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html">in-group</a>” and its worldview is deeply ingrained in human psychology. </p>
<p>A human being’s very sense of self <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280701592070">is intimately tied up with</a> his or her identity group’s status and beliefs. Unsurprisingly, then, people respond automatically and defensively to information that threatens the worldview of groups with which they identify. We respond with rationalization and selective assessment of evidence – that is, we engage in “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias">confirmation bias</a>,” giving credit to expert testimony we like while finding reasons to reject the rest.</p>
<p>Unwelcome information can also threaten in other ways. “<a href="https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2017/06/system-justification">System justification</a>” theorists like psychologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zh1vTeMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">John Jost</a> have shown how situations that represent a perceived threat to established systems trigger inflexible thinking. For example, populations experiencing economic distress or an external threat have often turned to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000122">authoritarian leaders</a> who <a href="https://medium.com/@bardona/varieties-of-bullsh-t-6fd1cfeb102f?source=friends_link&sk=b6096254e8c3873da683a9dbbc165ac1">promise security and stability</a>.</p>
<p>In ideologically charged situations, one’s prejudices end up affecting one’s factual beliefs. Insofar as you define yourself in terms of your <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2010.511246">cultural affiliations</a>, your attachment to the social or economic status quo, or a combination, information that threatens your belief system – say, about the negative effects of industrial production on the environment – can threaten your sense of identity itself. If trusted political leaders or partisan media are telling you that the COVID-19 crisis is overblown, factual information about a scientific consensus to the contrary can feel like a personal attack. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312934/original/file-20200130-41490-1fn1e5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Everyone sees the world through one partisan lens or another, based on their identity and beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/3d-cinema-glasses-isolated-on-white-62373739">Vladyslav Starozhylov/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Denial is everywhere</h2>
<p>This kind of affect-laden, motivated thinking explains a wide range of examples of an extreme, evidence-resistant rejection of historical fact and scientific consensus.</p>
<p>Have tax cuts been shown to pay for themselves in terms of economic growth? Do communities with high numbers of immigrants have higher rates of violent crime? Did Russia interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Predictably, expert opinion regarding such matters is treated by partisan media as though evidence is itself <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/28/george_will_global_warming_is_socialism_by_the_back_door.html">inherently partisan</a>.</p>
<p>Denialist phenomena are many and varied, but the story behind them is, ultimately, quite simple. Human cognition is inseparable from the unconscious emotional responses that go with it. Under the right conditions, universal human traits like in-group favoritism, existential anxiety and a desire for stability and control combine into a toxic, system-justifying identity politics. </p>
<p>Science denial is notoriously resistant to facts because it isn’t about facts in the first place. Science denial is an expression of identity – usually in the face of perceived threats to the social and economic status quo – and it typically manifests in response to elite messaging.</p>
<p>I’d be very surprised if Anthony Fauci is, in fact, actually unaware of the significant impact of politics on COVID-19 attitudes, or of what signals are being sent by <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-economy-coronavirus/">Republican state government officials’ statements</a>, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/pelosi-enforce-new-mask-rule-congress-republicans-committee-hearings.html">partisan mask refusal in Congress</a>, or the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-rally-in-tulsa-a-day-after-juneteenth-awakens-memories-of-1921-racist-massacre-140915">Trump rally in Tulsa</a>. Effective science communication is critically important because of the profound effects partisan messaging can have on public attitudes. Vaccination, resource depletion, climate and COVID-19 are life-and-death matters. To successfully tackle them, we must not ignore what the science tells us about science denial. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview-127168">an article originally published</a> on Jan. 31, 2020.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Bardon received funding from the Humility and Conviction in Public Life project at the University of Connecticut.</span></em></p>Whether in situations relating to scientific consensus, economic history or current political events, denialism has its roots in what psychologists call ‘motivated reasoning.’Adrian Bardon, Professor of Philosophy, Wake Forest UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1231772019-09-24T20:14:30Z2019-09-24T20:14:30ZMerchants of misinformation are all over the internet. But the real problem lies with us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293538/original/file-20190923-54763-1b3whfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Social media giants such as Facebook have been blamed for helping spread misinformation. But the problem runs deeper than that.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Call it lies, fake news, or just plain old bullshit - misinformation seems to flutter wilfully around the modern world. The truth, meanwhile, can take tedious decades to establish.</p>
<p>It seems that every day, new “alternative facts” are peddled in the public realm. YouTube’s algorithm reportedly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-49483681">promotes fake cancer cures</a>, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “troll factory” <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321930202X?via%3Dihub">floods the internet with toxic propaganda</a>, and a fake health booklet in the US advocating against vaccines recently fuelled <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/measles-outbreak-vaccine-us-autism-abortion-fake-news-brooklyn-a8863091.html">a major measles outbreak</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia in recent days, a pro-coal Facebook group claimed Sydney’s Hyde Park was trashed by those who attended Friday’s climate strike. But the photo, shared thousands of times, was actually taken in London, months ago, at an unrelated event.</p>
<p>And this week Labor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/21/labor-calls-for-facebook-investigation-after-death-tax-election-campaign">called for an investigation</a> into whether social media giants are damaging the democratic process, claiming that during the May election Facebook refused to take down fake news about the party’s “death tax”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293539/original/file-20190923-54754-ldx86f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screen shot of a since-deleted tweet by The Australian Youth Coal Coalition which falsely claimed climate strike attendees left rubbish behind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the saying goes, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. But while this saying clearly resonates in our current age of misinformation, the idea itself dates back at least 300 years. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-you-calling-anti-science-how-science-serves-social-and-political-agendas-74755">Who are you calling 'anti-science'? How science serves social and political agendas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Misinformation is not a new phenomenon</h2>
<p>Some claim the idea of the fast travelling lie was crafted by Winston Churchill in the mid-20th century; others by author Mark Twain at the end of the 19th. Yet the saying, or at least the sentiment underpinning it, is probably much older. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293541/original/file-20190923-54782-pdcrvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of Winston Churchill in London. Some say Churchill coined the truth/lies adage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a Baptist preacher of Victorian London, cited a version of it in 1855, describing it as an “old proverb”. Author Jonathan Swift, of Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal fame, is <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/">said to have written</a> in 1710 that “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it”.</p>
<p>So the recognition that lies disseminate far more quickly than the truth appears to be several centuries old. This matters because while social media may have ramped up the problem of misinformation, the root causes remain the same - our cognitive and social biases.</p>
<h2>It’s us!</h2>
<p>There are huge bodies of research on what motivates us to not only believe, <a href="https://berkeleysciencereview.com/motivated-numeracy/">but seek out</a> <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/3-levels-of-cherry-picking-in-a-single-argument.html">information that isn’t true</a>. But often the simplest explanations are the best. </p>
<p>We tend to do and believe things that people we like, admire or identify with do and believe. It reinforces the bonds among our families and friends, our communities and countries, and is often referred to as <a href="https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-influence/heuristic-systematic-model-of-persuasion/">the consensus heuristic</a>. You see it in action, and use it yourself, every day. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293537/original/file-20190923-54759-19488gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">So-called ‘fake news’ proliferates on social media, prompting calls for a crackdown on digital giants such as Facebook and Twitter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harish Tyagi/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Every time you uncritically accept the opinion of someone you like, you are applying consensus thinking – the consensus as you perceive it to be among “your” people.</p>
<p>What they say may well be entirely fact-based. But if it doesn’t correspond with facts, that won’t matter. You’ll buy it regardless because you are motivated to reinforce your connections with groups and ideas that are significant to you. We all do it, and there’s no shame in that.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-deniers-are-dangerous-they-dont-deserve-a-place-on-our-site-123164">Climate change deniers are dangerous - they don't deserve a place on our site</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Building on this, we regularly accept false, dodgy and downright incorrect information because it makes us happy, or at least minimises discomfort. It means we don’t have to change, confront flaws in our personal world view or stop doing something we like.</p>
<p>Smokers don’t keep smoking because they don’t think it’s harmful, but they might believe at some level it won’t be harmful <em>to them</em>. And they can always find “evidence” this is true: “my Uncle Chuck lived to 89 and he smoked two packs a day”.</p>
<p>As for contributing to climate change, a person might think: “I only drive my petrol-guzzling car a short distance work and back, I’m barely contributing to climate breakdown”. Or they might tell themsleves: “changing my behaviour wouldn’t even register, it’s the big companies and the government that need to do something about emissions reduction”.</p>
<p>With this way of thinking, any “facts” that support my kind of thinking are right, and those that don’t are wrong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293543/original/file-20190923-54782-1mb9esk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People are more likely to uncritically accept the opinion of someone they like, a phenomenon known as consensus heuristic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kaymar Adl/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding people’s values is key</h2>
<p>Misinformation exists, and all of us - <a href="https://web.northeastern.edu/matthewnisbet/2016/09/01/the-science-literacy-paradox-why-really-smart-people-often-have-the-most-biased-opinions/">even the most critically minded</a> - are in some ways sucked in. And there is no doubt <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/climate-change-a-unled-ruse-says-tony-abbotts-business-adviser-maurice-newman-20150508-ggwuzt.html">scientific misinformation thwarts efforts</a> to resolve key policy issues, such as vaccination rates or climate change.</p>
<p>But “fixing” scientific misinformation will not, on its own, solve these problems. Inspiring mass action requires more than just ensuring the “right” information exists in the library of human knowledge. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-attending-a-climate-strike-can-change-minds-most-importantly-your-own-122862">Why attending a climate strike can change minds (most importantly your own)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If we’re to motivate people to change, we have to understand the values that underpin their assertions and actions and work in ways that resonate with them.</p>
<p>This might mean pressuring elected officials to provide large-scale, realistic, and well mapped-out transition plans for workers and communities that depend on coal for their livelihood. Coal miners, like all of us, are pretty damned keen on being able to earn a living. That is a value we can all relate to. </p>
<p>As a rule, change is not something that comes easily to most people - especially if it’s forced upon us. But when we agree on why it’s necessary and have a clear way to handle it, it’s possible to move forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Lamberts has received funding from from the ARC and DIIS. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will J Grant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Every day, new “alternative facts” are peddled in the public realm. But misinformation is not solely a modern problem - its origins are as old as humanity.Will J Grant, Senior Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityRod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1092122019-02-18T15:58:26Z2019-02-18T15:58:26ZAn uneasy alliance: Indigenous Traditional Knowledge enriches science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259133/original/file-20190214-1726-1jrbzwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The study of caribou ecology in the Sahtú region of Canada's Northwest Territories shows how western science and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge are used together.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An article I published last year in <em>The Conversation</em> and republished in <em>Smithsonian Magazine</em> about Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and western science touched a nerve among some readers. My article discussed examples of <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-taken-thousands-of-years-but-western-science-is-finally-catching-up-to-traditional-knowledge-90291">Indigenous peoples having detailed knowledge of animal behaviour, coastal ecology and historical events that have only recently been “discovered” or verified by western scientists</a>. Although the article was well received and garnered many readers, there were some harsh criticisms.</p>
<p>In the <em>Smithsonian Magazine</em> online comments, I encountered these opinions: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I think the Smithsonian should not have published such an extreme postmodernist and anti-science article.”</em></p>
<p><em>“This was an astoundingly bad article that a good science editor should have blocked. The author is clearly knowledgeable about his field but lacks a clear understanding of the scientific method … a series of anti-science and postmodernist rants have been passed off as fact …”</em></p>
<p><em>“Without the unnecessary anti-science it would have been a good article.”</em></p>
<p><em>“The Smithsonian has gone new-age and the anti-science, regressive Left is apparently thriving there …</em>”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Criticism in academia is healthy. But there was nothing “anti-science” about my article, which asserted that Traditional Knowledge and western science are often complementary. There is nothing anti-science about my work; as an archaeologist, it is heavily informed by science.</p>
<p>The inaccurate critique by both public and academic arenas and even law courts of Indigenous ways of knowing the world is common. Critics have labeled Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and oral histories as unreliable, incomplete and tainted by outside influences. <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/disrobing-the-aboriginal-industry-products-9780773534216.php">Some consider “Indigenous science” to be a recent and politically suspect initiative</a>.</p>
<p>It seems only western science can be championed as objective, reliable and neutral.</p>
<h2>Defining “science”</h2>
<p>Emerging from the Enlightenment in the late 17th century, science has provided us with a powerful suite of tools — from quantum mechanics to astrophysics, from chemistry to geology — with which to understand the world and everything in (and outside) it. Broadly framed, science is a method or means to systematically study of the world, including the smallest bits of it, through observation and experimentation to find the best explanation. This description holds true regardless of the culture or beliefs of the scientist. </p>
<p>As an archaeologist, I research the intersection of western and Indigenous ways of knowing the world. I have found that these seemingly different knowledge systems sometimes complement and sometimes contradict each other. I have learned that Indigenous people’s understandings of the world include knowledge gained through scientific methods.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/sites/default/files/resources/fact_sheets/ipinch_tk_factsheet_march2016_final_revised.pdf">Indigenous Traditional Knowledge is reliant on empirical observations</a>, although these empirical findings have been perhaps obscured as they are woven into religious beliefs and worldviews. For example, the study of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/5/11852762/native-indigenous-science-environment">caribou ecology</a> in the Sahtú region of Canada’s Northwest Territories involved both Dene traditions, language and western biology to help determine caribou population dynamics.</p>
<h2>A double standard?</h2>
<p>It is ironic that, at the same time that many are rejecting Indigenous knowledge as inferior to western science, there is a deep and sustained ambivalence towards science by many in North America. </p>
<p>For example, anti-evolutionists continue to press for changes in school curricula based on religious beliefs that defy scientific proof. Some oblivious advocates still believe vaccinations cause autism despite contrary and thorough scientific evidence. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/02/measles-outbreak-washington-pacific-northwest-anti-vaccination">We can see the consequences of such anti-science beliefs in the recent measles outbreak in Washington State which has been linked to low vaccination rates there.</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259585/original/file-20190218-56204-10hh0qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The TV show ‘Ancient Aliens’ asks if Merlin’s magic or aliens helped build Stonehenge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This anti-science attitude even extends to my field. The television series <em>Ancient Aliens</em> (now in season 13) explains ancient technologies and places with complete disregard for scientific evidence.</p>
<h2>Questioning science</h2>
<p>Good science should yield many new insights about, and even reverse theories. Medical ideas have changed over the years as to whether salt, eggs, coffee, alcohol, etc. are bad or good for you. Such shifts can be explained by new evaluative techniques or larger and longer studies.</p>
<p>In the past few years, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/08/28/435416046/research-results-often-fail-to-be-replicated-researchers-say">a series of intriguing initiatives have attempted to replicate previously published, sometimes acclaimed experiments</a> in the social sciences, economics, cancer research and other fields. <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/replication-results-reproducibility-crisis-science-nature-journals">The success rate for some of these studies is worrying.</a></p>
<p>Does what has been called the “Replication Crisis” mean that science is not reliable? Of course not. Occasionally, experiments are methodologically flawed or sample sizes too small. These findings reiterate that science is a human enterprise, sometimes prone to personal bias and political motivations. </p>
<p>It is also easy to neglect how quickly new understandings of our world replace old ones. </p>
<p>For example, writing on the nature of science and knowledge almost three decades ago, <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/NADNSA">anthropologist Laura Nader astutely observed: “Science is not a revealed and unambiguous truth — today’s science may be tomorrow’s pseudoscience or vice versa</a>.” She added: “It is preposterous to think that we live at a time when science proponents consider it outrageous to allow that there are different science traditions.” </p>
<h2>Complementary, contradictory, or catalytic</h2>
<p>The methods and goals of western science have been challenged by Indigenous peoples, who have often been the unwilling focus of scientific research (especially in areas like genetics and archaeology). Academics have also challenged scientific methods and goals. However, a critique of science is not a rejection of science. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351">How Indigenous knowledge advances modern science and technology</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Indigenous knowledge often complements, but sometimes contradicts the results of archaeology. Why should different methods and different results be shunned when science by design is meant to be challenged? Hypotheses are proposed, tested, accepted or rejected in order to produce reliable and replicable results. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259170/original/file-20190214-1717-trhvss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natan Obed, Inuit leader, speaks during a panel featuring Canadian Indigenous leaders discussing climate change, at the COP22 climate change conference in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Mosa'ab Elshamy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indigenous knowledge can aid in achieving this in three ways: </p>
<p>1) It strengthens the scientific process by making it less homogeneous in terms of its practitioners’ values and interests, thus increasing objectivity. </p>
<p>2) It offers alternative ideas that serve as multiple working hypotheses (a central concept in science) and move research towards unanticipated results.</p>
<p>3) It helps to affirm that both “scientific explanation” and “oral histories” are products of historical circumstance and cultural context, and subject to controls that ensure accuracy. </p>
<h2>Science requires multiple perspectives</h2>
<p>Were some of the readers against my article misreading what I was saying about Traditional Knowledge? Or are they against the ideas of Indigenous Knowledge systems? </p>
<p>Do those readers perceive Traditional Knowledge to be an attack on science or western society? Or might some of them be reflecting racist attitudes towards non-Western peoples — even when Traditional Knowledge includes essential aspects of science, such as empirical observation and rigourous testing?</p>
<p>Ultimately, science is a dynamic enterprise that progresses through failure. <a href="https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=12883">The late historian Stephen Jay Gould wrote</a>: “How many current efforts, now commanding millions of research dollars and the full attention of many of our best sciences, will later be exposed as full failures based on false premises?”</p>
<p>Science is a multicultural enterprise that benefits from and indeed requires competing views. Indigenous observations, perspectives and values enrich, not threaten, our collective knowledge of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Nicholas received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to support the research conducted by the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project (2008-2016). </span></em></p>Science is a multicultural enterprise that benefits from and indeed requires competing views.George Nicholas, Professor of Archaeology, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/810682017-08-13T23:20:31Z2017-08-13T23:20:31ZEclipse of reason: Why do people disbelieve scientists?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180803/original/file-20170802-23916-akvsh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=990%2C767%2C3509%2C2229&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People reject science such as that about climate change and vaccines, but readily believe scientists about solar eclipses, like this one reflected on the sunglasses of a man dangerously watching in Nicosia, Cyprus, in a 2015 file photo.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com/fotoweb/cpimages_details.pop.fwx?position=2&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=eclipse%20and%20sunglasses&fileId=7ED4E565C8CEED2778801C7E3A1D5E69FE75CC55B658603987FEF24F300B62227BF497D18515FAB7978750CE214B0837D1853405FB9357B8528905964E23D81984317B4AD1BA45C0B1D1A0CEED4BE5A2E297922C28FCC5CFEB24C714341D0405379E78A1A7A8BD255CA8195352209C044EE57DF58AFDD91552F44FC49A03AD85BB6B54D41907D6E4">(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve been paying attention, you know that on Aug. 21, we’re in for a special cosmic treat: the <a href="https://eclipse.aas.org/">Great American Eclipse</a> of 2017.</p>
<p>The moon’s shadow will track a 4,000-kilometre course across the continental United States from coast to coast, <a href="http://depoebayeclipse2017.com">beginning with Depoe Bay, Ore.</a>, and end after 93 minutes in <a href="http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bob-bestler/article154030414.html">McClellanville, S.C.</a>. As a result, tens of millions of Americans will be treated to that rarest of natural wonders: a total eclipse of the sun.</p>
<p>Canada, unfortunately, won’t experience a total eclipse, but <a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/3548728/canada-solar-eclipse-august-21/">the view will still be impressive</a>: The sun will be 86 per cent eclipsed in Vancouver, 70 per cent in Toronto, and 58 per cent in Montreal. Canadians who want to experience totality from the comfort of home will need to wait until <a href="https://weather.com/science/space/news/next-total-solar-eclipse-april-2024-north-america">April 8, 2024</a> (Hamilton, Montreal and Fredericton), <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2044-august-23">Aug. 23, 2044</a> (Edmonton and Calgary) or <a href="http://www.solar-eclipse.de/en/eclipse/detail/2079-05-01/">May 1, 2079</a> (Saint John and Moncton).</p>
<p>In the meantime, back here in 2017, everyone is focused on Aug. 21. Under the path of the eclipse, <a href="http://www.theleafchronicle.com/story/news/eclipse/2017/04/26/schools-close-events-plotted-out-solar-eclipse-clarksville/100930722/">schools will be closed</a>, traffic <a href="https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/blogs/augusts-total-solar-eclipse-national-traffic-jam">will be a nightmare</a>, and hotel rooms at the Days Inn are on offer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/travel/where-to-see-the-total-eclipse-astronomy.html">for $1,600 a night</a>.</p>
<h2>Absolute faith in eclipse predictions</h2>
<p>What is remarkable among all this excitement and frenzy is the lack of “eclipse deniers.” Nobody doubts or disputes the detailed scientific predictions of what will happen.</p>
<p>I will be watching the eclipse from <a href="http://www.kentuckymonthly.com/events/total-solar-eclipse-viewing-party/">Simpson County, Ky.</a>, where I expect I will be joined by thousands of others, all of us knowing in advance that totality for us will begin at 1:26:44 p.m., and will end 141 seconds later. It is inconceivable to any of us that the predictions will be wrong by even a single second.</p>
<p>Not one person will argue beforehand that <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/12/1652527/-Congressman-leaves-stage-to-a-chorus-of-boos-after-saying-the-jury-is-still-out-on-climate-change">the jury is still out</a> on eclipses, that scientists have <a href="http://www.snopes.com/2017/02/08/noaa-scientists-climate-change-data/">tampered with the data</a>, that eclipses <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moon_landing_hoax">are faked by NASA</a>, that exposing children to eclipses <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html">causes autism</a> or even that eclipses are <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385">a Chinese hoax</a>. Across the continent, there will be climate deniers, creationists, anti-vaxxers and flat-Earthers looking upwards through their <a href="https://www.space.com/36941-solar-eclipse-eye-protection-guide.html">eclipse glasses</a>, all soaking up this wondrous moment along with everyone else.</p>
<p>[<em>Editor’s note: Astrophysicist and popular science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson also echoed this article’s core assertion while it was in editing.</em>]</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"895634473425014785"}"></div></p>
<p>This presents a puzzle: Why do people distrust or dispute so many aspects of science, but unanimously accept, without question, the ridiculously specific predictions on offer for every eclipse?</p>
<h2>Why the selective denial of science?</h2>
<p>One possible reason is that we’ve been right on eclipses every time before. But for most people, a total eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Most people won’t have experienced such predictions first hand, and will have to take it on trust that what’s happened before for others will happen again for them.</p>
<p>Another explanation might be that, unlike the case for <a href="https://inconvenientsequel.tumblr.com/">climate change</a> or <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/jabbed">vaccinations</a>, the science behind eclipses is simple and uncontroversial. While it’s true that astronomers have been making reasonably accurate eclipse predictions <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-greece-archaeology-antikythera-mechan-idUSKCN0YW0XQ">for thousands of years</a>, the required calculations are <a href="https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/reference/explain.html">highly complex</a>, extending far beyond the mathematics covered in high school or even in many university courses. Most people would find it difficult to reproduce or confirm any of these eclipse predictions for themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181584/original/file-20170809-32165-ik43tp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actress Jenny McCarthy, who has been a prominent advocate of the false belief vaccines are linked to autism, sought to win support from lawmakers at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in this 2008 file photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com/fotoweb/cpimages_details.pop.fwx?position=87&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=jenny%20and%20mccarthy&fileId=7ED4E565C8CEED275AEAE4A023E6F0DBFE75CC55B6586039E8D351704E8E44E52937675D73DB2F545E68D1DB30CCFF1E8B21ADCD35D58FA29D52DFBAF28E76D1F8678765B3CC966147B863EC252668E1E60CABB17DD3AB06B4EFF96039433083D412195A45FA1418AA81C56FBE14091F03D99C08F02C911AB6180BBD75C2E46A">(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The more likely answer is that eclipses are not a threat. There is nothing at stake. Eclipses do not endanger <a href="https://www.edf.org/card/7-ways-global-warming-affecting-daily-life">our way of life</a> or our <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/heres-what-climate-change-will-do-to-the-american-economy-in-7-charts-e9d15a1ea6a5">standard of living</a>. Nobody fears that eclipses might have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/15/stern-review">economic implications</a>, could <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/big-bang/does-the-big-bang-fit-with-the-bible/">challenge our belief system</a> or <a href="https://avn.org.au/making-an-informed-choice/why-the-avn/">threaten our children</a>. There are no anti-eclipse <a href="http://www.tobaccotactics.org/">lobby groups</a> trying to set the narrative, and there are thus no well-funded <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/center-for-science-and-democracy/sugar-coating-science.html">advertising campaigns</a> or <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy">scientific studies</a> that aim to raise doubts in our minds or to subtly shape our thinking.</p>
<h2>Laws of science</h2>
<p>Eclipses are agenda-free. The science — and the resulting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9GdfL_ToU">extraordinary experience</a> — are left to speak for themselves.</p>
<p>The problem is that we don’t get to pick and choose what scientific facts or consensuses are controversial, and which are not. The same strict laws of science are everywhere.</p>
<p>So if you’re comfortable putting down your non-refundable deposit for your eclipse hotel, if you let a steel tube flying at 30,000 feet carry you to a town under the path of totality, if on the morning of Aug. 21 you check the weather forecast hoping for clear skies, if you pay for breakfast with your credit card, and if that afternoon you snap a picture of the eclipse with your smartphone, then you have staked your bank balance, your August vacation and your very life on the fact that science is testable and reproducible, and that faulty theories can’t withstand extended scrutiny and testing.</p>
<p>Total solar eclipses are a strange <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-solar-eclipse-coincidence/">cosmic coincidence</a> and a remarkable, awe-inspiring experience. But they are also a profound reminder that when the emotions, money and politics are stripped away, none of us, at our core, are science deniers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Gaensler receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and from the Canada Research Chairs Program.</span></em></p>People universally believe scientists’ solar eclipse calendars, but vaccine warnings or climate predictions are forms of science that strangely do not enjoy equivalent acceptance.Bryan Gaensler, Director, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/747552017-07-30T20:10:10Z2017-07-30T20:10:10ZWho are you calling ‘anti-science’? How science serves social and political agendas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177982/original/file-20170713-19681-1ey4qzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Left, right, populist, elitist: there are many different ways to be anti-science.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/torontomay-25-banner-asking-put-label-142438168?src=8F5rEq42XQ4-tRqd3XD-nA-1-1">arindambanerjee/shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Florida recently passed a law that “authorizes county residents to challenge use or adoption of instructional materials” in schools. It’s been described as “anti-science” by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2017/07/01/two-sad-ironies-in-florida-passing-its-anti-science-law/#597f8fdd5089">individual scientists</a> and the US <a href="https://ncse.com/news/2017/06/floridas-antiscience-bill-becomes-law-0018567">National Center for Science Education</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"881832362073620480"}"></div></p>
<p>From climate change and vaccination to genetic modification and energy security, anti-science is used as a critical phrase implying a person or group is rejecting science outright. </p>
<p>But it’s not that simple. </p>
<p>All shades of political positions are routinely ambivalent about science. Neither the right or left arms of politics are consistent supporters or attackers of science.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-politicians-think-they-know-better-than-scientists-and-why-thats-so-dangerous-72548">Why politicians think they know better than scientists – and why that's so dangerous</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If there is no one definition of anti-science that works across all settings, why does it matter that we know anti-science means different things to different people? The reason is that science remains a key resource in arguing for social and political change or non-change. </p>
<p>Knowing what counts as anti-science for distinct groups can help illuminate what people take to be the proper grounds for social and political decision-making. </p>
<h2>Left, right, populist, elitist</h2>
<p>First up, I’ll define some broad terms. </p>
<p>To be politically “<a href="http://www.diffen.com/difference/Left_Wing_vs_Right_Wing">left</a>” is to be concerned about social and economic equality, sometimes cultural equality too, and usually a state big enough to protect the less fortunate and less powerful.</p>
<p>To be “<a href="http://www.diffen.com/difference/Left_Wing_vs_Right_Wing">right</a>” is to be concerned about individual autonomy and a state small enough to let markets and personal responsibility decide fates rather than central planners. </p>
<p>To be “<a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Power-Populism-Koen-Vossen/9781138123366">populist</a>” involves being anti-elite, anti-pluralist (the “us vs them” view of civic relations), tending toward conspiracy theories and displaying a preference for direct over representative democracy. </p>
<p>It’s also worth noting here that science can be viewed as an elite endeavour. That’s not elitist in the two main negative senses, of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/sep/08/science-schools-education-centre">being impractical</a> or of being practised by <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/science-is-not-elitist-its-built-on-error-luck-and-nongeniuses-randomly-groping-around-20170221-gui6v9.html">special people</a> somehow different in kind to the rest of us. Instead, I mean science is elitist in the more technical sense of being a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7234/full/458030a.html">professionalised body of practice</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177983/original/file-20170713-19645-ate1o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To become a scientist is to be admitted to an elite group in society - not everyone can attend events like Science and Technology 2017 Conference held in Hofburg Palace, Austria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ctbto/34759242233/in/photolist-UXycHT-eap9Rs-dwLAJ9-6JqfWc-9dApMZ-UsqPy2-9qoAj1-ch8rkL-ch8rfN-Udk8Qq-UZjTex-UZjT8a-VEcReN-nJir-UY1Sju-WdTmDV-9FctbQ-cyNqNJ-cPvNh-3TkELW-ifXLdp-bwUBWp-iftZv3-8GcAs3-6JqdWc-VjCUEF-8XH9NE-iftCna-8MxzJh-4MnGyg-ejVYwe-cyXhGN-U38eRE-V7XAY8-hV2VPE-z6h8G-mx6cmq-noTVXq-ifXPGi-ifXRhc-ioUrnV-9YvZEX-aXKehe-VZwveB-TSpYZs-9RRkrM-sfAXzo-fEVZQ2-V24RfF-eaizsk">ctbto/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The skills and knowledge possessed by scientists are gained by social immersion in various forms of training regimens. Both those learning contexts and the resulting skills and knowledge gained are not widely participated in, nor widely distributed. The experience-based and often professionalised context of science creates a select group. </p>
<h2>Different flavours of anti-science</h2>
<p>To make clear the way anti-science comes in different political flavours, let me first make some general claims. </p>
<p>Populists of either left-wing or right-wing persuasions distrust elites. That can be enough for populists to at least be suspicious of factual claims produced distant from the populist. Pauline Hanson said that public vaccinations are a worry and parents should do their own research, including getting a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-test-your-child-can-take-before-getting-vaccinated-as-pauline-hanson-said-74159">(non-existent) test</a> of their child for negative effects.</p>
<p>Anti-science among the mainstream left and right of politics is more complex. They share a worry that science can be corrupted, but the left blames capitalist profiteering, and the right blames careerist attempts to distort the market. </p>
<p>They also share a worry that science can engulf politics, but the left worries that technical answers will displace deliberative politics, and the right worries that science will displace traditional values as the motor of social change. </p>
<p>But whereas anti-science from the left arises as a label for apprehensions about the application of science, anti-science from the right arises as a label for apprehensions about science’s raw ability to discover causal connections.</p>
<h3>Populist left</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.skeptic.com/magazine/">Skeptic magazine</a> publisher <a href="http://www.michaelshermer.com/">Michael Shermer</a> <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-on-science/">thinks</a> the populist left is anti-science by virtue of disliking genetically modified organisms (GMOs), nuclear power, fracking and vaccines. According to him, they shockingly obsess over the “purity and sanctity of air, water and especially food”. </p>
<p>But writer <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/left-science-gmo-vaccines">Chris Mooney</a> is correct to reply that, taking vaccine-related scepticism as an example, Shermer has picked up on conspiracist rather than leftist beliefs. </p>
<p>Lacking authoritarianism, today’s populist-left disquiet with science is actually a lament that <a href="http://greencriminology.org/glossary/treadmill-of-production-theory/">production science</a> tramples human values.</p>
<p>An example might be the <a href="https://avn.org.au/making-an-informed-choice/make-an-informed-vaccination-choice/">Australian Vaccination Network</a>, which claims to be neither pro- nor anti-vaccination and instead “pro-choice”. The populist left in this case pushes parental rights to the limit, presenting it as sufficient for decision-making yet under threat by larger institutions and their “foreign” ways.</p>
<h3>Mainstream left</h3>
<p>The mainstream left is more ambivalent than straight anti-anything. GMOs and nuclear power are suspect? Climate science and vaccinations are promising? Leftist anti-science is more about anti-corruption and wariness that technical reasoning will supplant values debates in our democracies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177984/original/file-20170713-12241-1bnth08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greenpeace believes some kinds of scientific evidence, but distrusts others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/4583647712/in/photolist-7Z3oLQ-o3rnF7-eZhiuV-eZtGQU-5EC41s-5EC3Jj-71u2SD-q2FZ2E-qRRc77-6TKZcQ-qj4Jo2-qztogZ-5huts7-5k8nYp-5XDURC-6nDAMR-6WBnLP-5WXSss-uJ3tUy-5WF3yE-7qbXWd-5XzDuz-5WAMQ8-5WMpcR-9vdM1S-ioDaWz-5WRHEm-ioCxKh-61vesG-5hutvs-eZhbg8-zkZee-uLnqba-5WRDQb-eZgZ2e-5k8nWF-5XDVh1-6KF3bG-5AGPNr-9ixHU1-qzto4K-ioCymh-eZhgAP-eZhfpK-eZhhyT-fFgF7e-eZtwf3-eZtDC1-eZh9j2-qPDEGx">takver/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/busting-the-gm-myths-a-view-from-greenpeace-3610">Greenpeace</a> critique of GMOs is a good example. Greenpeace appeals for independent science but suggests agro-chemical corporations are corrupting it. It calls for ethical-political deliberation about our food supply, not just dry technical assessments of safety. </p>
<h3>Populist right</h3>
<p>The populist right implies shadow governments conspire against the market and the people, as when One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/climate-change-sceptics-unwarmed-by-scientists-reassessment-of-cold-facts-20120730-23agk.html">reportedly</a> claimed climate change science had been captured by “some of the major banking families in the world” who form a “tight-knit cabal”. </p>
<p>In general, the populist right’s anti-science is just <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075637">pro-conspiracist</a>. </p>
<h3>Mainstream right (small-state conservatives)</h3>
<p>The mainstream right is more complicated. </p>
<p>Sociologist <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/94/2/723/2583761/The-Political-Context-of-Science-in-the-United">Gordon Gauchat</a> found that to be anti-science the political right had to score high on four dimensions: </p>
<ul>
<li>religiosity</li>
<li>authoritarianism</li>
<li>distrust of government </li>
<li>scientific literacy (surprisingly). </li>
</ul>
<p>They sometimes parrot the left’s allegations of corruption, but the mainstream right and populist right approach corruption differently.</p>
<p>The mainstream right is loath to imply a shadow world order, as that disrupts the ideology of the market. Instead, they limit the corruption implication to accusations of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink">groupthink</a> that distort the market (the typical example being climate scientists shutting down <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/08/silencing-climate-change-dissenters/#">dissent</a> for careerist reasons). </p>
<p>The mainstream right has bigger fish to fry. Philosopher <a href="https://scienceprogress.org/2013/03/science-and-the-public-square/">Heather Douglas</a> has ideas about why the political right leans toward anti-science. </p>
<p>Douglas argues that shifts in the public-private boundary, whereby private behaviours become treated as matters of public concern, trouble the right more than the left. Thus progressive leftists view social change more positively than do traditionalist right-wingers.</p>
<p>Douglas suggests that science routinely discovers causal relationships that prompt shifts in the public-private boundary; such as finding waste has human and biosphere effects beyond the individual. That means science is pitted directly against traditional values as one of the motors of social change. </p>
<p>Not every example fits Douglas’s pattern. The Australian Liberal Party has been described as <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/is-this-the-death-of-australias-renewable-energy-industry-83477/">undermining renewable energy</a> and being resistant to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-climate-denial-gained-a-foothold-in-the-liberal-party-and-why-it-still-wont-go-away-56013">meaningful policy action on climate change</a>, but clearly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/05/malcolm-turnbull-attacks-pauline-hansons-views-on-vaccination">supports vaccination</a>. Is that because, for the right, vaccinations expand the market, and right-wingers are more comfortable with market-driven social change?</p>
<p>The predatory influence science can exert over important ethical-political issues troubles both left- and right-wingers. </p>
<p>But where the left worries about the application of science to broader issues, small-state conservatives implicitly react to the means of production that enable political application: the discovery of causal relationships. The observations and experiments that feed into community-based assessments of causality constitute the core of science, not its secondary application to social issues. </p>
<p>As regulatory science has grown since the 1950s, small-state conservatives watched it expand the state by showing the private could be public. Science is a well-resourced competitor among the motors of social change. </p>
<p>Small-state conservatives experience science as guiding social change, a function they want to preserve for traditional values. Small-state conservatives are the true heirs to anti-science. </p>
<p>When the historian Naomi Oreskes talks of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/08/merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-conway">merchants of doubt</a> – right-wing free marketers opposed to environmental regulation – she is in my judgement talking about small-state conservatives worried that science is a motor of change outside their sphere of direct control.</p>
<h2>What anti-science isn’t, and what it might be</h2>
<p>In his book <a href="http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226467245.003.0008">How to be Antiscientific</a>, Steven Shapin argues that descriptions of science, and what ought to be done in science, vary tremendously among scientists themselves. </p>
<p>So you’re not anti-science if you have a preference for or against things like a preferred method, or some particular philosophy of science, or some supposed “character” of science. </p>
<p>Nor are you anti-science because you highlight the uncertainties, the unknowns and the conditionality of scientific knowledge – even when you are the outsider to science. That’s called free speech in a democracy. </p>
<p>Where does that leave anti-science? Maybe it leaves anti-science living with small-state conservatives, who in effect cast aspersions about something that might be essential to the ideal of scientific authority having a positive and functional relationship with democracy. That is, science as a public good. </p>
<p>If you end up denying the relevance of science to informing or guiding democratic decision-making, because you want some value untouched by information to do that guidance work, maybe that makes you about as anti-scientific as democracies can tolerate. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-scientists-engage-with-pseudo-science-or-anti-science-54953">Should scientists engage with pseudo-science or anti-science?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darrin Durant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether you’re talking about climate change, vaccination or agriculture, the term “anti-science” means different things in different political contexts.Darrin Durant, Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/775452017-05-15T00:05:01Z2017-05-15T00:05:01ZInoculation theory: Using misinformation to fight misinformation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169163/original/file-20170512-3682-1g3a9fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A shot of fake news now and your defenses are raised in the future?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/syringe-medical-injection-hand-palm-fingers-345038330">funnyangel/Shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a psychologist researching misinformation, I focus on reducing its influence. Essentially, my goal is to put myself out of a job.</p>
<p>Recent developments indicate that I haven’t been doing a very good job of it. Misinformation, fake news and “alternative facts” are more prominent than ever. The <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016">Oxford Dictionary named “post-truth”</a> as the 2016 word of the year. Science and scientific evidence have been under assault.</p>
<p>Fortunately, science does have a means to protect itself, and it comes from a branch of psychological research known as <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0042026">inoculation theory</a>. This borrows from the logic of vaccines: A little bit of something bad helps you resist a full-blown case. In my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175799">newly published research</a>, I’ve tried exposing people to a weak form of misinformation in order to inoculate them against the real thing – with promising results.</p>
<h2>Two ways misinformation damages</h2>
<p>Misinformation is being generated and disseminated at prolific rates. A recent study comparing arguments against climate science versus policy arguments against action on climate found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.12.001">science denial is on the relative increase</a>. And recent research indicates these types of effort have an impact on people’s perceptions and science literacy.</p>
<p>A recent study led by psychology researcher Sander van der Linden found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201600008">misinformation about climate change</a> has a significant impact on public perceptions about climate change. </p>
<p>The misinformation they used in their experiment was the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/29/revealed-most-popular-climate-story-social-media-told-half-million-people-science-was-hoax">most shared climate article in 2016</a>. It’s a petition, known as the Global Warming Petition Project, featuring 31,000 people with a bachelor of science or higher, who signed a statement saying humans aren’t disrupting climate. This single article lowered readers’ perception of scientific consensus. The extent that people accept there’s a scientific consensus about climate change is what researchers refer to as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118489">“gateway belief,”</a> influencing attitudes about climate change such as support for climate action.</p>
<p>At the same time that van der Linden was conducting his experiment in the U.S., I was on the other side of the planet in Australia conducting my own research into the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175799">impact of misinformation</a>. By coincidence, I used the same myth, taking verbatim text from the Global Warming Petition Project. After showing the misinformation, I asked people to estimate the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, in order to measure any effect.</p>
<p>I found similar results, with misinformation reducing people’s perception of the scientific consensus. Moreover, the misinformation affected some more than others. The more politically conservative a person was, the greater the influence of the misinformation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169203/original/file-20170514-3692-mlnqwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Response to misinformation about climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cook et al. (2017)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This gels with other research finding that people interpret messages, whether they be information or misinformation, according to their preexisting beliefs. When we see something we like, we’re more likely to think that it’s true and strengthen our beliefs accordingly. Conversely, when we encounter information that conflicts with our beliefs, we’re <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2010.511246">more likely to discredit the source</a>.</p>
<p>However, there is more to this story. Beyond misinforming people, misinformation has a more insidious and dangerous influence. In the van der Linden study, when people were presented with both the facts and misinformation about climate change, there was no net change in belief. The two conflicting pieces of information canceled each other out.</p>
<p>Fact and “alternative fact” are like matter and antimatter. When they collide, there’s a burst of heat followed by nothing. This reveals the subtle way that misinformation does damage. It doesn’t just misinform. It stops people believing in facts. Or as Garry Kasporov eloquently puts it, <a href="https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/808750564284702720">misinformation “annihilates truth</a>.”</p>
<h2>Science’s answer to science denial</h2>
<p>The assault on science is formidable and, as this research indicates, can be all too effective. Fittingly, science holds the answer to science denial.</p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0042026">Inoculation theory</a> takes the concept of vaccination, where we are exposed to a weak form of a virus in order to build immunity to the real virus, and applies it to knowledge. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2005.11679045">Half a century of research</a> has found that when we are exposed to a “weak form of misinformation,” this helps us build resistance so that we are not influenced by actual misinformation.</p>
<p>Inoculating text requires two elements. First, it includes an explicit warning about the danger of being misled by misinformation. Second, you need to provide counterarguments explaining the flaws in that misinformation.</p>
<p>In van der Linden’s inoculation, he pointed out that many of the signatories were fake (for instance, a <a href="https://youtu.be/T6Et5aenOLg">Spice Girl was falsely listed as a signatory</a>), that 31,000 represents a <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project.htm">tiny fraction</a> (less than 0.3 percent) of all U.S. science graduates since 1970 and that less than 1 percent of the signatories had expertise in climate science.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175799">recently published research</a>, I also tested inoculation but with a different approach. While I inoculated participants against the Petition Project, I didn’t mention it at all. Instead, I talked about the <a href="https://youtu.be/WAqR9mLJrcE">misinformation technique of using “fake experts”</a> – people who convey the impression of expertise to the general public but having no actual relevant expertise.</p>
<p>I found that explaining the misinformation technique completely neutralized the misinformation’s influence, without even mentioning the misinformation specifically. For instance, after I explained how fake experts have been utilized in past misinformation campaigns, participants weren’t swayed when confronted by the fake experts of the Petition Project. Moreover, the misinformation was neutralized across the political spectrum. Whether you’re conservative or liberal, no one wants to be deceived by misleading techniques.</p>
<h2>Putting inoculation into practice</h2>
<p>Inoculation is a powerful and versatile form of science communication that can be used in a number of ways. My approach has been to mesh together the findings of inoculation with the cognitive psychology of debunking, developing the Fact-Myth-Fallacy framework. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wfq0Xrgsn_4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Denial101x lecture on debunking myths.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This strategy involves explaining the facts, followed by introducing a myth related to those facts. At this point, people are presented with two conflicting pieces of information. You reconcile the conflict by explaining the technique that the myth uses to distort the fact.</p>
<p>We used this approach on a large scale in a free online course about climate misinformation, <a href="http://sks.to/denial101x">Making Sense of Climate Science Denial</a>. Each lecture adopted the Fact-Myth-Fallacy structure. We started by explaining a single climate fact, then introduced a related myth, followed by an explanation of the fallacy employed by the myth. This way, while explaining the key facts of climate change, we also inoculated students against <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/docs/Fact_Myth_Fallacy.pdf">50 of the most common climate myths</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169022/original/file-20170511-32624-m2rtfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Denial101x lectures adhering to Fact-Myth-Fallacy structure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Denial101x</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, we know we are causing global warming because we observe many patterns in climate change unique to greenhouse warming. In other words, human fingerprints are observed all over our climate. However, one myth argues that climate has changed naturally in the past before humans; therefore, what’s happening now must be natural also. This myth commits the fallacy of jumping to conclusions (or non sequitur), where the premise does not lead to the conclusion. It’s like finding a dead body with a knife poking out of its back and arguing that people have died of natural causes in the past, so this death must have been of natural causes also.</p>
<p>Science has, in a moment of frankness, <a href="https://theconversation.com/communicating-climate-change-focus-on-the-framing-not-just-the-facts-73028">informed us that</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-research-say-about-how-to-effectively-communicate-about-science-70244">throwing more science at people</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-communication-training-should-be-about-more-than-just-how-to-transmit-knowledge-59643">isn’t the full answer to science denial</a>. Misinformation is a reality that we can’t afford to ignore – we can’t be in denial about science denial. Rather, we should see it as an educational opportunity. Addressing misconceptions in the classroom is one of the <a href="https://apps.weber.edu/wsuimages/geography/Cook,%20Bedford%20and%20Mandia%20Case%20studies%20in%20ABL%20JGE%202014.pdf">most powerful ways to teach science</a>.</p>
<p>It turns out the key to stopping science denial is to expose people to just a little bit of science denial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does science have an answer to science denial? Just as being vaccinated protects you from a later full-blown infection, a bit of misinformation explained could help ward off other cases down the road.John Cook, Research Assistant Professor, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/744432017-03-20T19:17:23Z2017-03-20T19:17:23ZWhen politicians listen to scientists, we all benefit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161460/original/image-20170320-6100-19xbpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists address the prime minister at last year's Science Meets Parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Graham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Trump administration has just confirmed the appointment of Scott Pruitt, a known <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/09/epa-chiefs-climate-change-denial-is-easily-refuted-by-the-epas-website/?utm_term=.7991e3bbdeb7">climate change denier</a>, as head of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/us/politics/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html?_r=0">US Environmental Protection Agency</a>.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, in 2014 the government in Sweden misrepresented research on the state of the wolf population to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/challenge-the-abuse-of-science-in-setting-policy-1.16580">justify hunting them</a>.</p>
<p>And in the United Kingdom in 2006, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/nov/08/news.politics">parliamentary committee</a> found that the government “twisted” science for political purposes. More recently, Nobel Laureate and Royal Society president Paul Nurse lamented <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30744203">politicians ignoring scientific evidence</a>. </p>
<p>Are we seeing a shift in the way that some politicians use or misuse scientific expertise?</p>
<p>Science has evolved over many centuries to become an integral part of modern society, underpinning our health, wealth, and cultural fabric. Yet scientific evidence is often wilfully disregarded by politicians worldwide.</p>
<p>They often cherrypick or ignore the science when it does not accord with their political agenda. We have seen “<a href="https://theconversation.com/seeking-truth-among-alternative-facts-72733">alternative facts</a>” supplant scientific and other evidence bases in this “post-fact” era.</p>
<p>While surveys continue to show that the vast majority of people still support and believe in the <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/">benefits of science</a>, the recent politicisation of science has at best raised seeds of doubt, and at worst has polarised many people’s worldview.</p>
<p>Perhaps politicians are simply reflecting a tendency for the people to allow their worldview to influence <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/survey-finds-us-public-still-supports-science-1.16818">which scientific facts they believe</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps there is a justification for excluding political appointees to public office who, like Scott Pruitt, are on record for denying the science that is crucial to their decision-making?</p>
<p>After all, while they represent and reflect their electoral peers, politicians have the added responsibility of appointing people who make informed decisions and public policy based on sound evidence.</p>
<p>So it is important now, more than ever, to reinforce with politicians the need to value and respect science in the development of evidenced-based policy.</p>
<h2>Science in the house</h2>
<p>In Australia, a key connection between science and politics is the annual “<a href="http://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/science-meets-parliament/">Science meets Parliament</a>” event, which began in 1999, and which today is organised by <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/">Science and Technology Australia</a>. </p>
<p>This unique event brings together hundreds of scientists and the <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/event/science-meets-parliament-2017/">Australian parliament</a>, and owes its success to the way in which it saturates parliament with science for two days. </p>
<p>There are three key outcomes of <a href="http://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/science-meets-parliament/">Science meets Parliament</a> that highlight its significance:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Scientists both young and old convey the excitement and the benefits of science to parliamentarians, thereby helping to close the “virtuous cycle” that supports science in society</p></li>
<li><p>Scientists, at the same time, develop an appreciation for the process of government, contributing significantly to their professional development</p></li>
<li><p>Lasting networks are created between parliamentarians and scientists. They go beyond the <a href="http://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/science-meets-parliament/">meetings at Science meets Parliament</a>, and enable scientific engagement with the parliament to extend more broadly, both geographically and throughout scientific and parliamentary careers.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>These linkages are the key to ensuring the ongoing contribution of science to government decision making, and thereby to enhancing the role of science in our society.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161461/original/image-20170320-6100-1ps0uej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientists speaking with Greens MP Adam Bandt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Graham</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In science, as in industry, it is also important to innovate continually in our governance processes. Without this, the political system cannot respond to the changing needs of the community. Engagement through events like <a href="http://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/science-meets-parliament/">Science meets Parliament</a> is a key part of that evolution.</p>
<p>Equally, individual scientists need to play a role in everyday life to communicate their science, whether to key decision makers or the wider community, in order to counter “alternative facts”.</p>
<p>In schools, workplaces, community groups and at dinner parties, scientists should convey the consensus view of science even if it lies outside their immediate expertise.</p>
<p>Any scientist with an informed perspective of the state of scientific knowledge on climate change, genetically modified foods, nuclear science or evolution can contribute to enhanced understanding in the wider community. </p>
<p>Whether through Science meets Parliament or as individuals, all scientists have a role to play in countering those who seek to cherrypick and subvert the science that underpins our modern, evidence-based society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Baldwin receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Today is the start of Science Meets Parliament, which helps our nation’s leaders embrace the latest scientific evidence.Ken Baldwin, Director, Energy Change Institute, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/733052017-03-08T07:54:42Z2017-03-08T07:54:42ZA scientists’ march on Washington is a bad idea – here’s why<p>The April 22 <a href="https://www.marchforscience.com/">March for Science</a>, like the <a href="https://www.womensmarch.com/">Women’s March</a> in January 2017, will confront United States President Donald Trump on his home turf – this time to challenge his stance on climate change and vaccinations, among other controversial scientific issues. </p>
<p>But not everyone who supports scientific research and evidence-based policymaking is on board. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/a-scientists-march-on-washington-is-a-bad-idea.html">Some fear</a> that a scientists’ march will reinforce the sceptical conservative narrative that scientists have become an interest group whose findings are politicised. <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/140944/march-science-bad-scientists">Others</a> are concerned that the march is more about identity politics than science. </p>
<p>From my perspective, the march – which is being planned by the Earth Day Network, League of Extraordinary Scientists and Engineers and the Natural History Museum, among other partner organisations – <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-tackle-the-post-truth-world-science-must-reform-itself-70455">is a distraction from the existential problems</a> facing the field. </p>
<p>Other questions are far more <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-tackle-the-post-truth-world-science-must-reform-itself-70455">urgent</a> to restoring society’s faith and hope in science. What is scientists’ responsibility for current anti-elite resentments? Does science contribute to inequality by providing evidence only to those who can pay for it? How do we fix the present crisis in research reproducibility?</p>
<p>So is the march a good idea? To answer this question, we may turn to the scientist and philosopher <a href="http://www.polanyisociety.org/">Micheal Polanyi</a>, whose concept of science as a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/body%20politic">body politic</a> underpins the logic of the Earth Day protest.</p>
<h2>Body politic</h2>
<p>Both the appeal and the danger of the March for Science lie in its demand that scientists present themselves as a single collective just as Polanyi did in his Cold War classic, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262690201_sch_0001.pdf">The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory</a>. In it, Polanyi defended the importance of scientific contributions to improving Western society in contrast to the Soviet Union’s model of government-controlled research. </p>
<p>Polanyi was a polymath, that rare combination of natural and social scientist. He passionately defended science from central planning and political interests, including by insisting that science depends on personal, tacit, elusive and unpredictable judgements – that is, on the individual’s decision on whether to <a href="http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/149970">accept or reject a scientific claim</a>. Polanyi was so radically dedicated to academic freedom that he feared undermining it would make scientific truth impossible and lead to <a href="http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/149970">totalitarianism</a>. </p>
<p>The scientists’ march on Washington inevitably invokes Polanyi. It is inspired by his belief in an open society – one characterised by a flexible structure, freedom of belief and the wide spread of information.</p>
<h2>A market for good and services</h2>
<p>But does Polanyi’s case make sense in the current era? </p>
<p>Polanyi recognised that Western science is, ultimately, a capitalist system. Like any market of goods and services, science comprises individual agents operating independently to achieve a collective good, guided by an invisible hand.</p>
<p>Scientists thus undertake research not to further human knowledge but to satisfy their own urges and curiosity, just as in Adam Smith’s example the baker makes the bread not out of sympathy for the hunger of mankind but to make a living. In both cases this results in a common good. </p>
<p>There is a difference between bakers and scientists, though. For Polanyi:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It appears, at first sight, that I have assimilated the pursuit of science to the market. But the emphasis should be in the opposite direction. The self coordination of independent scientists embodies a higher principle, a principle which is reduced to the mechanism of the market when applied to the production and distribution of material goods.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Gone the ‘Republic of Science’</h2>
<p>Polanyi was aligning science with the economic model of the 1960s. But today his assumptions, both about the market and about science itself, are problematic. And so, too, is the scientists’ march on the US capital, for adopting the same vision of a highly principled science. </p>
<p>Does the market actually work as Adam Smith said? That’s questionable in the current times: economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller have argued that the principle of the invisible hand now <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10534.html">needs revisiting</a>. To survive in our consumerist society, every player must exploit the market by any possible means, including by taking advantage of consumer weaknesses.</p>
<p>To wit, companies market food with unhealthy ingredients because they attract consumers; selling a healthy version would drive them out of the market. As one scientist <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble#">remarked to The Economist</a>, “There is no cost to getting things wrong. The cost is not getting them published”.</p>
<p>It is doubtful that Polanyi would have upheld the present <a href="http://technologygovernance.eu/files/main//2016071109431515.pdf">dystopic neo-liberal paradigm</a> as a worthy inspiration for scientific discovery. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159296/original/image-20170303-29027-t3ftnl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polymath Michael Polanyi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Michael_Polanyi.png">Author unknown/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Polanyi also believed in a “Republic of Science” in which astronomers, physicists, biologists, and the like constituted a “Society of Explorers”. In their quest for their own intellectual satisfaction, scientists help society to achieve the goal of “self-improvement”.</p>
<p>That vision is difficult to recognise now. Evidence is used to promote political agendas and <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/07/how-lobbyists-win-in-washington/">raise profits</a>. More worryingly, the entire evidence-based policy paradigm is flawed by a power asymmetry: those with the deepest pockets command the largest and <a href="https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1016%252Fj.futures.2016.11.012?i=1531384">most advertised evidence</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve seen no serious attempt to rebalance <a href="https://twitter.com/AndreaSaltelli/status/835806232497831936">this unequal context</a>.</p>
<p>A third victim of present times is the idea – central to Polanyi’s argument for a Republic of Science – that scientists are capable of keeping their house in order. In the 1960s, scientists still worked in interconnected communities of practice; they knew each other personally. For Polanyi, the overlap among different scientific fields allowed scientists to “exercise a sound critical judgement between disciplines”, ensuring self-governance and accountability. </p>
<p>Today, science is driven by fierce competition and complex technologies. Who can read or even begin to understand the two million scientific articles published <a href="http://www.stm-assoc.org/2015_02_20_STM_Report_2015.pdf">each year</a>? </p>
<p>Elijah Millgram calls this phenomenon the “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-great-endarkenment-9780199326020?cc=es&lang=en&">New Endarkment</a>” (the opposite of enlightenment), in which scientists have been transformed into veritable “methodological aliens” to one another. </p>
<p>One illustration of Millgram’s fears is the <a href="http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108">P-test imbroglio</a>, in which a statistical methodology essential to the conduit of science was <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/1/3/140216">misused and abused for decades</a>. How could a well-run Republic let this happen? </p>
<p>The classic vision of science providing society with truth, power and legitimacy is a <a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/idav/documents/Lyotard_-_Postmodern_Condition.pdf">master narrative</a> whose time has expired. The Washington March for Science organisers have failed to account for the fact that science has devolved intowhat Polanyi feared: it’s an engine for growth and profit. </p>
<p>A march suggests that the biggest problem facing science today is a post-truth White House. But that is an easy let off. Science’s true predicaments existed before January 2 2017, and they will outlive this administration. </p>
<p>Our activism would be better inspired by the radical 1970s-era movements that sought to change the world by changing first <a href="http://gizmodo.com/how-radical-70s-scientists-tried-to-change-the-world-1681987399">science itself</a>. They sought to provide scientific knowledge and technical expertise to local populations and minority communities while giving those same groups a chance to shape the questions asked of science. These movements fizzled out in the 1990s but echos of their programmatic stance can be found in a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-should-reach-beyond-the-science-bubble-1.21514">recent editorial</a> in Nature. </p>
<p>What we see instead is <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-tackle-the-post-truth-world-science-must-reform-itself-70455">denial</a> toward science’s real problems. Take for instance the scourge of predatory publishers, who charge authors hefty fees to <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/predatory-publishers-gain-foothold-indian-academia-s-upper-echelon">publish papers with little or no peer review</a>. The <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/mystery-controversial-list-predatory-publishers-disappears">lone librarian who fought this battle</a> has now been silenced, to no noticeable reaction from the scientific community. </p>
<p>Trump is not science’s main problem today – science is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Saltelli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump is not science’s biggest problem.Andrea Saltelli, Open Evidence Research, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University of BergenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722342017-02-07T03:40:36Z2017-02-07T03:40:36ZShould scientists engage in activism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155712/original/image-20170206-18511-12ze1se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=238%2C103%2C3849%2C2475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When scientists stand up, do they lose standing?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/151208038@N06/32301539922">Liz Lemon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you heard that scientists are planning a <a href="https://www.marchforscience.com/">march on Washington</a>? The move is not being billed as a protest, but rather as a “celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community,” although it comes as a direct response to recent policy changes and statements by the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Not everyone thinks the nonprotest protest is a good thing. It’s “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/a-scientists-march-on-washington-is-a-bad-idea.html?_r=0">a terrible idea</a>,” wrote Robert Young, a geologist at Western Carolina University, in The New York Times. The march, Young said, will just reinforce a belief among some conservatives that “scientists are an interest group,” and polarize the issue, making researchers’ jobs more difficult. Others find that argument <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/48295/title/Will-a-March-Help-Science-/">less than convincing</a>, pointing out that science and politics have always been intertwined. </p>
<p>As the founders of the blog Retraction Watch and the Center for Scientific Integrity, we often see researchers reluctant to push for or embrace change – whether it’s to the conventional way of dealing with misconduct in journals (which for years was basically to not do so) or addressing problems of reproducibility of their experiments. To the timorous, airing dirty laundry, and letting the public in on the reality of science, could endanger public trust – and funding. </p>
<p>So this isn’t the first time scientists and engineers have voiced similar concerns. Take the example of Marc Edwards and his colleagues at Virginia Tech: To many people watching the Flint water crisis, they were heroes. After being asked to visit by concerned residents, they found, and announced, that people in the beleaguered city were being exposed to excessive amounts of lead through their tap water. They also launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for water filters for city residents and created a <a href="http://www.flintwaterstudy.org">website</a> to push their findings about the hazards of the city’s water supply and shame governments at all levels to act. </p>
<p>If not for their tireless efforts, thousands of children may have been exposed to dangerous amounts of lead for far longer than they already were. Even the Environmental Protection Agency has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/us/epa-waited-too-long-to-warn-of-flint-water-danger-report-says.html">acknowledged that it waited too long to sound the alarm</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155733/original/image-20170206-27202-16n4h7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marc Edwards testifying before Congress about the situation in Flint.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Flint-Water/2fa72d5c4c904022bc0b1876304238ae/4/0">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that’s not exactly how the editor of a leading engineering journal sees things.</p>
<p>In October, a <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.6b04432">remarkable editorial</a> appeared in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The essay, by University of California, Berkeley engineering professor and Water Center Director <a href="http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sedlak">David Sedlak</a>, ES&T’s editor-in-chief, expressed concern that some of his colleagues in the field had crossed the “imaginary line” between scientist and advocate.</p>
<p>“Speaking out against a corrupt or incompetent system may be the product of a culture where idealism, personal responsibility, and Hollywood’s dramatic sensibilities conspire to create a narrative about the noble individual fighting injustice,” Sedlak wrote.</p>
<p>By becoming “allies of a particular cause, no matter how just, we jeopardize the social contract that underpins the tradition of financial support for basic research.” In other words, don’t cross Congress – which many scientists already view as <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/10030/title/What-Proxmire-s-Golden-fleece-Did-For--And-To--Science/">hostile to their profession</a> – and risk retaliation in the form of budget cuts. That’s no small pie, either. Through its oversight of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Energy and other agencies and programs, Congress holds the strings to a research purse <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy_of_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S._research_funding.png">worth nearly US$70 billion a year</a>.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/lUDdX/3/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>
<p>Let’s take a moment to absorb all that. Some (unnamed but easily identified) scientists, lulled by the media, have cast themselves as superheroes in a struggle against villains born of their own conceit. Their arrogance and vanity threaten to awaken the master, who will punish us all for the sins of a few. We rarely get the opportunity to watch a chilling effect in action, but you can almost see the breath of researchers caught up in a debate over the proper role of scientists in the crisis.</p>
<p>It’s not just engineers who fear speaking out. “We have too often been reluctant to voice our protest, for fear of incurring the [National Institute of Mental Health’s] displeasure (and losing whatever opportunities we still have for funding),” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/opinion/theres-such-a-thing-as-too-much-neuroscience.html">wrote neuroscientist John Markowitz in The New York Times last fall</a>. In a refreshing piece, Markowitz was arguing that “there’s such a thing as too much neuroscience.” As cofounders of Retraction Watch, a blog that focuses on some of science’s nasty episodes, we are occasionally admonished that pointing out cases of fraud – even when we also <a href="http://retractionwatch.com/category/by-reason-for-retraction/doing-the-right-thing/">praise good behavior</a> – will give anti-science forces ammunition.</p>
<p>In some ways, we should be glad scientists are acknowledging these concerns, instead of pretending they’re never swayed by the almighty dollar. But anyone who clings to the notion that science exists in a pure vacuum, untainted by politics, economics or social justice needs also to understand that science is a human endeavor and scientists have the same eyes and ears for injustice and outrage as the rest of us. Although the conduct of science demands honesty and rigor, nowhere is it written that researchers must remain silent when governments or other powerful players either misuse science or suppress findings in the service of harmful policies.</p>
<p>And before Edwards and his efforts on behalf of the Flint community, some scientists have spoken out. Clair Patterson, a physical chemist, put himself on a decades-long collision course with industry when he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/08/us/clair-c-patterson-who-established-earth-s-age-is-dead-at-73.html">took on lead poisoning</a>. John Snow earned the ire of Londoners when he <a href="http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snowcricketarticle.html">removed the pump handle on a cholera-infested well</a>, and wasn’t vindicated until after his death. It took Peter Buxtun several years to stop the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment; he eventually had to <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/06/10/10-notorious-leakers-and-how-they-fared/slide/peter-buxton/">leak documents to reporter Jean Heller in 1972</a>.</p>
<p>Edwards and his colleagues, we would argue, are part of a long tradition of bridging the worlds of science and policy. They have been instrumental in bringing not only attention but change to the beleaguered city of Flint. And money: Thanks in part to their pressure, the Senate in September <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/flint-michigan-water-senate-aid.html">voted overwhelmingly</a> to approve $100 million in aid for Flint, and hundreds of millions more in loans from the Environmental Protection Agency for upgrading municipal water infrastructures and studying exposure to lead.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155741/original/image-20170206-27208-vnf8i1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tuskegee syphilis study doctor injects a subject with a placebo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tuskegee-syphilis-study_doctor_injects_subject_with_placebo.gif">Centers for Disease Control</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://flintwaterstudy.org/2016/10/engineers-shall-hold-paramount-the-safety-health-and-welfare-of-the-public-but-not-if-it-threatens-our-research-funding/">stinging rebuke to Sedlak</a>, Edwards and three coauthors – Amy Pruden, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-helped-uncover-a-public-health-crisis-in-flint-but-learned-there-are-costs-to-doing-good-science-54227">Siddhartha Roy and William Rhoads</a> – blasted the critical editorial as a “devastating, self-indictment of cowardice and perverse incentives in modern academia.”</p>
<p>Indeed, scientists who accept funding with the tacit agreement that they keep their mouths shut about the government are far more threatening to an independent academy than those who speak their minds.</p>
<p>Since Nov. 8, it has been painfully clear that science will be playing defense for a while. The United States has never seen a regime <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-comments-on-science-are-shockingly-ignorant/">so hostile to science and the value of the scientific method</a>. President Donald Trump has <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/">declared climate change a “hoax” cooked up by the Chinese</a>. He has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-meet-with-proponent-of-debunked-tie-between-vaccines-and-autism/2017/01/10/4a5d03c0-d752-11e6-9f9f-5cdb4b7f8dd7_story.html">flirted seriously with debunked anti-vaccination views</a> and declared that polls (read, data) that are negative about his ambitions are “fake news.” </p>
<p>Science and politics are not always compatible. And science need not always triumph over policy: After all, research shows that steroids improve athletic performance, but we have a compelling political interest to ban them. The same can be said of eugenics. Research must always be ethical, and ethics is a conversation that includes scientists and policymakers.</p>
<p>Still, while the two domains are separate, the divide is, and should be, bridgeable. <a href="http://flintwaterstudy.org/2016/10/engineers-shall-hold-paramount-the-safety-health-and-welfare-of-the-public-but-not-if-it-threatens-our-research-funding/">As Edwards and his colleagues write</a>, “The personal and professional peril is great, the critics are numerous and vocal, but staying silent is to be complicit in perpetrating injustice. And no matter what may come of the rest of our lives or careers, we are certain of one thing: Flint was a community worth going out on a limb for, and by upholding a just cause, we enhanced the social contract between academics and the public.”</p>
<p>That could easily be said of the March for Science. Except now it’s not just a limb but the entire tree that’s in peril.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Center for Scientific Integrity, of which Ivan Oransky is executive director, receives funding from the Arnold Foundation, the Helmsley Trust, and the MacArthur Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Center for Scientific Integrity, of which Adam Marcus is editorial director, receives funding from the Arnold Foundation, the Helmsley Trust, and the MacArthur Foundation</span></em></p>In the wake of the Flint water crisis and with a new notably anti-science president, U.S. scientists are reevaluating how to navigate the tension between speaking out and a fear of losing research funding.Ivan Oransky, Distinguished Writer In Residence, Arthur Carter Journalism Institute, New York UniversityAdam Marcus, Adjunct Faculty for Advanced Academic Programs, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549532016-02-25T02:13:51Z2016-02-25T02:13:51ZShould scientists engage with pseudo-science or anti-science?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112849/original/image-20160225-15156-13xkuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=356%2C135%2C2936%2C2373&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If someone is spouting pseudo-science, should scientists risk legitimising them by getting into a debate with them?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ABC’s flagship science journalism TV programme, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/">Catalyst</a>, has riled the scientific community once again. And, in a similar vein to Catalyst’s controversial 2013 report on the link between <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-15/patients-cut-back-on-statins-after-catalyst-story-research/6545026">statins, cholesterol and heart disease</a>, it has now turned its quasi-scientific attention to a supposed new peril. </p>
<p>Its “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4407325.htm">Wi-Fried?</a>” segment last week raised concerns about the ever-increasing “electronic air pollution” that surrounds us in our daily lives, exploiting a number of age-old, fear-inspiring tropes. </p>
<p>There are already plenty of <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2016/02/17/abc-catalyst-wifi-wrong/">robust critiques</a> of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-wi-fi-and-mobile-phones-really-cause-cancer-experts-respond-54881">arguments and evidence</a>, so exploring where they got the science wrong is not our goal. </p>
<p>Instead, we’re interested in using the segment as inspiration to revisit an ongoing question about scientists’ engagement with the public: how should the scientific community respond to issues like this? </p>
<p>Should scientists dive in and engage head-on, appearing face-to-face with those they believe do science a disservice? Should they shun such engagement and redress bad science after the fact in other forums? Or should they disengage entirely and let the story run its course? </p>
<p>There are many of examples of what scientists <em>could</em> do, but to keep it simple we focus here just on the responses to “Wi-Fried” by two eminent Professors, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/simon-chapman-1831">Simon Chapman</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bernard-stewart-200984">Bernard Stewart</a>, both of whom declined to be a part of the ABC segment, and use this case to consider what scientists <em>should</em> do. </p>
<h2>Just say no</h2>
<p>In an interview about their decision to not participate, Chapman and Stewart <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2016/02/17/abc-catalyst-wifi-wrong/">independently expressed</a> concerns about the evidence, tone and balance in the “Wi-Fried” segment. According to Chapman it “contained many ‘simply wrong’ claims that would make viewers unnecessarily afraid”. </p>
<p>Stewart labelled the episode “scientifically bankrupt” and “without scientific merit”. He added: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think the tone of the reporting was wrong, I think that the reporter did not fairly draw on both sides, and I use the word “sides” here reluctantly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, in situations like this, many suggest that by appearing in the media alongside people who represent fringe thinkers and bad science, respected experts lend them unwarranted credibility and legitimacy. </p>
<p>Continuing with this logic, association with such a topic would mean implicitly endorsing poor science and bad reasoning, and contribute to an un-evidenced escalation of public fears. </p>
<h2>But is it really that straightforward?</h2>
<p>The concerns Chapman and Stewart expressed about the show could equally be used to argue that experts in their position <em>should</em> have agreed to be interviewed, if only to present a scientifically sound position to counter questionable claims. </p>
<p>In this line, you could easily argue it’s better for experts to appear whenever and wherever spurious claims are raised, the better to immediately refute and dismiss them. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if scientific experts refuse to engage with “scientifically bankrupt” arguments, this could send a more potent message: that the fringe claims are irrelevant, not even worth wasting the time to refute. So this would mean they <em>shouldn’t</em> engage with this kind of popular science story.</p>
<p>On the third hand, their refusal to engage could be re-framed to characterise the experts as remote, arrogant or even afraid, casting doubt on the veracity of the scientific position. So to avoid this impression, experts <em>should</em> engage.</p>
<p>But wait, there’s more. </p>
<p>Participation in these kinds of popular science shows could also tarnish the reputation of the expert. But not appearing means missing the opportunity to thwart the potential harm caused by fringe, false or non-scientific claims. </p>
<p>And what about an expert’s obligation to defend their science, to set the record straight, and to help ensure people are not mislead by poor evidence and shonky reasoning? Is this best done by engaging directly with dubious media offerings like “Wi-Fried”, or should relevant experts find other venues? </p>
<h2>Should scientists engage anti-science?</h2>
<p>Well, this depends on what they think they might achieve. And if one thing stands out in all the to-ing and fro-ing over what scientists should do in such cases, it’s this: the majority of proponents both for <em>and</em> against getting involved seem convinced that popular representations of science will change people’s behaviour. </p>
<p>But there is rarely any hard evidence presented in the myriad “scientists should” arguments out there. Sticking with the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-15/patients-cut-back-on-statins-after-catalyst-story-research/6545026">Catalyst</a> example, there is really only <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/11/crux-matter-did-abcs-catalyst-program-change-statin-use-australia">one</a>, far-from-convincing, study from 2013 suggesting the show has such influence. </p>
<p>If you really want to make a robust, evidence-based decision about what experts <em>should</em> do in these situations, don’t start with the science being discussed. In the case of Catalyst, you’d start with research on the show’s relationship with its audience(s). </p>
<ul>
<li><p>What kinds of people watch Catalyst? </p></li>
<li><p>Why do they watch it? </p></li>
<li><p>To what extent are their attitudes influenced by the show? </p></li>
<li><p>If their attitudes are actually influenced, how long does this influence last? </p></li>
<li><p>If this influence does last, does it lead people to change their behaviours accordingly? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, we applaud the motives of people who are driven to set the scientific record straight, and especially by those who are genuinely concerned about public welfare. </p>
<p>But to simply assume, without solid evidence, that programmes like Catalyst push people into harmful behaviour changes is misguided at best. At worst, it’s actually bad science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Lamberts has received funding from the ARC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will J Grant receives funding from the Department of Industry and Innovation. </span></em></p>Some scientists refuse to debate or appear with those they consider to be unscientific. But is this the best approach to combat anti-science narratives?Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityWill J Grant, Researcher / Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/522092015-12-20T19:55:02Z2015-12-20T19:55:02Z2015, the year that was: Science + Technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105373/original/image-20151211-8335-1tq3brf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">2015 saw us complete our exploration of all nine planets (including dwarf planet Pluto) in our solar system.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year came and went almost as fast as NASA’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/new-horizons">New Horizons</a> probe zipped past the distant dwarf planet, Pluto. Yet New Horizons managed to pack a lot into its <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-pluto-new-horizons-mission-is-not-over-yet-44520">flyby</a>, revealing <a href="https://theconversation.com/stunning-crystal-clear-images-of-pluto-but-what-do-they-mean-47517">astounding images</a> of Pluto that show it to be far from a static icy world. </p>
<p>And its mission isn’t over yet; New Horizons will now venture deep into the outer <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-pluto-new-horizons-mission-is-not-over-yet-44520">reaches of the solar system</a>, probing the expanse of the Kuiper belt and shedding light on this ancient and hitherto unexplored region of space.</p>
<p>Fuelling planet fever (dwarf or otherwise) was also one of the most scientifically accurate – and science-celebrating – films to emerge from Hollywood in recent times: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-martian-review-science-fiction-that-respects-science-fact-48373">The Martian</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105374/original/image-20151211-8297-166ktng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Being suck on Mars has never been so fun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">20th Century Fox</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Eye in the sky</h2>
<p>Speaking of space, this year was the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has proven to be one of the most enduringly popular and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-hubble-space-telescope-has-been-such-a-stellar-success-40312">most successful</a> scientific projects in history. </p>
<p>Besides its triumphs of discovery, Hubble has also generated a startling array of wonderous images of our universe. Best of all is when those images are both <a href="https://theconversation.com/hubble-in-pictures-astronomers-top-picks-40435">beautiful and richly informative</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105375/original/image-20151211-8329-183atk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Happy 25th Hubble!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And speaking of anniversaries, it was one hundred years ago that Albert Einstein altered the face of physics by publishing his <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/general-relativity-centenary">general theory of relativity</a>. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this revelation about the nature of space and time. </p>
<p>It’s also difficult to fathom how <a href="https://theconversation.com/without-einstein-it-would-have-taken-decades-longer-to-understand-gravity-50517">just one man</a> was able to come up with a theory of such breathtaking accuracy, and such <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-and-beauty-of-general-relativity-51042">profound beauty</a>.</p>
<h2>Smart batteries, smart houses</h2>
<p>More down to earth were significant developments in battery technology. While we might not think of batteries as the glamorous vanguard of technology, they underpin the mobile technology we’ve become accustomed to, and they can also potentially transform the way we <a href="https://theconversation.com/tomorrows-battery-technologies-that-could-power-your-home-41614">generate, store and consume energy</a>.</p>
<p>At least, that’s what Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is banking on with the announcement of the company’s home battery offering, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-winners-and-losers-in-teslas-battery-plan-for-the-home-41151">Powerwall</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105376/original/image-20151211-8291-19mdkci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tesla Powerwall could make solar power work all day and all night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tesla Motors</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another technology that promises (or threatens, depending on your perspective) to transform the world is <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-questions-answered-on-artificial-intelligence-49645">artificial intelligence, robotics and automation</a> more generally.</p>
<p>The first wave is likely to be in the form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-we-are-on-the-road-to-driverless-cars-50079">driverless cars</a>, which will not only be safer and more efficient than those driven by hairless primates, but also could change the way we think of things like <a href="https://theconversation.com/driverless-cars-will-change-the-way-we-think-of-car-ownership-50125">car ownership</a>. </p>
<p>But then, what will happen to all those people who currently make a living from driving? Like many, they may <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-a-robot-do-your-job-short-answer-yes-39569">lose their jobs</a> to increasing automation. We may need to <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-new-jobs-as-the-machines-do-more-of-our-work-38600">create new jobs</a> in the wake of the robot invasion, but even that might not be enough.</p>
<p>More menacing is the prospect of lethal autonomous weapon systems, colloquially called “killer robots”. There are already defensive weapon systems that can operate autonomously, but this year saw a call by many of the leading AI and robotics researchers to <a href="https://theconversation.com/open-letter-we-must-stop-killer-robots-before-they-are-built-44577">ban offensive autonomous weapons</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105378/original/image-20151211-31729-6ee31w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The robots are coming, although they probably won’t look like this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Digital scapes</h2>
<p>This is not to say we don’t already have challenges to face in the digital world. Cybercrime is still a scourge, with it become more <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cybercrime-has-changed-over-the-past-5-years-it-hasnt-got-any-better-47027">professional and businesslike</a> over the year.</p>
<p>Hackers have a growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/hackers-kit-bag-the-tools-that-terrorise-the-internet-37715">range of tools</a> at their disposal to steal your identity, extort you, pilfer your information or even penetrate business or <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyber-breach-at-the-bureau-of-meteorology-the-who-what-and-how-of-the-hack-51670">government</a>. They can even remain hidden in the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070">dark web</a>”.</p>
<p>Ultimately, there may be no simple technological panacea, except for us each to <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-take-responsibility-for-our-own-safety-online-38368">maintain vigilance</a>. Although would be little solace to those exposed in the hack of dating website <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-the-ashley-madison-hack-was-an-inside-job-46404">Ashley Madison</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105379/original/image-20151211-8291-1x1t3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">They’re getting better at their business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Klug/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>True or false?</h2>
<p>But you can’t believe everything you hear. This is especially if it sounds too good to be true, such as that <a href="https://theconversation.com/trolling-our-confirmation-bias-one-bite-and-were-easily-sucked-in-42621">eating chocolate helps you lose weight</a>. Or that <a href="https://theconversation.com/overcoming-the-social-barriers-to-climate-consensus-36889">climate change</a> is not real.</p>
<p>But there are things you can do to protect yourself – or <a href="https://theconversation.com/inoculating-against-science-denial-40465">inoculate yourself</a>, if you will – from anti-science and quackery. There are a few techniques you can use to help <a href="https://theconversation.com/busting-myths-a-practical-guide-to-countering-science-denial-42618">debunk science denial</a> when you see it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105380/original/image-20151211-8314-15lblrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Got to defend against the bad vibes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryan Rosengrant/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Abbott government itself hit some bumps when it came to its support for science, particularly when it threatened to cut funding to the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-national-collaborative-research-infrastructure-strategy-ncris-38837">NCRIS</a>. </p>
<p>Then Education Minister Christopher Pyne was hoping to hold NCRIS ransom to encourage researchers to back his proposed higher education reforms, but the scientific community was as one in its opposition to the cuts, arguing they’d hurt <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-infrastructure-cuts-harm-science-the-economy-and-the-nation-38478">science, the economy and the nation</a> at large.</p>
<p>The government eventually got the message and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pyne-backflips-on-research-infrastructure-funding-cut-38849">capitulated</a>, with Minister Pyne continuing funding in the short term, then solidifying that funding following the change of Prime Minister to Malcolm Turnbull – at which point Christopher Pyne switched to the Innovation, Industry and Science portfolio and changed his tune on research considerably.</p>
<p>In fact, the Turnbull government’s gushing appreciation of science and optimistic spirit when it comes to innovation – backed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/innovation-statement">over A$1 billion in funding</a> for science and commercialisation – changed the way <a href="https://theconversation.com/expert-panel-what-the-national-innovation-statement-means-for-science-51902">many scientists felt</a> about the government.</p>
<p>2015 has been a year of milestones and triumphs for science and technology, although laced with a few cautionary messages. We’re now half way through the second decade of the 21st century, and it’s starting to feel like we’re genuinely living in the future – albeit not the future as envisaged by many in the 20th century.</p>
<p>With a new drive for innovation, greater appreciation of the role of science and the emergence of (dare we say) paradigm shifting technologies, such as automation and artificial intelligence, we may feel the lingering traces of the 20th century fall further into the past as 2016 takes over.</p>
<p><strong>Top ten Science + Technology stories by readership in 2015:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070">Explainer: what is the dark web?</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-glance-148">David Glance</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/four-easy-tips-to-make-your-batteries-last-longer-41172">Four easy tips to make your batteries last longer</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/valentin-muenzel-130702">Valentin Muenzel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-often-the-puzzles-that-baffle-that-go-viral-40216">It’s often the puzzles that baffle that go viral</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonathan-borwein-jon-101">Jon Borwein</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/inskip-beach-collapse-just-dont-call-it-a-sinkhole-48241">Inskip beach collapse: just don’t call it a ‘sinkhole’</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/stephen-fityus-194631">Stephen Fityus</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-other-red-meat-on-the-real-palaeodiet-41272">The ‘other’ red meat on the ‘real’ palaeodiet</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/darren-curnoe-2101">Darren Curnoe</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/seven-myths-about-scientists-debunked-37148">Seven myths about scientists debunked</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marguerite-evans-galea-5223">Marguerite Evans-Galea</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jeffrey-craig-99410">Jeffrey Craig</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/european-invasion-dna-reveals-the-origins-of-modern-europeans-38096">European invasion: DNA reveals the origins of modern Europeans</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alan-cooper-18427">Alan Cooper</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wolfgang-haak-156711">Wolfgang Haak</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-verdict-is-in-feel-good-exercise-hormone-irisin-is-real-46082">The verdict is in: feel-good exercise hormone irisin is real</a> by Eliza Berlage</li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-to-brain-interfaces-the-science-of-telepathy-37926">Brain-to-brain interfaces: the science of telepathy</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kristyn-bates-5106">Kristyn Bates</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-smell-of-rain-how-csiro-invented-a-new-word-39231">The smell of rain: how CSIRO invented a new word</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/howard-poynton-157622">Howard Poynton</a></li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
2015 was a year where we expanded our view of the universe, embraced new technologies and got a hint of the profound changes to come.Tim Dean, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/426182015-06-11T19:58:10Z2015-06-11T19:58:10ZBusting myths: a practical guide to countering science denial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84673/original/image-20150611-11433-jgr5q5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Science denial can come in many forms, but you need to be careful when debunking it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosengrant/3810077717/in/photolist-6NFDn8-8wefXR-8whg8J-8whg8f-8vY36x-8w25u3-8whg6W-8whg5w-8whg7J-8whg6w-4pscqA-8vY364-5ww2zH-6cck8F-PcSdW-9zXB5f-5ww1aR-2xEewp-aNgtdZ-4CL6m8-phR2kc-82Ww1T-2sJfrN-iPtYe5-dNu8G-2U36r-5wAkxE-8RByF6-5wvZze-i87FGu-7Pki1V-8Y9Xgy-uT3tk-5wAmcS-fwyRFo-5wAiJw-5wvZNP-5ww2gp-5wAmmm-8PTFGc-9wPxHd-7dGoz-7dGgS-qHWq4E-3e8JF5-5La2Ce-4kCW9R-4PEzrN-kbLSNP-db8kB">Bryan Rosengrant/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It should go without saying that science should dictate how we respond to science denial. So what does scientific research tell us? </p>
<p>One effective way to reduce the influence of science denial is through “<a href="https://theconversation.com/inoculating-against-science-denial-40465">inoculation</a>”: you can build resistance to misinformation by exposing people to a weak form of the misinformation.</p>
<p>How do we practically achieve that? There are two key elements to refuting misinformation. The first half of a debunking is offering a <em>factual alternative</em>. To understand what I mean by this, you need to understand what happens in a person’s mind when you correct a misconception. </p>
<p>People build mental models of how the world works, where all the different parts of the model fit together like cogs. Imagine one of those cogs is a myth. When you explain that the myth is false, you pluck out that cog, leaving a gap in their mental model. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84634/original/image-20150611-6810-jff5e0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Debunking myths creates gaps in people’s mental models. That gap needs to be filled with an alternative fact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Cook</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But people feel uncomfortable with an incomplete model. They want to feel as if they know what’s going on. So if you create a gap, you need to fill the gap with an alternative fact. </p>
<p>For example, it’s not enough to just provide evidence that a suspect in a murder trial is innocent. To prove them innocent – at least in people’s minds – you need to provide an alternative suspect.</p>
<p>However, it’s not enough to simply explain the facts. The golden rule of debunking, from the book <a href="http://heathbrothers.com/books/made-to-stick/">Made To Stick</a>, by Chip and Dan Heath, is to fight sticky myths with even stickier facts. So you need to make your science <em>sticky</em>, meaning simple, concrete messages that grab attention and stick in the memory. </p>
<p>How do you make science sticky? Chip and Dan Heath suggest the acronym SUCCES to summarise the characteristics of sticky science:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Simple:</strong> To paraphrase a quote from Nobel prize winner Ernest Rutherford: if you can’t explain your physics simply, it’s probably not very good physics.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Unexpected:</strong> If your science is counter-intuitive, embrace it! Use the unexpectedness to take people by surprise.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Credible:</strong> Ideally, source your information from the most credible source of information available: peer-reviewed scientific research.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Concrete:</strong> One of the most powerful tools to make abstract science concrete is analogies or metaphors.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Emotional:</strong> Scientists are trained to remove emotion from their science. However, even scientists are human and it can be quite powerful when we express our passion for science or communicate how our results affect us personally.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Stories:</strong> Shape your science into a compelling narrative.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TM-zNO02phw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Mythbusting</h2>
<p>Let’s say you’ve put in the hard yards and shaped your science into a simple, concrete, sticky message. Congratulations, you’re halfway there! As well as explaining why the facts are right, you also need to explain why the myth is wrong. But there’s a psychological danger to be wary of when refuting misinformation.</p>
<p>When you mention a myth, you make people more familiar with it. But the more familiar people are with a piece of information, the more likely they are to think it’s true. This means you risk a “<a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-Part-2-Familiarity-Backfire-Effect.html">familiarity backfire effect</a>”, reinforcing the myth in people’s minds.</p>
<p>There are several simple techniques to avoid the familiarity backfire effect. First, put the emphasis on the facts rather than the myth. Lead with the science you wish to communicate rather than the myth. Unfortunately, most debunking articles take the worst possible approach: repeat the myth in the headline.</p>
<p>Second, provide an explicit warning before mentioning the myth. This puts people cognitively on guard so they’re less likely to be influenced by the myth. An explicit warning can be as simple as “A common myth is…”.</p>
<p>Third, explain the fallacy that the myth uses to distort the facts. This gives people the ability to reconcile the facts with the myth. A useful framework for identifying fallacies is the <a href="http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/1/2">five characteristics of science denial</a> (which includes a number of characteristics, particularly under logical fallacies):</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84632/original/image-20150610-6814-m26fe9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Five characteristics of science denial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Cook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pulling this all together, if you debunk misinformation with an article, presentation or even in casual conversation, try to lead with a sticky fact. Before you mention the myth, warn people that you’re about to mention a myth. Then explain the fallacy that the myth uses to distort the facts.</p>
<figure>
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<h2>Putting into practice</h2>
<p>Let me give an example of this debunking technique in action. Say someone says to you that global warming is a myth. Here’s how you might respond:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm">97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming</a>. This has been found in a number of studies, using independent methods. A <a href="http://tigger.uic.edu/%7Epdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf">2009 survey</a> conducted by the University of Illinois found that among actively publishing climate scientists, 97.4% agreed that human activity was increasing global temperatures. A <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.abstract">2010 study</a> from Princeton University analysed public statements about climate change and found that among scientists who had published peer-reviewed research about climate change, 97.5% agreed with the consensus. </p>
<p>I was part of a team that in 2013 found that among relevant climate papers published over 21 years, <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024">97.1% affirmed human-caused global warming</a>.</p>
<p>However, one myth argues that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project.htm">citing a petition of 31,000 dissenting scientists</a>. This myth uses the technique of fake experts: 99.9% of those 31,000 scientists are not climate scientists. The qualification to be listed in the petition is a science degree, so that the list includes computer scientists, engineers and medical scientists, but very few with actual expertise in climate science.</p>
<p>And there you have it.</p>
<p>In our online course, <a href="http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial">Making Sense of Climate Science Denial</a>, we debunk 50 of the most common myths about climate change. Each lecture adopts the Fact-Myth-Fallacy structure where we first explain the science, then introduce the myth then explain the fallacy that the myth uses. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0xTCDNnmo&list=PL-Xgw8LFaM3BJOXYnQKAtj6-4xOwACFV3">our sixth week on the psychology of debunking</a>, we also stress the importance of an evidence-based approach to science communication itself. It would be most ironic, after all, if we were to ignore the science in our response to science denial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Debunking science denial in the wrong way can end up reinforcing it. Here’s how to cut through make the facts stick.John Cook, Climate Communication Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/424052015-06-01T06:19:20Z2015-06-01T06:19:20ZCorriging the incorrigible: why philosophy is good for you (but can also get you killed)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83615/original/image-20150602-6997-1fr0jrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Socrates made people think, but he also made them rather irritated.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacques-Louis David/Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this year, the ethicist <a href="http://sites.duke.edu/wsa/">Walter-Sinnot Armstrong</a> asked <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2015/03/does-philosophy-matter">whether philosophers were out of touch</a> with, even contemptuous, of ordinary people and everyday life. The picture he paints isn’t flattering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Philosophers love to complain about bad reasoning. How can those other people commit such silly fallacies? Don’t they see how arbitrary and inconsistent their positions are? Aren’t the counter examples obvious? After complaining, philosophers often turn to humor. Can you believe what they said! Ha, ha, ha. Let’s make fun of those stupid people […] It puts us out of touch partly because they cannot touch us: we cannot learn from others if we see them as unworthy of careful attention and charitable interpretation. This tendency also puts us out of touch with society because we cannot touch them: they will not listen to us if we openly show contempt for them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those words left me tugging uncomfortably at my collar. A day before I’d taken a swing at commentors on the New York Times’ <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-stone/?_r=0">The Stone</a> blog, where <a href="http://www.justinmcbrayer.com/#!about/c1yl">Justin McBrayer</a> had tried to answer the question: <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/">why don’t our children think there are moral facts</a>? </p>
<p>You <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/03/does_common_core_teach_children_to_be_immoral_as_justin_mcbrayer_says_meta.html">can disagree</a> with the specifics of McBrayer’s causal claim that the way ethics is discussed in schools contributes to universal <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/">moral antirealism</a> (roughly, the view that the universe contains no moral facts), but he’s right that antirealism seems to be a great many people’s default view, even if their choices and actions suggest otherwise.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-dont-need-no-moral-education-five-things-you-should-learn-about-ethics-30793">I’ve said before</a> before, this is a bugbear of mine. Moral antirealism might turn out to be true, but it’s not <em>just obviously</em> true. There are only so many essays and online comments where people don’t even <em>understand the suggestion</em> that ethics might be more than subjective before it starts to get to you. </p>
<p>So page after page of comments on McBrayer’s piece insisting that of course there are no moral facts and it’s ridiculous that a so-called philosopher could think otherwise got me snarky. This, I sneered, is why we can’t have nice things. Here’s a professional moral philosopher trying to explain a matter within his expertise and being dismissed, even belittled, by people who clearly don’t even understand what he’s saying. Why would people simply ignore what he’s saying like this? Would they do this to a scientist, or a surgeon, or a lawyer?</p>
<p>Well, yes, of course they would. We live in an age in which everyone, labouring under the delusion that they are always and everywhere <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978">entitled to their own opinion</a>, feels fully equipped to tell experts they are flatly wrong about their area of expertise. So this is in many ways a problem of degree rather than kind.</p>
<p>But science denialists of various stripes – anti-vaccinationists, climate denialists, 9/11 Truthers, Wind Turbine Syndrome proponents – usually at least pay lip service to playing the game. They make (bad) arguments, cite (dodgy) sources, and generally at least try to give the impression they are doing better science than actual scientists. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/philosophy-under-attack-lawrence-krauss-and-the-new-denialism-12181">Philosophy denial</a>, it seems to me, is a somewhat different beast. Philosophy denialists – including a disheartening <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Hawking_contra_Philosophy">number</a> of<a href="https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-value-of-philosophy/"> high-profile</a> <a href="http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/lawrence-krauss-another-physicist-with.html">physicists</a> – deny the value of philosophy itself rather than simply taking issue with specific philosophical claims.</p>
<p>And as Sinnot-Armstrong points out, a large part of that is philosophers’ own fault. He notes that while scientists frequently make an effort to explain what they do to the general public, philosophers don’t do so nearly as often:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a result, the general public often sees philosophy as an obscure game that is no fun to play. If philosophers do not find some way to communicate the importance of philosophy, we should not be surprised when nobody else understands why philosophy is important.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fortunately, more and more philosophers are taking up this challenge. This new group blog you’re reading now hopes to be a contribution in that direction. It will feature writing from a team of Australian philosophers committed to the idea that philosophy can’t solely be a purely abstract pursuit, but must also connect with how we live and what we care about.</p>
<p>I say ‘must’ quite deliberately. Put simply, philosophy is too good, and too important, to keep locked up in the academy. Philosophy may appear ‘an obscure game,’ but it’s also uniquely powerful in its ability to illuminate, complicate, and break wide open things we consider settled and clear. </p>
<p>Just as importantly, at its best, philosophy’s probing of the physical, conceptual, logical, aesthetic, and moral universes turns back upon the questioner themselves. It encourages the mental activity we might now call <a href="http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm">metacognition</a> and the corresponding virtue of <a href="https://theumlaut.com/2013/03/13/paul-krugman-is-brilliant-but-is-he-meta-rational/">metarationality</a>. To use an older language, it teaches us to know ourselves and to know our own limits, how to reason and how to map the limits of our ability to do so. At the core of philosophy lies the Delphic saying that motivates so many of Plato’s dialogues, <em>γνῶθι σεαυτόν</em>: ‘know yourself.’</p>
<p>But here be dragons. </p>
<p>Across twenty-five canonical dialogues (and another ten of dubious authorship) Plato depicts his mentor Socrates down in the market place, asking questions of passers-by. Socrates speaks from a position of professed ignorance. He knows nothing, but he at least knows he knows nothing, which already puts him ahead of his neighbours – who mistakenly think they know a great deal. And so Socrates asks his fellow Athenians about the most fundamental, seemingly obvious matters. Then through careful, incisive, and frequently prolonged questioning, he turns their preconceived understandings on their heads, sometimes reducing his interlocutors to bewildered, humiliated wrecks.</p>
<p>That ended about as well as you’d expect. Socrates saw himself as a “gadfly,” fated “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” <a href="http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Find+out+about/Animals+of+Queensland/Insects/Flies/Common+species/Horse+flies#.VWVbN0a2V1A">Gadflies</a> are rarely welcomed. In the <em><a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71ap/">Apology</a></em>, Plato’s account of the trial of 399 BCE in which Socrates was sentenced to death for impiety and corrupting the youth, Socrates describes the general reaction to his method:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and examine others themselves; there are plenty of persons, as they soon enough discover, who think that they know something, but really know little or nothing: and then those who are examined by them instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me (<em>Apology</em> 23c-d)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Socrates, it must be said, does himself no favours in the <em>Apology</em>. Given the chance to plead for his life, he simply doubles-down on the things that made the Athenians want to kill him in the first place, and then <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D36d">literally demands a reward for doing so</a>. I once polled a philosophy class at the start of a lecture on the <em>Apology</em> on whether or not the Athenians were right to execute Socrates. Then I polled them on the same question when the lecture finished. Slightly more voted in favour of death the second time around. Socrates, it’s fair to conclude, was just really annoying.</p>
<p>But the deeper point here is that what makes philosophy so powerful is also precisely what makes it so uncomfortable: it <em>dissolves obviousness</em>. It takes things that seem so unimpeachably self-evident we don’t even notice them and throws them into doubt. It shakes the unshakeable and corriges the incorrigible. </p>
<p>That is thrilling, liberating, even intoxicating; but it is also unsettling and even infuriating. Finding out you might have been wrong about things that seem obvious – such as that there are no moral facts, for instance – is rather inconvenient. The snide comments on McBrayer’s article are of a piece with the impatience of Neil Degrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss’ impatience with philosophical questions. Philosophy just spins its wheels, gets in the way and slows us down. </p>
<p>My philosophical first love, <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/">Søren Kierkegaard</a>, writes his unwieldy masterwork <em><a href="http://sorenkierkegaard.org/concluding-unscientific-postscript.html">Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments</a></em> from the persona of a certain Johannes Climacus, a thirty year old idler and Socratic gadfly. In an age of increasing reflection, sophistication, and haste, Climacus is on a mission, <a href="http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/Muench%20-%20Understanding.pdf">as Paul Muench points out</a>, to slow his reader down. Oh, so you think you’ve understood the basics, know what’s what, and are impatient to move on to more challenging questions? Really? Linger a while, friend. Have you really understood what the good is, or how you should live, or what it means that you’ll die? Really? You sure?</p>
<p>Welcome to the blog. We hope it gets in your way and slows you down.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Earlier this year, the ethicist Walter-Sinnot Armstrong asked whether philosophers were out of touch with, even contemptuous, of ordinary people and everyday life. The picture he paints isn’t flattering…Patrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/404652015-04-26T19:29:50Z2015-04-26T19:29:50ZInoculating against science denial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79226/original/image-20150424-14565-uyuhhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Exposing people to weak forms of anti-science arguments can help them respond when they are hit by the real thing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NIAID/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science denial has real, societal consequences. Denial of the link between HIV and AIDS led to more than <a href="http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/107/427/157">330,000 premature deaths</a> in South Africa. Denial of the link between smoking and cancer has caused millions of premature deaths. Thanks to vaccination denial, <a href="https://theconversation.com/measles-outbreaks-show-the-illness-is-down-but-not-yet-out-19149">preventable diseases</a> are <a href="https://theconversation.com/vaccination-gaps-led-to-rubella-outbreaks-in-japan-and-poland-15970">making a comeback</a>.</p>
<p>Denial is not something we can ignore or, well, deny. So what does scientific research say is the most effective response? Common wisdom says that communicating more science should be the solution. But a growing body of evidence indicates that this approach can <a href="https://theconversation.com/throwing-science-at-anti-vaxxers-just-makes-them-more-hardline-37721">actually backfire</a>, reinforcing people’s prior beliefs.</p>
<p>When you present evidence that threatens a person’s worldview, it can actually strengthen their beliefs. This is called the “worldview backfire effect”. One of the first scientific experiments that observed this effect dates back to 1975. </p>
<p>A psychologist from the University of Kansas <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/32/1/176/">presented evidence to teenage Christians</a> that Jesus Christ did not come back from the dead. Now, the evidence wasn’t genuine; it was created for the experiment to see how the participants would react.</p>
<p>What happened was their faith actually <em>strengthened</em> in response to evidence challenging their faith. This type of reaction happens across a range of issues. When US Republicans are given evidence of <em>no</em> <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2">weapons of mass destruction in Iraq</a>, they believe <em>more</em> strongly that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When you debunk the myth linking <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/4/e835.short">vaccination to autism</a>, anti-vaxxers respond by opposing vaccination more strongly.</p>
<p>In my own research, when I’ve informed strong political conservatives that there’s a scientific consensus that <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024">humans are causing global warming</a>, they become <em>less</em> accepting that humans are causing climate change.</p>
<h2>Brute force meets resistance</h2>
<p>Ironically, the practice of throwing more science at science denial ignores the social science research into denial. You can’t adequately address this issue without considering the root cause: personal beliefs and ideology driving the rejection of scientific evidence. Attempts at science communication that ignore the potent influence effect of worldview can be futile or even counterproductive.</p>
<p>How then should scientists respond to science denial? The answer lies in a branch of psychology dating back to the 1960s known as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation_theory">inoculation theory</a>”. Inoculation is an idea that changed history: stop a virus from spreading by exposing people to a weak form of the virus. This simple concept has saved millions of lives.</p>
<p>In the psychological domain, inoculation theory applies the concept of inoculation to knowledge. When we teach science, we typically restrict ourselves to just explaining the science. This is like giving people vitamins. We’re providing the information required for a healthier understanding. But vitamins don’t necessarily grant immunity against a virus.</p>
<p>There is a similar dynamic with misinformation. You might have a healthy understanding of the science. But if you encounter a myth that distorts the science, you’re confronted with a conflict between the science and the myth. If you don’t understand the technique used to distort the science, you have no way to resolve that conflict.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637751003758193">Half a century of research into inoculation theory</a> has found that the way to neutralise misinformation is to expose people to a weak form of the misinformation. The way to achieve this is to explain the fallacy employed by the myth. Once people understand the techniques used to distort the science, they can reconcile the myth with the fact.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79025/original/image-20150423-10326-17lpo45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Skeptical Science</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>There is perhaps no more apt way to demonstrate inoculation theory than to address a myth about vaccination. A persistent myth about vaccination is that it <a href="https://theconversation.com/muddied-waters-setting-the-record-straight-about-mmr-vaccinations-and-autism-3391">causes autism</a>. </p>
<p>This myth originated from a <a href="http://sks.to/lancet">Lancet study</a> which was subsequently shown to be fraudulent and was retracted by the journal. Nevertheless, the myth persists simply due to the persuasive fact that some children have developed autism around the same time they were vaccinated.</p>
<p>This myth uses the logical fallacy of <em><a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Post_hoc,_ergo_propter_hoc">post hoc, ergo propter hoc</a></em>, Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”. This is a fallacy because correlation does not imply causation. Just because one event happens around the same time as another event doesn’t imply that one causes the other.</p>
<p>The only way to demonstrate causation is through statistically rigorous scientific research. Many studies have investigated this issue and shown conclusively that there is no <a href="https://theconversation.com/mondays-medical-myth-the-mmr-vaccine-causes-autism-3739">link between vaccination and autism</a>.</p>
<h2>Inoculating minds</h2>
<p>The response to science denial is not just more science. We stop science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial. We need to inoculate minds against misinformation.</p>
<p>The practical application of inoculation theory is already happening in classrooms, with educators adopting the teaching approach of misconception-based learning (also known as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221341.2010.498121#.VTg021xUW68">agnotology-based learning</a> or refutational teaching). </p>
<p>This involves teaching science by debunking misconceptions about the science. This approach results in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2007.00248.x/full">significantly higher learning gains</a> than customary lectures that simply teach the science.</p>
<p>While this is currently happening in a few classrooms, Massive Open Online Courses (or <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/massive-open-online-courses">MOOCs</a>) offer the opportunity to scale up this teaching approach to reach potentially hundreds of thousands of students. At the University of Queensland, we’re launching a MOOC that <a href="http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial">makes sense of climate science denial</a>.</p>
<p>Our approach draws upon inoculation theory, educational research into misconception-based learning and the <a href="http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/3/106.abstract">cognitive psychology of debunking</a>. We explain the psychological research into why and how people deny climate science. </p>
<p>Having laid the framework, we examine the fallacies behind the <a href="http://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=227">most common climate myths</a>. Our goal is for students to learn how to identify the techniques used to distort climate science and feel confident responding to misinformation.</p>
<p>A typical response of scientists to science denial is to teach more science. But that only provides half of what’s needed. Scientific research has offered us a solution: build resistance to science denial by exposing people to a weak form of science denial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Cook does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A small dose of a weak form of anti-science can inoculate people against the real thing, just like a vaccine.John Cook, Climate Communication Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.