As Americans,
it seems the trend is to encourage everyone to validate themselves professionally with personal details. Politicians are sold to us or criticized based on their
personal lives: they are fathers, family men, a strong woman, successful
minority, religious, non-religious, get involved with secretaries etc.
However, this seems to also be a trend in science, and I think this may
be hurting our ability to relate to the public at large. There are sociological reasons people trust other people with
similar backgrounds to them. By looking down on people for being not well educated, religious,
or not believing our science, we do no good but cause them to feel alienated. People who are not atheist or liberals may feel
unwelcome, afraid to voice their opinions, or worse, judged and looked down
on. I know some people were shaken by
the media’s and publics perception of us, but we need to take some
responsibility for that. We are at fault for those perceptions, and our relationship with the public. It is not just the
public’s stupidity that causes these problems, it is our fault too, and it is
also our problem.
In
schools, children are not always taught the research process, leading to a lack of
understanding of the process of research is adulthood. If they don’t understand the process, why on
earth do we expect them to blindly believe the outcome and data? Will full ignorance is one thing (see any
political conversation on climate change – I am not talking about sticking your
head in the sand) but people are allowed to think differently about topics than we do. When people aren’t scientifically trained,
they don’t understand that what we know constantly changing. We are made painfully aware of how much we
don’t know, and how much what we do know can change with new studies. As
scientists we are used to that, and repeatably exposed to this in our education and research.
[Found at http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=374]
The average Joe isn't educated in this field, and does not
understand why this happens. If people
are not experienced in the research process, it is very reasonable for them
to be confused when the entire scientific basis of what they should be feeding themselves
is completely changes. This creates some
mistrust from the public, where scientists see no issue.
The media may also play a role in this, but the truth is elucidating an
idea through research takes years. How long can it take to do a research project and write it up, much less the number of
papers and research trials it takes to actually figure out what is going
on. The media and the public don’t have
the patience or the time to wait ten years if our research effects their lives
to get the full story or picture, and that is understandable. Sometimes, the idea is never completely elucidated,
but just gets more complicated. The
public doesn’t understand that side of research, so those that do understand
that could get more involved in public outreach about not just their own
research, but the process in general.
As scientists, sometimes we are sending
the wrong message. If you look at my previous post,
the scientist who is disputing flu vaccinations is very well educated. He is causing a ruckus in a totally different
field, but he is an educated person who is a semi-related field. Just today, NPR aired a story not about the
Rosetta launch, but what one of the scientists was wearing.
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/14/364083954/shirtstorm-leads-to-apology-from-european-space-scientist?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news]
How do we expect to be perceived when the
interviewed scientist for the Rosetta success was wearing a completely inappropriate
shirt on television? There is a reason
that scientists are perceived the way they are, and as an individual we may
feel we haven’t earned that, but we need to be constantly trying to improve. We need to accept responsibility for our part of scientific miscommunications, not try to put all
the blame on the media trying to seek attention, or on the public’s perceived
stupidity. We are all in this together.
There
is danger for educated scientists to fall into this exact blame game: The public is stupid and trusts inappropriate
sources. The media just wants to get
hits and likes. It’s not that simple, it
is a complex and nuanced problem. Yes
society is changing, and some of it seems depressingly permanent and for the
worse. But as scientists, I think instead
of focusing on what everybody else is doing wrong, or how the media spins
stories, we need to focus on improving ourselves. That is the only thing we have control over, how
we behave and try to grow, and I think that is what this class is aimed at
doing. Not on how the media behaves, not
on what the public perceives to be important or is willing to believe, but on
how what we do and how we act can influence that. I think we lose sight of our role in this,
that we are not alone, but that we cannot do it alone and are not supposed to.
Everyone in this class will go into different
fields, and as much as academia trains you for academia, it's ok that the majority of grad
students will not end up in academia. There are so many roles to play. As
an individual we can’t do the research we think is going to change the world,
write papers and grants to continue to pursue that research, teach courses,
educate minds and serve as a mentor, educate the public, educate the young,
have an impact on policy, tell your story through the media, and change the
world. It is not going to happen! In my opinion, you find the niche in this
process that you feel you do the most good in, and you continue to work with
other scientists, researchers, media, and public figures in order to change
things for the better.
The topics this week in our conversations in scientific communications were somewhat
dark and depressing on the outlook for the future of our society. I think it is easy to get caught up in the
negative, and feel like we can’t change anything. While it is important to continue to grow and
better ourselves, we need to remember as bleak as things may look, we are not
in this alone. Science is all about “standing
on the shoulders of giants”. In
research, you are basing your experiments on others work, and the knowledge you
use is the product of thousands of years and probably millions of people’s
effort. In my mind, it will not be one
person who finds the cure to cancer, because that cure will be based off of the
knowledge put out by so many minds. When
communicating with the public, I think we need a reminder: you cannot change
the world on your own, you are not alone, and that as powerless as we may feel
individually, as a group we can change science and the way people live their
lives for the better. But to do so, we
need to stop playing the blame game, and step up to improve ourselves.
I tried to keep this brief, but as per usual I am long
winded. Here are some links to stimulate
discussion and may peak your interest in some of these topics!
