The Article: Science Communication Reconsidered

This is a summary of and response to an article in Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 27, #6 June 2009, entitled Science Communication Reconsidered. This article identifies an ongoing problem with public opinion on science, the work of expertise in science, and how scientific findings are communicated to the public. In the realm of science, problems arise out of the fact that science is increasingly “interdisciplinary, bureaucratic, global in scale, problem-based and dependent on private funding” (514). In the realm of the public, on the other hand, media tend to build hype, spin and misrepresentation of scientific findings due to omission, ideological bias, sensationalism and conflicting worldviews. Due to these factors, public trust in science continues to diminish. The article considers a few models that have tried to address this problem. I would like to take a closer look at these models and the solutions the article has to offer, then try to
identify and critique some assumptions that I think lie at the foundation of this article.

The Models

-The Deficit Model:
Earlier it was thought that the lack of interest and engagement of the public in science, and the controversies that arose in science, were due to ignorance. The solution to this deficit of knowledge, it follows, would then be the production and disbursement of scientific information to the public. This account, however, did not take into consideration other factors that may inform a given individual’s stance on science, such as ideology, social identity, trust of science
and business, and consumption of popular culture such as film, television, videogames, novels and particularly forms of science fiction. Furthermore, today the proliferation of accessible scientific data is more than available to those “highly motivated individuals” who are interested in being engaged in “collective decision-making”. In the age of information, I would go as far as to agree with Jean Baudrillard’s notion that we are overwhelmed with information.

-The Public Engagement Model
With the realization of factors other than lack of information, a public engagement model was developed in order to encourage interest in the science that directly affects individuals and communities. The public engagement model “emphasizes deliberative contexts in which a variety of stakeholders can participate in a dialog so that a plurality of view can inform research priorities and science policy” (515). This might take the form of a salon-style café scientifique discussions not only about the technical aspects of science, but the ethical, political and economic. Public engagement invites the layman up stream, to use Latour’s analogy.
The article notes two critiques of public engagement: first, the public is all too often motivated after the matter, when the (sometimes rotten) fruits of scientific labor have already entered the market for human consumption—such as, for example, GMOs, anti-depressants or non-recyclable plastics. Second, the public may reach conclusions that “go against the self-interests of scientists” (515), such as watchdog groups, or perhaps the notion that some things should not be meddled with. Despite this, the article concedes to public engagement as one part of a broad remedy to the ills of science communication.

-Framing
After various attempts at public engagement it was found that, despite interest and access to information, the public still bases decisions on biased information, ignoring what does not already confirm and reinforce pre-existing beliefs and worldviews. This is due, according to this article, to ideologically slanted news sources, fragmentation of the media, and “opinion leaders, other than scientists, such as religious leaders, nongovernmental organizations and politicians, [who] have been successful in formulating their messages about science in a manner that connects with key stakeholders and publics but at times might directly contradict scientific consensus or cut against the interests of organized science” (515). In response, the article suggests framing as the new model. A frame is an “interpretive schema” that highlights certain information and ignores (though ideally still makes transparent) other information.
While framing might start to sound like some indoctrination technique or social engineering, one should keep in mind that this model approaches knowledge with the axiom that nothing can be given objectively. Through language, interpretation and emphasis, knowledge is always de facto framed. Indoctrination, spin and hype, on the one hand, can be said to frame information with the intent to obscure, while framing in the sense meant here is done with the intention to illustrate and reveal information with the intent to make it digestible to a given public group.

Solutions Offered

Taking these three models, the article offers six solutions that address their limitations. The first is to expand upon dialogue initiatives and continue forms of public engagement. Next, develop a systematic audience demographics research program; teach graduate science students the social and political groundings of science, analyze factors that contribute to hype and spin in the media, develop more expansive consumer protection laws that fight against false pseudo-scientific information, and finally, to systematically track the opinions on science as they develop in the media.

Critique

I would like to take a step back from this article for just a moment and consider the bigger context in which it is placed. It is written in a science magazine, by scientists, for scientists. With that in mind, it has the tone of someone who has a certain worldview, one that many (though not all) scientists have. This worldview takes a few things for granted, and I think this article is a quintessential example of them.

One is a particular idea of Progress. Progress in this sense is the production of knowledge, or movement toward Truth. Though we may move from one paradigm to another, this movement is still going forward. Science can and will, in theory, one day solve everything. Knowledge is thus, in this view, intrinsically good.

Following this conception of progress is a belief in a Unified Science, or Science. Science is the sublime object. In the minds of those who believe in Science, it has replaced Religion as the closest thing mankind has to Truth. The body of Science is a cohesive, coherent and continually growing collection of facts and theories. Problems of communicating Science to the masses are not inherent in Science itself, but are the fault of the masses themselves, from which Science is normally insulated. I think this disposition can be characterized as faith in science, which is not to agree with the drivel that science is “just another religion”. I would simply like to claim that science, as a social phenomenon, is not only constituted by a (socio-politico-culturo-econo-ethico)-ontology (an assemblage), but by a like epistemology as well, namely as a product of the European “Enlightenment”.

I would like to reconsider the deficit model with the caveat of a more complex understanding of knowledge, and offer a seventh solution to the list. I would posit that there is more than one type of knowledge. The problem is not a deficit in what I would call mere information, but in a lack of critical thinking. Information is but one type of knowledge, creativity another, empathy another, and critical thinking another still. In other words, the science that should be communicated ought not be merely a body of facts, but a grammar (in the Wittgensteinian sense), a methodology, a context.

A school system that favors the science and math over the humanities, where critical thinking and self-reflection develops, has created the very inability to understand that science. While I would agree to the six items on their list of solutions, I think this article, and perhaps the larger scientific community, overlooks this fundamental deficit in critical thinking, and furthermore fails to scrutinize the worldview that predefines much of scientific literature.

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