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Anita Makri argues that the form of science communicated in popular media leaves the public vulnerable to false certainty.
What is truth? How do we find it and does it still carry weight in public debate? Given recent political events, these are important and urgent questions. But of the two industries I work in that are concerned with truth — science and journalism — only the latter has seriously engaged and looked for answers. Scientists need to catch up, or they risk further marginalization in a society that is increasingly weighing evidence and making decisions without them.
[...] What's overlooked by many is how science is losing its relevance as a source of truth. To reclaim this relevance, scientists, communicators, institutions and funders must work to change the way that socially relevant science is presented to the public. This is not about better media training for researchers. It demands a rethink about the kind of science that we want to communicate to broader society. This message may sound familiar but the new focus on post-truth shows there is now a tangible danger that must be addressed.
[...] If the public is better equipped to navigate this science, it would restore trust and improve understanding of different verdicts, and perhaps help people to see through some of the fake news that circulates on scientific matters.
http://www.nature.com/news/give-the-public-the-tools-to-trust-scientists-1.21307
What do you think, will the general public trust these tools, if available ?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:20PM
For a technological society, science and a basic understanding of it are essential. The way to accomplish this is simple: education. This is simple stuff that should be taught in grade school.
The problem, in America at least, is that our education systems are a complete disaster, plus most of our population is extremely religious, which is inherently anti-rational. Even worse, as I write this, Congress is in the process of confirming an education secretary who believes that government-run public education can't be done right and wants to funnel education for public schools into religious schools.
From TFS: What's overlooked by many is how science is losing its relevance as a source of truth. To reclaim this relevance, scientists, communicators, institutions and funders must work to change the way that socially relevant science is presented to the public.
This simply isn't going to happen. We're rapidly going the opposite direction. The American public is outright anti-science, and getting more so by the minute. This can easily be seen on online forums, including this one (see the post by jmorris).
The simple truth is that this is a lost cause. We need to stop worrying about mitigating climate change, educating the public, or anything of the sort. Instead, we should concentrate on preparing for economic and climatic disaster.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:53PM
It is how they are educated. Educational models that exist and are enforced by generations of bureaucratic practice and teacher's unions that don't want to change, because change is hard, were developed to train effective factory workers that can show up on time, read & write basic instructions, and do rudimentary sums. A further overlay of practices like blind obedience to rules, saying the pledge of allegiance, etc. reinforce the lessons that Someone Else Is In Charge, Someone Else Knows Better, and You Must Always Obey Orders.
All of those are direct impediments to the sort of thinking that advances science, or that would interest students in the field to begin with.
Unfortunately there's a secondary level of impediment even within the pedagogy of science, should you happen to wind up there. They teach it like they teach recipes in Home Ec: "Here are your inputs, follow these steps, done!" There's no questioning of the reasoning or the experimental design, of the context of the phenomenon or the historical way in which the law or phenomenon in question came to be understood. In short, there's no practice to it.
If you're really lucky, perhaps, you wind up in a PhD program at the right university, working with the right professor, who finally gives you space to do some of that. But then the tertiary level of impediment kicks in, with said professor stealing your work and walking off with all the grant money and patents.
When that's the reality (and we've discussed it here and long ago on Slashdot many times), how is it surprising that modern Americans are alienated from science when it ought to be the god-given right and practice of every human being to undertake directed, purposeful inquiry into how things work?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:31PM
And yet despite all that, research does happen. New technologies do happen. People can feel inspired and excited by the prospect of travelling to Mars, of finding new forms of matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:11AM
> Instead, we should concentrate on preparing for economic and climatic disaster.
I've already prepared, starting in my college years in the late 1970s when it seemed like I first started doing some of my own thinking. First move was to not have kids. There were several reasons and one of them was not wanting to bring new life into a world that was, on balance, going to get worse... I've enjoyed my friends kids and wish them all the best, but it's not looking great for the future of humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:40AM
So you're 40 years into this "imminent" collapse of society, huh? And in another 40, if you're still around, you'll still be waiting for it to happen any day now because the current times are ALWAYS the worst times in history.