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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:08PM
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:40PM
In a prior job I worked on a grant with money from "Big Pharma", who wanted us to determine if a particular protein had therapeutic value in treating cancer. We designed a statistically valid experiment and showed with some level of likelihood (I forget the p value, but it met the "statistically significant" criteria) that it had no effect. There probably would have been more money coming if it worked (larger trial, animal model more like humans, etc, the usual progression to and through clinical trials. But that didn't happen because it didn't actually work.
I really find it sad how people assume everybody's a scammer. I worked with honest people who actually wanted to do something useful. I worked with a guy who lost a sister to cancer as a child, for example. I worked with some post-docs who just had a fascination with learning how things work, and I'm not talking about go read it in a book, I'm talking about literally no one, anywhere knows how it works, so design and run an experiment and find out. We watched a co worker sicken and die from that disease. I hadn't lost anybody to it yet, but I have now, and I'd really like to get back into medical research not for the "Big Pharma" money, but because I'd like to see a world with less suffering and death in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:31PM
Looks like we found another name to add to the list of "reputation management" professionals.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:03PM
I've skimmed this discussion and at this point, these are the only comments in line with the real problem: money.
Some scientists make a great discovery, but need to keep it under wraps until it's properly protected, patented, licensed out, and of course even then it can be stolen/copied.
Some scientists crave attention, and possible money from fame, endorsements, news, advertising, etc., and embellish or even fake stories.
Some scientists work for someone who owns the rights to their work.
Universities are huge image-conscious money-making machines. Many scientists are university professors who are required to churn out "work" and papers and get grants, corporate investment, etc. "Publish or perish" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish [wikipedia.org]
All of the news media, whoever they are, are part of the money machine of capitalism. Even SN has a money thing upper right side main page!
As sheeple-ish as the general public can be, they're also collectively wise in some ways, including knowing that money is involved in almost everything, and influences almost everything, therefore justified skepticism abounds. Unfortunately, being sheeple, they randomly choose to believe some things and not others, and it can usually be traced to a money root.
Only to dream of a futuristic money-less Star Trek economy...
(Score: 4, Informative) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:53PM
Never saw that. To the contrary, when there was a publishable result, they wanted to get it published.
I worked for a university, in fact. Yes, they're "required" to get grants, in that it's those grants that generally actually pay most of their salaries. Grants are not freebies. They're a competitive process where you convince someone with money (usually NIH) that you have an idea worth pursuing, and an idea better and more likely to bear useful fruit than everybody else who is competing for that same money. It's actually not at all easy. Publish or perish? Yeah, it's definitely a thing. Universities want people who get stuff done. I can't honestly say I've worked for a company yet who has done performance management well. Universities aren't really different in that regard.
And there ya go. Science is all about justified skepticism. Personally, I *love* justified skepticism. What I don't love is people who don't personally know anything about science deciding (based on nothing) that it's all bunk. Or people who don't know any actual scientists who think they're all scamming society for money. (NB: a lot of science is done by postdocs, who are paid really pretty badly).
There's a line between justified (and reasonable) skepticism that might say "I can see how money could corrupt this process. How can we test for that and prevent it if it's happening?" and the people who declare that because money is involved, it is corrupt.