The Evil Monkey has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from a southeastern U.S. university. After a postdoctoral nightmare of Inquisitorial proportions, he is currently working in a laboratory and an adjunct assistant professor at a nearby state university.
Scicurious has a PhD in Physiology from a southern institution. She is a nerd, a geek, and also a dork. And yes, that really is her brain.
NotoriousLTP is an MD-PhD student in New York City. After finishing (hopefully soon) his PhD in behavioral neuroscience, he will re-enter the fun vortex that is medical education.
Chris Mooney- a man with his heart in the right place and absolutely no idea what do do after that. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy. He's a force for good when dissecting a scientific issue for the public. But Mooney has been trucking out this same "communication" bullshit for a few years now. As usual, nothing much is offered other than "listen to them". I agree, communication is important, and scientists need to listen as much as talk. Ok..... then what? If, as he says, so many people only consider science as a small part of forming their opinions, what makes him think that they're even open to changing their minds? By his own logic in the article, antivacc'ers are more interested in the science than the general public, yet impervious to sound interpretations of it. So are anti-evolution folk. So are climate change deniers.
Mooney: Listen the Fuck UP. Just because some segments of the population are interested in cherry-picking data doesn't mean they have any interest in dialogue, in sharing information, in reformulating their opinions, in understanding the process of science, or in interpreting the data in light of the larger framework that they are willfully misunderstanding. This is true by your own logic.
Secondly- stop making the false dichotomy of scientists vs "the public". Um, hello, we're not always this misanthropic insular group that only shuffles between home and the lab by moonlight, shunning all interpersonal interactions. We have families, we take our kids to ballgames, we do our own sports clubs, we volunteer at churches and animal shelters, we go out on the weekends. Some of us engage in public outreach quite regularly, we tell the public about our research in a host of settings from evolution dialogues at colleges and churches to practical public health dissemination at dormitories. We answer questions and discuss the consequences of our research.
In fact, Chris, we are the public. Not every scientist is an expert outside their field. We rely on the news, Scienceblogs, Discoverblogs, SciAm, the NYT, and other popular outlets for our info and interpretations. We don't always go to the primary literature for the same reasons "the public" doesn't. When I need to know about global warming, I hit realclimate.org and The Intersection, because these sites distill the science well (btw thank you Chris and Sheril).
Mooney cites a Pew study that says the general public is generally positive on the scientific community, it's the scientists who are wary of the media. Maybe if those in the media and popular press would stop treating us like a different species, "the people" who we don't reach would feel less wary about trusting us when the data we generate challenges their preconceptions. Maybe if the media would stop treating everything like a "controversy", and stop giving free air time for dissemination of misinformation, we wouldn't have to spend our time debunking crap that was debunked 150 years ago (in the case of evolution) and could focus more on education. Here's an example; anybody even remotely familiar with the "controversy" surrounding mercury and autism knows who Andrew Wakefield is. He gets mentioned in practically every article and gets the media's "equal time" treatment, even though the guy is a total slime and we've known it for years. How many legitimate medical researchers, on the other hand, get more than a two-sentence quote? How many autism researchers fighting the good fight get profiled to the extent that Wakefield does? If you're not in the field, can you even name an autism researcher on the other side of the line from Wakefield?
So what can scientists do? Well, we have to pull double-duty debunking misconceptions of the data and of scientists in general. Universities and especially tenure committees need to be more supportive of scientists devoting time to outreach, especially for those conducting the so-called "lightning rod" research. That means more settings where scientists take the practical side of their research and tell the public about it, before it becomes an issue (which admittedly is about the only thing Mooney lays out as a strategy, even though he doesn't get into the nuts and bolts). Kids need to be made aware of how vaccines benefit them and the population as a whole. The general public needs to understand how evolution impacts their local ecosystems. We need to get out there and engage the public more, as scientists we've always fell short here. More scientists need to consider media-based careers, like Phil Plait. More scientists need to speak up in church if they hear bullshit getting peddled. More scientists need to sit on school boards. If you're a scientist and you're active in politics, find somebody like-minded in the opposing political party and organize a politics-free teachable moment where both sides of the aisle show up and see each other as human beings with common science-based problems that transcend their petty politics. Find ways to have teach-ins with legislators and staffers at the state and federal levels, if possible.
There, I've already done more than Mooney. I've made a couple concrete suggestions for how the problem needs to be addressed. Go check out PalMD's blog post for a good response to Mooney's article.
Let's actually do more than just listen.
Politics
Education
Comments
Look, here's the one thing that the scientific community doesn't do that would help.
It's what the denialists do that get them their traction.
Hire a think tank. Charge them with developing teams of writers to write hard-hitting articles that put the real science out there on the issues. They also have to woo big money (this can be done, believe me).
Hire a team of lobbyists. Have them target certain politicians and offer them whatever it takes to get on board with the actual science, not the pseudo-science.
If some of your guys slip up and get involved in ethics scandals, drop them like hot potatoes and get new ones. This is attrition warfare, you'll lose a few, that's part of the game.
Hire a team of aggressive crack lawyers to represent scientists in court and also to aggressively go after denialists who print, say, or do stuff that is, or could be, prosecutable. Don't worry too much about sham charges as long as the PR slants the way you want it. By the time the corrections come out (which no one pays much attention to anyway) the damage on the targeted denialists will be done.
You can find the resources to do this. If there's money to build particle colliders and space telescopes, then there money to kickstart a think tank and hire some lobbyists and lawyers.
This is attrition warfare. You locate denialists, defame them, remove them as a threat. Set the next target. Repeat.
I'm telling you, this is how you're getting creamed.
You are not organized.
These blogs and places like Climate Progress, etc are good steps in the right direction.
But you need an army. You need money, you need lawyers, you need lobbyists, and you need clear targets to focus those resources on.
Right now, you're standing around being all truthy and stuff while the other side shoots your limbs off one by one.
Not a workable strategy, sorry.
Posted by: yogi-one | June 27, 2010 7:19 PM
"There, I've already done more than Mooney".
Written three books on science and public policy recently, have you? Get your hand off it.
Posted by: James H | June 27, 2010 8:03 PM
I totally agree with James. For some reason, communication of science is way underfunded. We certainly can't rely on the media to do it. We need to get people who can communicate in the way the public understands. Scientists often rely on data, which doesn't connect with the public as much as certainty and emotion-based appeals. A lot of scientists feel this is manipulative, but we need to get over it. We're bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Posted by: Unstable Isotope | June 27, 2010 8:26 PM
Yogi, we cannot use the same tactics they do. They rely on lies. Science cannot do that.
Posted by: PalMD | June 27, 2010 8:51 PM
Ironically, James, that's exactly the kind of thing that Mooney would say scientists do wrong, per the article.
Mooney writes decent books for a living, and gets paid to talk to a small audience for an hour at a time about them. I teach college students how to think critically about science. I also involve myself in scientific outreach and do more than just "present facts", I engage the participants. Scientists and educators like me are the ones on the ground, the ones that Mooney and Nisbett alienate.
Which do you think has a more lasting impact? Writing a book, or teaching it to people?
Posted by: Evil Monkey | June 27, 2010 10:00 PM
When it comes to this anti-vaccine movement, I always remember one class of microbiology I had two years ago. Our professor was a Jesuit priest was talking about vaccines and vaccination in general. He recall the event at his time in Georgetown, where he was getting his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. He had to go to a hospital and give last rite to three year old child in ICU dying diphtheria. He asked his parents why didn't the child did not get DPT vaccine to prevent this from happening. The father's answer was he did not believe in vaccination. He jokingly told us that security had to keep him from beating up father. The professor is cheerful and caring man, but to this day I remember the hint of emotion in his voice and I can't imagine rage he felt for that man when telling a story.
The problem that scientific community has at this moment in regard to anti-vaccine movement(evolution is whole another matter) is the use of emotion as a tool, and glut of resources this movement has at their disposal. Those spearheading the movement are using a combination of ignorance and fear for parents making them believe vaccines are dangerous, and diet of grass wheat and whatever is capable of curing autism. I only have a bachelor degree in science compare to MD and PhD of PalMD and Drug Monkey, the only way I can see to handle this situation is remind people what is at stake for there child without vaccinations, and show the who is profiting from anti-vaccine movement. Remind them the son or daughter will become that three year old in ICU dying, while in the background someone is profiting from scared parents with New Way treatment.
But this is multi-facet problem and I can only think of way to handle one facet.
Posted by: Doughboy | June 27, 2010 11:53 PM
Your degree doesn't matter when you speak the truth.
Posted by: Evil Monkey | June 28, 2010 12:57 AM
EM, I think you have totally missed the point of Mooney's article. Mooney is saying that people treat particular controversies (climate change, vaccines/autism, nuclear waste disposal) as symbolic acts in a deeper political struggle. In the last paragraph of the first page he writes:
"Thus, for instance, resistance to climate science in the United States seems to be linked to a libertarian economic outlook: People who resist what experts tell them about global warming often appear, at heart, to be most worried about the consequences of increased government regulation of carbon emissions. Similarly, based upon my observation, vaccine skepticism seems closely connected to distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and of the federal government's medical research establishment. As for Yucca Mountain, much of the outrage appears to originate in the perceived unfairness of having Nevada proposed as the sole dump site for the waste of an entire nation."
And these underlying causes/fears are often more reasonable and flexible than the controversy de jour. Micro-regulation by "big government" IS an impost on business. The pharma industry and the sorry excuse for a medical/healthcare establishment the US has HAVE committed outrageous abuses and are corrupt. And nuclear issues, especially health effects, ARE something that governments routinely lie about under the protective veil of "national security". It so happens that in the specific cases highlighted, people's worries about these general issues are leading them in the wrong direction, and when they meet an expert like you, their reaction is "well, he would say that, wouldn't he?".
What Mooney is advocating is that scientists endeavour to engage with the underlying general issues. The fanatic single-issue cultists, being people who mistake the symbol with the message, will then wither on the vine in the absence of a broad support base (same tactic is usually used for counter-insurgency campaigns, incidentally). So for the US this might mean: linking carbon-emissions limitation to broader tax and regulatory reform ("we have this new revenue stream from carbon permits, so we can lift these other taxes which are much more business unfriendly"); cleaning up the incestuous relationship between "big pharma" and doctors by forbidding all those freebies and requiring public disclosure of all drug trial results, including unsuccessful ones; and shutting some of the revolving doors between government regulators and private industry in the energy and weapons businesses. Failing actually doing something about these concerns (on the grounds that they are outside your power/remit/etc) at least acknowledging them and discussing why they are irrelevant to the case at hand, rather than ignoring the issue, can have suprisingly positive results. Given that scientists are members of the public, as you point out, you might well have something to say about those points as well.
Posted by: James H | June 28, 2010 1:59 AM
"Hire a think tank. Charge them with developing teams of writers to write hard-hitting articles that put the real science out there on the issues."
Yeah! Establish institutions where "colleges" of scientists collaborate and have (as one of their duties) communicating with the public!
Posted by: Paul Murray | June 28, 2010 2:50 AM
James, thanks for that post. It is insightful and what we need to hear (and frankly that would make a better op-ed than Mooney's if it were re-targeted slightly, so go write and submit it, seriously).
Posted by: Evil Monkey | June 28, 2010 11:55 AM