It turns out Reddy has been advocating more and better science communication for a long time. It's funny to see that someone that aware of the issues wound up in the center of the drama, actually. As it was summarized on another site, Reddy got out as an advocate of science communication in the past:
Christopher Reddy on science-speak (in 2009)
According to Reddy, the fault lies not only with the time-poor scientists themselves; blame must also be apportioned to the institutes that house them, for failing to value or recognize public service when it comes time to grant tenure or promotions.
The full article in Science in 2009 goes on to describe some of the issues that scientists who want to become communicators are facing (requires subscription): Scientist Citizens.
President Obama's inauguration speech delighted scientists when he stated, "We will restore science to its rightful place." But he went on: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility.... This is the price and the promise of citizenship." For scientists, one often-overlooked responsibility is explaining their work to people. This is not an unreasonable price for receiving public funds to do research.
He advocated for scientists getting out there and talking about the issues, as a responsibility to the public and for the benefit of science and the next generation of scientists as well. He's absolutely right on this. The previous reluctance of scientists to jump into media and policy arenas served us very badly during the Bush administration on so many topics: climate, stem cells, vaccines, etc. And we are all paying the price. On the other hand, there were legitimate reasons to staying out of it.
Barriers and issues
However, it's clear that there are barriers to communication. It is often NOT rewarded by the institutions that employ scientists that they spend their time on media, or wikis, blogs, or chats. There are no metrics to evaluate the amount or quality of outreach that can be used in grants or promotions. It's also not always welcomed by others in your field. In fact, there's even a term for it: Saganization. Even Carl Sagan was a victim of this--but he wasn't the first, and he won't be the last.
Carl Sagan knew much about this. We invented a word, Saganized, or Saganization, in which your fellow scientists frown on you for attempting to talk to the masses.
It can also backfire in other ways. And that's where we pick up the story today. LOE was interviewing Reddy because of his recent involvement in the Gulf oil story, and the work that spoke to the oil plume that may be present still. He was on the team that reported the plume, which differed from the NOAA assessment. The media played this as a conflict, because that's what sells. Reddy wrote an article on CNN to address this:
How reporters mangle science on Gulf oil by Christopher Reddy
....I must have spoken with at least 25 journalists last week, and despite my every effort to explain our findings, the media were more interested in using the new information to portray a duel between competing scientists. The story turned into an us-versus-them scenario in which some scientists are right and others are wrong. Seeking to elucidate, I felt caught in a crossfire....
The crossfire sucks. And it's part of the problem. To get out in front of a science issue, you are opened to attacks from all sides--political, scientific, media, and general public. Who needs this? Why would someone take that on if they didn't have to? If it's not rewarded by the grant agencies, your employers, or your neighbors--why bother?
Massacred and mis-represented
Drawing fire from both sides of a topic is also problem. And don't make the mistake that this is only an issue of the anti-science right. The left has their own set of agenda-driven topics. This leads to two problems: a general undermining of science and the actual work, often by people who have no actual grasp of the work or the context of this work. This functions to undermine the credibility of science and the scientific method. And when the science does show something that you think supports one's world-view, an abuse of that science by mis-representation that often takes on a life of its own. This can be used by activists and fear-mongers who want page views to drive up ad revenues or donations. It turned up here as: How BP may have triggered a 'world-killing' event'. This was apparently a meme floating around the social networking/blogs sites. Maybe it sounds harmless. But a scientist familiar with this work and contacted the original researcher's lab said this, thinking he'd be amused by the drama:
Just got an email back...
Turns out, not so amused. He has been getting emails and phone calls all day for the last several days from "concerned citizens". He has been unable to get to the lab to do his work. He needs a form letter to send out in response to this issue.
by BlueberryTomatoSoup on Mon Jul 12, 2010 at 07:51:52 PM EDT
It actually obstructs the real work one should be doing, with trivia and stupidity. But it also sets tone for political and policy discussions. The climate deniers did this with Climategate, and it unfortunately had impact and drained resources in order to fight it. A similar event happened on organic foods. After a paper was published that indicated little nutritional difference in organic foods, the author got voluminous hate mail. Dr. Offit--an outspoken vaccine researcher--gets death threats. Again--why would scientists want to do this? It's not appreciated, it's not what we like to do, and it's not helpful. And it makes scientists not want to work with you, unfortunately, which makes scientists want to back out of the debate.
Mis-characterizing science for your agenda is not helpful in the long run. When it's easily refuted or dismissed because it's been so bastardized, you lose credibility. Again, it undermines the actual science.
Do we stop getting science out there?
So what do we do about this? I think scientists have some learning to do, and activists have a role. Further, all consumers of information have to get more savvy about what's being presented to them as well. From the Living On Earth interview:
YOUNG: So, what's the lesson there? Not talk to journalists, or change the way you talk to journalists?
REDDY: No, no. I think that scientists would do well by understanding a little bit about what a journalist's life is, that your regular beat reporter, you know, works on the time scales of three to five, six hours. Regular scientists works on the time scales of six, 10, 12 months. Many of the journalists, you know, in the morning may be covering in the morning a car crash, in the afternoon an oil spill. And so, I don't think the scientists understand the life of a journalist. And I think if they did, and they listened to the questions they may be able to help out science better in the long run. They also have to understand that they have to say 'no'. And, they also have to say 'I have no comment', and I think sometimes, you know, we get so excited that somebody finally cares about what we have to say they may ask a question that leads us down a path that we really can't get out of.
Another problem is our instant-gratification culture. We have to stop expecting science to conform to the 24-hour news cycle, or be like CSI. As the LOE story says:
YOUNG: What can we learn here from previous spills, say, with the Exxon Valdez, how long was it before some scientists really had their arms around what had become of that oil?
REDDY: Well, the Valdez spill, there was a very nice paper written by some outstanding scientists about five years after the spill who tried to answer all those questions.
YOUNG: Five years?
REDDY: Five years. There's so much attention on this spill that, you know, things could move faster, that doesn't mean any sloppier, but I would hope that maybe in about a year from now, there might be five or ten people still sitting in a room and spend about a week and crunch some numbers and they might be able to give you the number that's probably pretty robust. That would seem reasonable to me. You know, we work at a pace of prudence, and I think a lot of the audience works on a pace of urgency. And, in most cases, those don't mesh.
The take-away points
- We need science communicators out there. They should be given some help and training. But it also takes a special kind of person with asbestos pant-suits. And they should understand the media better.
- We need to value science communication. It needs to be resourced.
- The media needs to stop framing everything as a conflict. It's wrong and misleading. And it's not helping us understand the issues, which I used to think was the goal.
- Activists have to be careful about how they use science. Mis-using it can actually hurt your credibility.
- Information consumers need to understand that their chains are being jerked for the wrong reasons. And they need to stop falling for it. They need to understand that science isn't a 1-hour TV drama. It's a process.
- Best explanation of the science news cycle evah.
Your thoughts? Your solutions?
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