Under the Microscope is a cool website ‘where women and science connect.’ It’s the online component of the Women Writing Science project at The Feminist Press featuring stories from women about science, technology, engineering, and math, and aimed to inspire the next generation of STEM pioneers. Last week I was delighted to chat with one of the hosts, Kristina Necovska. Here’s an excerpt from our Q&A:
UTM: I’m curious whether you’ve found that the public’s ability to distinguish credibility and sound arguments is going out the window?
SK: I’m very concerned. We just saw this hack into e-mails of climate change. Most people made very quick judgments without fully understanding the context of what they were reading. [There is] a survey just released by George Mason University and Yale Center for Climate Change Communication. It’s a dismal report, people more than ever don’t “believe” in climate change.
The big point here is that pseudoscience is on the rise. … It’s dangerous and I’m not sure what it means for the future of science and it’s a big red flag in terms of where we’re going. Science needs a better platform. It’s certainly not about PR in a traditional sense but we have to think about how we’re represented when we’re working against so many other forces that have a certain vested interest. We’re trying to emphasize the best research and [research] is very dynamic. There’s no black and white in the way that the pseudo-scientific [groups] want to represent things.
UTM: Can you give us just a few examples of what ordinary people can do to benefit science literacy?
SK: I think just being engaged and being interested is a big part of it. Looking for sources that you should be able to trust like universities. More and more young scientists are creating their own websites in order to counter the rubbish that’s out there. I’d love to see more young people engaged in their communities — like those that have a [bachelor of science] but are unsure whether they want to go to graduate school — writing op-eds or working with local politicians or schools.
Read the full interview here and stick around to check out other featured stories and interviews at Under The Microscope.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I like this women in science website. Good potential there. And nice interview.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Great interview, and I appreciate being introduced to “Under the Microscope”.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Ocean acidification is a serious issue, kissing is not. We should get serious, but because too many people, the authors of this site included live with this naive view of human behavior (i.e. when things get really bad, we will just hold our hands together, start singing, collaborate with each other and solve the problems, never mind that what we have been doing historically in such situations is ruthlessly killing each other) we are talking about nonsense like “engaging with the public” and not about real measures that will actually have some effect.
You will never reach people who won’t listen to you. This means that you have to force people to listen to you. It is simple logic, not so simple to implement, but fixing the educational system is a good start for the long term. My blood pressure rises every time I hear Chris Mooney talk about how, you see, politics trumps science when it comes to shaping people’s opinions, so it is not more education that will help. He never considers that a working educational system is not supposed to produce people who shape their opinions on matters having everything to do with the laws of physics and nothing to do with politics based on the latter.
And you never consider the timeline of the action needed – it is all “we have to improve the public understanding of science” in the vague indefinite future. While we have a decade at most to turn things around. So for the short-term even education doesn’t work because the people responsible for decision making are past school age, which means that much more drastic measures are needed, and those involve a lot more than “engaging with communities”
February 9th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
“Most people made very quick judgments without fully understanding the context of what they were reading.”
That’s interesting. Where can I find this context published?
In case you can’t reproduce all of it, I’d be particularly interested in the context for the following example of peer-review, on which you based your considered judgement.
“It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”.
Why would they want to dismiss it? What was the math correct about? And how (just for the sake of an educational demonstration on an easy case) would you set about distinguishing this from pseudo-science?
Thanks ever so much.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
If she wasn’t asked for specific examples to the context of the ClimateGate issue then I don’t think it is necessary for her to bring up specific examples. If Sheril is referring to an attitude or feeling of the public then there’s nothing wrong with what she said.
For the purposes of the interview, I think it’s perfectly fair to bring up the issues involved.
We, the public, have an increasing demand for ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ which are fine and dandy and necessary for those who carry influence.
We shouldn’t forget, however, that this demand for information is a two-way street. We, if we are so interested, should also investigate ourselves into the matter. There is little reason not to. What I find particularly astounding is that most people have internet access (access to the compiled knowledge of the world) and we do not show enough interest to form an opinion based on credible sources. I think that is what Sheril is referring to. It’s a problem in our culture, but it’s a problem in that it is a natural inclination to avoid tedious tasks.
I do think that the problem is how to engage the public. It’s like the “awareness” campaigns. What does awareness actually do? Not much. The educational system is a good place to start, yes. Maybe we should try to get websites that discuss relevant issues like these required reading for school curriculums.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Apfel,
I have no problem at all with what she said. But she indicated that people had made judgements without examining the context and I’d like to avoid doing that. So can we see the context, please, so that we too can come to a considered judgement?
Clearly, if Sheril hadn’t seen the context herself, she would not be so certain that she knew which side was credible and which pseudo-science – that which has the outward appearance of science but doesn’t actually follow its essential methods.
You say people “do not show enough interest to form an opinion based on credible sources.” But how is a person to identify “credible sources” without examining the content of their arguments and evidence? Do you have to find an even more credible source to vouch for the first? Ultimate credibility is vested in the United Nations, and its member governments, and government-funded universities and lobby groups, and those they employ. Is that science, or pseudo-science?
This position starts with a certain subset who are declared “credible”, and the complaint is that many of the general public do not find them so, and do not accept their word unquestioned. The puzzlement is due to believers being unable to understand why this mode of “Argument from Authority” is unconvincing, after it has so thoroughly convinced them. It’s not that the other side don’t very often do the same with a different selection of “experts”, but once the argument has failed because the authorities are not accepted as such there is no point in repeating it, only louder. You have to try another approach.
You have to go deeper, and explain the science. If you’re going to claim that there’s a context that explains the anomalies, you have to show us that context. You have to open up the science to those people who want to investigate it. Because investigation isn’t simply finding out what the experts say, it’s finding out whether they’re right.
“It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”. Why would you want to dismiss something that was correct? What was it supposedly correct about? Was it correct? And what does it all mean for our chosen method of distinguishing credible, sound argument from pseudo-science?
These are vital questions that many people out here do want to investigate; to form an opinion on. If Sheril has a source for the context that explains it, I’d like to think that she’d want to share it.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
“SK: I’m very concerned. We just saw this hack into e-mails of climate change. Most people made very quick judgments without fully understanding the context of what they were reading. [There is] a survey just released by George Mason University and Yale Center for Climate Change Communication. It’s a dismal report, people more than ever don’t “believe” in climate change.”
I wonder what might happen if instead of telling people how stupid and sheeplike they are, you decided to have a conversation with them?
February 12th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
anon, here’s the problem: we are doing just that. You have to figure out where they’re getting their misinformation and why they think what they think.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
“My blood pressure rises every time I hear Chris Mooney talk about how, you see, politics trumps science when it comes to shaping people’s opinions, so it is not more education that will help. He never considers that a working educational system is not supposed to produce people who shape their opinions on matters having everything to do with the laws of physics and nothing to do with politics based on the latter.”
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Here’s a small portion of the problem: Most people are bad at being dispassionate.
People have to be dispassionate to an extent to do things logically.
February 13th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Katharine,
That’s a good first step. The second step is to figure out whether it really is misinformation. In the process of figuring that out, you’ll generate many of the arguments you need for the third stage, which is entering into a dialogue to figure out what’s known and what isn’t.
The thing is, everybody has unconscious biases. Science teaches you to recognise some of them, but it also teaches that you can never eliminate all of them, which is why criticism and the deliberate attempt to falsify orthodoxy are such an important part of science. Passionate sceptics are a valuable resource, which you need to harness. They have the motivation to try to knock your ideas down – if you give them every possible aid in doing so, consider their arguments seriously, and they still fail, you generate confidence in the theory’s correctness. In fact, this is the *only* way to generate scientific confidence, so if you think the science is important then it is effort well-spent.
So sit down and teach them the science they need to be better sceptics. Take them through it, step by step, and ask them to check it. And if they find things that aren’t well-explained, go back and fill in the gaps. Note, that doesn’t have to be a solo effort – but when you do argue with a sceptic, try to teach at least one new bit of maths or physics each time. Give them the data, and help in interpreting it if they need it. Because they’re a lot more likely than you are to spot your errors, and that’s what science is about.
The problem as I see it is that scientists have decided that the people are too dumb to understand the real science, and so have created scientific authority as a substitute. But authority is political, in a very general sense of the word, and so is subject to attack by political means. The general public have no more reason to respect a scientific authority than any other, because they don’t know about the methodological differences that make science different. Nobody will show them.
“It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”. That *looks* like politics. That looks like controlling the message, shutting down opposition. It doesn’t look like doing everything you can to challenge and check the science you’re doing; seeing it as a good thing. Now maybe I’m wrong, and I’d like to talk to people who disagree with me, to find the context that could explain it. Or any of the dozens of other such items.
And so I’ll talk to people who are more motivated to defend it, who claim another context exists, and ask them to explain. To find out where they get their (mis?)information from. And if the arguments of clever and motivated people *cannot* explain it, I’ll ascribe more confidence to the position. As will thousands of sceptics.