Science Outreach and Framing Science

Yesterday I wrote about influenza and the influenza vaccines. In this post, I referenced two articles demonstrating how popular talk show hosts, on both sides of the political aisle, are irresponsibly promoting irrational fears of the influenza vaccines. I believe this is, at least in part, due to some issues that FundScience was founded to address. Throughout human history, it seems that science has been demonized. Over the past few decades, this has become particularly relevant. As science attempts to address important problems that affect all of us, from climate change to influenza pandemics, science is met by stubborn yet impassioned resistance from people who have no idea what they are talking about!

While writing yesterday’s post, I was reminded of two important articles I read a couple of years ago. The first was written in 2007 by Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, entitled When Did Science Become the Enemy? In this article, Dr. Shostak attempts to trace the origins of the “mad scientist” perception of scientists. While these perceptions have likely been around throughout recorded history, they have become particularly prevalent over the past few decades due largely to Hollywood.

The peculiar thing is that American heroes aren’t often very good at science. Indeed, in much popular culture, it’s only the villains who’re conversant with Maxwell or Einstein. The “mad scientist” has become such a cultural icon that the Royal Society held a special lecture on the subject. Some of the mad men of science (and they are, overwhelmingly, men) are just evil characters intent on destroying the world, taking over the world, or simply rearranging the world according to their personal predilections. Dr. No and Dr. Evil come to mind, as do Lex Luthor, Dr. Octopus, the overly Teutonic Dr. Strangelove, and the Green Goblin.

How did scientists become the enemy? I mean, really: who would you rather have help you take a calculus final… or for that matter, cure the common cold or figure out the nature of dark energy: Spiderman or Green Goblin? Science is useful.

And if the scientists in popular media haven’t slipped entirely to the dark side, they’ve at least gone bonkers. They’ve become obsessed with some narrow field of research, and lost sight of the big picture. When a prehistoric monster is shambling through a major metropolis, wreaking havoc and destruction, there’s always some lab-coated PhD who’s interfering with the steely-eyed military types, screaming “we have to save it for science!” And just to make sure that these howling academics won’t become your role model, they’re usually portrayed as short, ugly bald guys with social grace and sex appeal on a par with Ben the rodent.

Certainly Hollywood has done its part to denigrate honorable scientific endeavors, but the reasons for that may be partially our fault. This brings me to the second article I would like to quote. Also in 2007, Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney wrote about Framing Science. In this article, the authors attempt to inform scientists how to “frame” scientific issues to not only catch the attention of lay-persons, but to “resonate with core values and assumptions.”

Without misrepresenting scientific information on highly contested issues, scientists must learn to actively “frame” information to make it relevant to different audiences. Some in the scientific community have been receptive to this message. However, many scientists retain the well-intentioned belief that, if laypeople better understood technical complexities from news coverage, their viewpoints would be more like scientists’, and controversy would subside….

…the scientific theory of evolution has been accepted within the research community for decades. Yet as a debate over “intelligent design” was launched, antievolutionists promoted “scientific uncertainty” and “teach-the-controversy” frames, which scientists countered with science-intensive responses. However, much of the public likely tunes out these technical messages. Instead, frames of “public accountability” that focus on the misuse of tax dollars, “economic development” that highlight the negative repercussions for communities embroiled in evolution battles, and “social progress” that define evolution as a building block for medical advances, are likely to engage broader support.

The evolution issue also highlights another point: Messages must be positive and respect diversity. As the film Flock of Dodos painfully demonstrates, many scientists not only fail to think strategically about how to communicate on evolution, but belittle and insult others’ religious beliefs.

On the embryonic stem cell issue, by comparison, patient advocates have delivered a focused message to the public, using “social progress” and “economic competitiveness” frames to argue that the research offers hope for millions of Americans. These messages have helped to drive up public support for funding between 2001 and 2005. However, opponents of increased government funding continue to frame the debate around the moral implications of research, arguing that scientists are “playing God” and destroying human life. Ideology and religion can screen out even dominant positive narratives about science, and reaching some segments of the public will remain a challenge.

It is true that scientists tend to let the facts speak for themselves. This is what we are taught, and what we are good at. But now we have to face the facts. The people making the decisions to give X dollars to science and Y dollars to, say, war are lay-people. The need exists to reach out to society at large and educate people in a way that is not boring. This is not an easy concept for scientists, because the research that is exciting to scientists is not necessarily exciting to non-scientists. Furthermore, there is a fine line between simply reaching out, attempting to appeal to the public, and making a fool of yourself and science in general. If you do not go far enough, you miss an opportunity to gain public support, and possibly even increase funding for your field. If you go too far, you become a quack or a mad scientist, and you risk alienating the public even more and making them even more suspicious of science than they already are. We must find ways to frame science appropriately, while doing our best to protect science from biases. FundScience is trying to be a part of this science outreach effort, and we would like to hear ideas for doing this from our community. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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