Insights The Complexity of Modern Science - Comments

[Jeff Rosenbury]

"What do you think? Can science popularisation improve in that aspect, and if yes, how?"

I think one big thing that can help is for scientists themselves to talk more openly about what they do. The scientific community can't rely on the entertainment industry to popularize science, and then complain when they get it wrong. Nor can the scientific community hope that politicians won't spin their work and results to reinforce their agendas.

I think we need a new economic model for an intellectual economy. Our legal and social values were developed for an industrial economy. They reward behaviors that produce real goods. Mass market art (T.V., etc.) is aimed at keeping producing workers healthy and happy. Science (and less banal art) is poorly rewarded unless it supports those now non-functional goals.

The idea that scientists should be required to volunteer to act as teachers seems odd to me. The two jobs are quite different (at least on the general public level). Would we ask a carpenter to volunteer his time to explain how the joists were laid in a new house before it could be sold?

Scientists have historically made good money when they could leverage their high IQs to manipulate the system. But otherwise they tend to lag behind other professions requiring similar levels of learning/talents. To me this indicates a flaw in the economic system that needs fixing, not that scientists should become media manipulators.

I don't have a solution, but offering more science prizes seems like a good idea. Paying scientists for learning is also an obvious step. But I'm hardly the first to decry the student loan situation.

 

[ComplexVar89]

I don't get why some people want to overturn SR. Special Relativity is one of the most intriguing things I have ever come across. It's where my love of physics began, and it led me directly down the path to GR, which is my favorite scientific subject period.

What do people have against relativity?

 

[russ_watters]

What do people have against relativity?

1. They didn't learn it in high school.
2. Some of the implications (time dilation and length contraction) contradict our everyday observations.

 

[Choppy]

I think we need a new economic model for an intellectual economy. Our legal and social values were developed for an industrial economy. They reward behaviors that produce real goods. Mass market art (T.V., etc.) is aimed at keeping producing workers healthy and happy. Science (and less banal art) is poorly rewarded unless it supports those now non-functional goals.

I'm not sure I understand this point. You can't expect an economic system to reward you unless you are contributing something that it values. Science is very well rewarded when it produces things like MRI machines, smart phones, vaccines, etc. You can't simply put people with high IQs at the top of an economic pyramid and pay them to do whatever their hearts desire.

The idea that scientists should be required to volunteer to act as teachers seems odd to me. The two jobs are quite different (at least on the general public level). Would we ask a carpenter to volunteer his time to explain how the joists were laid in a new house before it could be sold?

I didn't say it should be "required." But if you want more people to know what it is that you do, you start by making them aware of what it is that you do, and explain why it's relevant. In some fields, it's self-evident. But with science the real-world relevance can lag substantially behind the investment of money, time and resources.

Your carpenter example is not a good one. You don't have to get a skilled trade to explain a skill because the skill needs to be performed to given standard (building code for example). If it's not, the consumer has recourse. And beyond that, trades have their work inspected all the time. When I buy a house, I both inspect it thoroughly myself and I hire someone who knows the local code to go through it with a fine tooth comb.

Scientists have historically made good money when they could leverage their high IQs to manipulate the system. But otherwise they tend to lag behind other professions requiring similar levels of learning/talents. To me this indicates a flaw in the economic system that needs fixing, not that scientists should become media manipulators.

The key point here is that the other fields that require similar levels of training are professions. These are doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. If you're a doctor it's easy to convince someone or the taxpayers in general to reimburse you for exercising your skill set on you because they understand that it's likely to cure whatever is ailing them. If you're a lawyer you can expect reimbursement because your skill set will help a client to draft a contract that will protect him or her, or navigate a set of problems with very serious consequences. The professions establish colleges that act to ensure those skills meet a certain standard so that the public doesn't need to evaluate individual practitioners.

But science isn't a profession - at least not in that sense. There are no licences or professional standards. It may be embarrassing if you have to retract a journal article, but in most cases no one is going to sue a scientist for making a mistake.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I think one big thing that can help is for scientists themselves to talk more openly about what they do. The scientific community can't rely on the entertainment industry to popularize science, and then complain when they get it wrong.

Something like this. Specifically what's wrong is that most scientists seem to be suffering a very bad case of "curse of knowledge." Knowing what they know, they can't conceive of a mind that doesn't also know it, and they don't have any idea what that mind needs to hear to understand what science is actually up to.

However, it's never been considered part of the job description of a scientist to be able to communicate to lay people, so this isn't a shortcoming. If, though, scientists perceive that being misunderstood is becoming disadvantageous, then it's up to them to figure out how to explain themselves and not leave it to the popular media.

 

[phinds]

@mfb, you've certainly sparked an interesting discussion. This is the kind of thing that makes this forum great.

EDIT: You should ask @Greg Bernhardt for a raise, from nothing to about 1.3 times nothing.

 

[RJLiberator]

Without a doubt, this is an important conversation.

But, what can be expected in today's current society? Does anyone really think it will get better in this system?

Without fixing the environment, this issue will continue and likely become worse.

 

[Hornbein]

I agree with most of you assessment. Now how about offering solutions.

"I learned to be very careful about when, where, and how I presented my work to other physicists, because the reaction was invariably dismissive as soon as they detected deviation from standard practice or beliefs." -- David Hestenes, Oersted Medal Lecture 2002.

He was trying to get them to use geometric algebra a.k.a. Clifford algebra.

 

[RJLiberator]

Without a doubt, this is an important conversation.

But, what can be expected in today's current society? Does anyone really think it will get better in this system?

Without fixing the environment, this issue will continue and likely become worse.

As far as the question, can science popularisation improve in that aspect, and if yes, how?

With regards to my initial post, no. Of course by some measure it can improve, but if we are looking for real change then we will need to change the environment.

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

I'm not sure I understand this point. You can't expect an economic system to reward you unless you are contributing something that it values. Science is very well rewarded when it produces things like MRI machines, smart phones, vaccines, etc. You can't simply put people with high IQs at the top of an economic pyramid and pay them to do whatever their hearts desire.

I didn't say it should be "required." But if you want more people to know what it is that you do, you start by making them aware of what it is that you do, and explain why it's relevant. In some fields, it's self-evident. But with science the real-world relevance can lag substantially behind the investment of money, time and resources.

Your carpenter example is not a good one. You don't have to get a skilled trade to explain a skill because the skill needs to be performed to given standard (building code for example). If it's not, the consumer has recourse. And beyond that, trades have their work inspected all the time. When I buy a house, I both inspect it thoroughly myself and I hire someone who knows the local code to go through it with a fine tooth comb.

The key point here is that the other fields that require similar levels of training are professions. These are doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. If you're a doctor it's easy to convince someone or the taxpayers in general to reimburse you for exercising your skill set on you because they understand that it's likely to cure whatever is ailing them. If you're a lawyer you can expect reimbursement because your skill set will help a client to draft a contract that will protect him or her, or navigate a set of problems with very serious consequences. The professions establish colleges that act to ensure those skills meet a certain standard so that the public doesn't need to evaluate individual practitioners.

But science isn't a profession - at least not in that sense. There are no licences or professional standards. It may be embarrassing if you have to retract a journal article, but in most cases no one is going to sue a scientist for making a mistake.

Economics is about distributing goods and services. Yet the developed countries have past the point of needing more goods. Now we need to modify or laws/social structures to reward services in a fair way. While this begs the question of what is fair, I don't think most people want to be weighed down with a blizzard of paperwork. Yet this is the road we are going down. Regulatory structures encourage legal and financial services while discouraging more useful (IMO) arts and sciences.
Perhaps it's time to think about where we're headed?

I did not suggest high IQ people should be allowed to sit at the top and hand down arbitrary decision. That's the system we have now. Lawyers, financiers, and drug dealers operate unchecked. My suggestion is to try to arrange our legal system so proper behavior (like contributing to arts and sciences) is rewarded while lying, cheating, and murdering is discouraged. We are drifting by default into a system where drug dealers own banks which threaten people then hire lawyers to become untouchable.

Professions require clients (among other things). The client in science is everyone which is a poor business model and has prevented the development of science as a profession. It is likely the changes I envision would encourage or perhaps require the development of professional standards.

 

[Eltanin]

Popular science paints a false picture of how science at least as much as early education. It gives lists of facts, historical notes, and cool pictures. But it doesn't dig deep.

I'm trying to produce a show right now that would be different, and I'm running into funding difficulties doing it. I'd like to create something that is about scientific thought, not facts; we want to actually analyze our subjects, and in a way that doesn't bore people who understand the basics. Math is part of it. I don't want the topics to be so intimidating that no one watches, but today's popular science keeps all math as far away from the content as possible. So I run into a lot of people who 'love science', but hate math and have no idea how to use scientific reasoning.

To tie it back to the ongoing discussion, I believe that teaching people how to think objectively and scientifically can help with a lot of problems. Science doesn't tell us what decisions to make, necessarily, but it does tell us how to go about making those decisions. It's a bit esoteric to say that, but it's also, in my opinion, better than what we have now.

 

[Isaac0427]

Popular science paints a false picture of how science at least as much as early education. It gives lists of facts, historical notes, and cool pictures. But it doesn't dig deep.

I'd actually say the problem is that they get too deep in the material, and shows the "cool stuff" but not any of the math that is required. Many shows go deep into GR but don't use the word tensor.

 

[QuantumQuest]

In my opinion, the way "popular science" is presenting itself, is a necessity and an excuse at the same time. Anyone, not having some serious relevant scientific background, is not willing to get intimidated by math details, so if he takes what he sees on a such TV show literally, he will end up having a lot of misconceptions. And this is usually the case. Cannot get better than that. That's the necessity part. The excuse part, has to do with the motivations behind PopSci, variations of which are not the same in each case. Various purposes are served in various such cases, but I am not a experienced salesperson to have the expertise to get into the details of it, nor I condemn that, because it has its role in the economic culture. Thing is, that by its very nature, cannot get better than it is, because in order to be such, the educational level of most people will need to change substantially - it is somewhat difficult I believe, for most people, to have the skills and/or the will to be scientists, but even if this could potentially happen, then PopSci would not have any reason to exist and it would cease to do so - at least in its present form. Of course, I do think that this would be a great achievement for science, but at the present instant, what anyone with no or small scientific knowledge is good to do, is listen only to what is presented, what is its purpose and consequences and not about explanations in over - simplistic - and unfortunately in many cases naïve, terms and ways. Anyone can dig a subject deeper at his/her own leisure, using the right resources, that are really abundant on the web and learn things In a more proper way. I don't think that scientists can do many things about that, because if everything could be sufficiently explained in layman's terms, then what would be the real substance of science: we live in a complex world and proper explanation of many things in nature, require deep theoretical thoughts and a multitude of experiments. So, a deep change in some social and educational structures would be needed, in order for substantial changes to be realized. In its present form, it's more of a personal issue for anyone to be well informed about anything.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Something like this. Specifically what's wrong is that most scientists seem to be suffering a very bad case of "curse of knowledge." Knowing what they know, they can't conceive of a mind that doesn't also know it, and they don't have any idea what that mind needs to hear to understand what science is actually up to.

However, it's never been considered part of the job description of a scientist to be able to communicate to lay people, so this isn't a shortcoming. If, though, scientists perceive that being misunderstood is becoming disadvantageous, then it's up to them to figure out how to explain themselves and not leave it to the popular media.

It's not surprising to me that many scientists suffer from the "curse of knowledge", for the simple reason that many scientists often socialize with or primarily communicate with other scientists who are in general more likely to understand their work (or if not understand their work, at least understand the processes in which scientific discoveries are made), and therefore can't conceive that there are people who don't have that understanding.

I agree with Choppy that part of the way to address this, and to improve public understanding of science is for everyday scientists to more actively engage with the public, by say for example, volunteering their time to visit schools to explain the work they do and providing non-technical summaries of their work. I am also definitely in agreement in making scientific journals more accessible to the public.

 

[Hornbein]

In my opinion, the way "popular science" is presenting itself, is a necessity and an excuse at the same time. Anyone, not having some serious relevant scientific background, is not willing to get intimidated by math details, so if he takes what he sees on a such TV show literally, he will end up having a lot of misconceptions. And this is usually the case. Cannot get better than that.

That may be true, but most popular science I have seen does not approach the "best possible under the circumstances." There are some science popularizers who have done an excellent job, but others not. And some are humbugs.

I might take a whack at science popularization myself. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that I can do better than most of what I've come across. But first I'll have to learn it thoroughly.

 

[StatGuy2000]

It's not surprising to me that many scientists suffer from the "curse of knowledge", for the simple reason that many scientists often socialize with or primarily communicate with other scientists who are in general more likely to understand their work (or if not understand their work, at least understand the processes in which scientific discoveries are made), and therefore can't conceive that there are people who don't have that understanding.

I agree with Choppy that part of the way to address this, and to improve public understanding of science is for everyday scientists to more actively engage with the public, by say for example, volunteering their time to visit schools to explain the work they do (and more generally explain the actual process of doing science, as opposed to listing the discoveries as is often done in popular science books/movies/TV shows), and providing non-technical summaries of their work. I am also definitely in agreement in making scientific journals more accessible to the public.

 

[anorlunda]

NOVA is an excellent source for informing the public about science, but I am guessing that for each viewer of NOVA there are more than a hundred viewers of FOX NEWS.

Why do people who would never tolerate racial, sexist, or ethnic slurs think that it is OK to inject political slurs and put downs into any an all topics? Is that not a personal attack on classes of people depending on which TV channels they watch?

 

[phinds]

Why do people who would never tolerate racial, sexist, or ethnic slurs think that it is OK to inject political slurs and put downs into any an all topics? Is that not a personal attack on classes of people depending on which TV channels they watch?

I agree w/ your sentiment in general but I think an exception should be made for FOX "news"

 

[anorlunda]

I agree w/ your sentiment in general but I think an exception should be made for FOX "news"

Don't forget a similar exception for people who believe in God.

 

[phinds]

Don't forget a similar exception for people who believe in God.

I'm happy to go along w/ that but that one is probably against forum rules so let's don't go there.

 

[anorlunda]

I'm happy to go along w/ that but that one is probably against forum rules so let's don't go there.

I was not being anti-religious, I was being facetious. and I guess that caused you to miss my point. "Fox News viewers" is just a euphemism for all people not Democrats. If the PF rules mean that we should be respectful of everyone, then we can't make exceptions. Everyone means everyone.

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

I was not being anti-religious, I was being facetious. and I guess that caused you to miss my point. "Fox News viewers" is just a euphemism for all people not Democrats. If the PF rules mean that we should be respectful of everyone, then we can't make exceptions. Everyone means everyone.

I disagree with that characterization. I'm a Republican and a Christian. I have little respect for a news network that went to court to defend their right to lie to their viewers. Other networks hopefully try to get the correct information but fail due to the need to present complex information in a simple format. If Fox's successful legal argument is to be believed, they don't see a need to even try for the truth.

Of course now that the precedent has been set, no news network can really be trusted. It is sad.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Let's bring this discussion back on topic please

 

[Isaac0427]

While the current conversation is off topic, I believe Fox News is very relevant to the current issue we are discussing. If we are talking about people being crackpots, take their complete disregard for science. This is what a little too much Fox News can do:
www.conservapedia.com/Counterexamples_to_Relativity
On the topic of educators not knowing "real science", what if the people who wrote that article were science teachers... Oh wait, they are. If people are taught to deny science, they will never accept it, and this is where a lot of the problems addressed in this insight and in its comments come from (in fact, similar tactics are used to disregard relativity in the article I linked as are used in the comic in the insight).

 

[Hornbein]

Exxon Mobil is one the of the most powerful organizations in the world. It is in their financial interest to have the public disbelieve in science.

 

[phinds]

On the issue of a media outlet lying to the public, although I find it utterly disgusting that they want to do it, and DO do it (which causes some of the problems that this thread is addressing), I agree 100% that the law is on the right side of this issue. A free press is an incredibly important element of our democracy. It is one of the first things that goes when dictators take over a country.

It would not be in any of our interests to have laws that dictate that news be "truthful" because then you get into the issue of who's going to define "truthful". As has been pointed out in this thread, bias confirmation is human nature and I don't want a creationist, for example, to be be able to get a legislature to dictate that things about evolution should not be allowed in news because it is not truthful, according to them.

This extends to the right of the pop-science shows to put out the crap they put out that is a big part of the creation of the problems that caused this thread to be started in the first place.

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

While the current conversation is off topic, I believe Fox News is very relevant to the current issue we are discussing. If we are talking about people being crackpots, take their complete disregard for science. This is what a little too much Fox News can do:
www.conservapedia.com/Counterexamples_to_Relativity
On the topic of educators not knowing "real science", what if the people who wrote that article were science teachers... Oh wait, they are. If people are taught to deny science, they will never accept it, and this is where a lot of the problems addressed in this insight and in its comments come from (in fact, similar tactics are used to disregard relativity in the article I linked as are used in the comic in the insight).

First, is this website put out by Fox News?

Second, some of those "counterexamples" look like open problems in physics to me. I may be out of date, but I don't recall the exact rest mass of a neutrino for example. Questioning science is what scientists are supposed to do. General relativity does have some conceptual inconsistencies with entanglement. Clearly our understanding of something is flawed. While the tone of the wiki article is a little too dismissive of a solid theory, it is not inherently wrong to point out flaws which should eventually be explained. I don't like their shotgun approach of throwing out "problems" when many of them seem objections to specific models rather than the theory as a whole, or otherwise poorly researched. (Predictions about number of black holes may use GR, but GR doesn't rely on them.) Perhaps a little more work should be put in the article by someone with more knowledge and less axe grinding.

Third, their equating GR with moral relativism is just wrong. It's wrong when they do it. It's wrong when their political opponents do it (if they do). Other than sharing "relative" in their names, I don't see what they have in common. Still, crazier things have happened.

Finally, not everyone on the internet tells the truth. This problem is far broader than science education. Caveat Emptor.

 

[Jeff Rosenbury]

On the issue of a media outlet lying to the public, although I find it utterly disgusting that they want to do it, and DO do it (which causes some of the problems that this thread is addressing), I agree 100% that the law is on the right side of this issue. A free press is an incredibly important element of our democracy. It is one of the first things that goes when dictators take over a country.

It would not be in any of our interests to have laws that dictate that news be "truthful" because then you get into the issue of who's going to define "truthful". As has been pointed out in this thread, bias confirmation is human nature and I don't want a creationist, for example, to be be able to get a legislature to dictate that things about evolution should not be allowed in news because it is not truthful, according to them.

This extends to the right of the pop-science shows to put out the crap they put out that is a big part of the creation of the problems that caused this thread to be started in the first place.

The law not only dictates that networks can lie, it dictates that they must lie.

Corporations are required by law to provide maximum monetary return to their shareholders. So allowing them to lie legally almost forces them to lie in their shareholder's interests.

And yes, when the question arises between spending money to get the science right (which also tends to lower audience share) or telling a warm and fuzzy lie with glitzy eye candy, a network would be legally required to go with the lie.

A simple legal change would fix this. Alas, the truth has never been popular.

 

[phinds]

A simple legal change would fix this.

And how would any "simple legal change" not be the first step in the destruction of a free press?

 

[Buzz Bloom]

It would not be in any of our interests to have laws that dictate that news be "truthful" because then you get into the issue of who's going to define "truthful".

Hi phinds:

Perhaps an improved model might be that with suitable legislation courts can be formed with juries and expert witnesses. If a jury finds that a public lie has been told, then the media organization telling that lie can be punished. I would not expect this to work perfectly, but perhaps it would provide for some improvement.

Regards,
Buzz