I can’t help thinking that there’s a certain irony that Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet, who are talking about how to effectively advocate your point of view through framing, have managed to raise so many scientific hackles in the last two weeks. For additional irony points, Coturnix has even speculated that part of the reason for this is that the word ‘frame’ itself automatically triggers a negative response. Thinking back to my own response, I have to concede that there may be something in that – but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
A couple of interesting comments on my last post, where I talked about the tension between explaining and persuading which framing can exacerbate, raised the question of exactly is meant when we talk about ‘understanding the science’. I’ve been pondering that for the last week or so. My first thought was that what scientists uniquely bring to the table are facts. Scientists spend their time poking the Universe to see what happens, and in terms of public communication I see our primary job as explaining what the results of our poking and prodding tell us about our cosmos, our planet, or ourselves. It’s not an easy task, and this is where I think framing can potentially be very helpful – in choosing the one or two facts that are most likely to get through people’s perceptual filters, so they stop and think ‘wow – that’s cool’ or ‘hmmm, that’s a good point’.
That is, if you like, is the ‘Unique Selling Point” of a scientist. Just like anyone we have our own theories or opinions to advocate, and they’re not necessarily always good ones, or lacking in ideological baggage, but via the scientific method, we test and refine them by interacting with the ultimate bullshit filter – reality. This is the true power of science – its role as a counterbalance to idealism and false certainty. In recent decades, though, this power has been increasingly blunted; and one of the major culprits – and, by extension, the root of many of our problems with communicating science to the public – is negative framing of science and scientists.
Here’s a few negative science frames:
- The ivory tower. Scientists are socially inept robots shut away from the real world – how can they comment on society when they don’t understand how it works? Plus, they think we’re all too stupid to actually deign to talk to us…
- Slaves to the orthodoxy. The scientific establishment is absolutely totalitarian – ideas are accepted or rejected solely according to how well they fit liberal/atheist/anti-capitalist principles (how’s that for projection on an epic scale?)
- The lone genius. Most scientific progress is made by people working outside of “the orthodoxy”, who are often treated with contempt and hostility until they are eventually proven right (used to great effect in both the ID and climate change debates).
- The godless moral vacuum. Scientists are not just uninterested in the moral and ethical implications of their research, they are actively uninterested: they think such concerns beneath them (it’s probably a result of their militant atheism).
- In science there is no beauty. Scientists are strict utilitarians; to embrace science is to shut yourself off from great art, music or even just appreciating a lovely sunset.
Of course, some of these stereotypes and prejudices are almost as old as science itself, but in recent decades there’s been a skilful and sophisticated campaign to nuture these attitudes, because they all have one thing in common: they de-emphasise the empirical foundation of scientific thought. They emphasise ideology and politics. As John puts it, they seek to suggest that science is no more than a personal opinion, and as such can be safely ignored if it makes you uncomfortable. And, to a disturbing degree, that quest has been successful – which, I suspect, is why many scientists are a little wary of framing – in the public discourse, they often find themselves stuck in some rather ugly ones.
Before we all start to feel too martyred, though, we must acknowledge one truth: it’s partly our own damn fault. The tendency to accuse those who attempt public outreach of ‘dumbing down’, the unproductive attitude that ‘if the proles can’t follow what we’re saying that’s their problem’ – these not only leave the media field empty for the forces of antiscience, but play into their hands by reinforcing the very frames they are trying to dictate the conversation with. Frames that we need to break if we’re ever going to successfully engage with the public. Because I feel that it’s not so much about reframing specific debates – evolution, or climate change, or whatever the issue of the hour is. It’s about reframing science, and scientists, so that when we say “the sky is blue”, people understand that our refusal to consider the possibility that the sky is green is not because of our atheist or liberal or tree-hugging biases, but because we actually went and looked.
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