Conversations between scientists, the media and the public seem to reveal a lack of trust in scientists and their work. Personal experience and observations have supported this. Is it scientists that we shouldn’t trust, with bias and seeking of publication and fame? Or is it misrepresentation of science that we shouldn’t trust?
I participated in a ‘mini debate’ on an article on Huffington post on the topic of human involvement in climate change, in which I declared an open mind and genuinely searched sources of scientific literature, such as Nexis, science direct, and international organisations such as IPCC, using non-bias terms (such as ‘carbon dioxide atmosphere’ as opposed to bias terms like ‘carbon dioxide atmosphere increase’). The opposition stated that my sources were selective, even though they were found using generic terms on climate change and carbon dioxide levels, whilst the opposition opted for what a colleague described as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ blog. In fact, they went against a quote they used in their own article!
We are in an age of technology and knowledge transfer, enabling the public to connect easier with new research and theories, alongside scientists, as their papers are accepted for publication. This should be a blessing, however, all too often it seems the ability to publish our own opinions and summaries of such findings introduces bias to a dangerous level, with many (free and un-reviewed) publications lacking adequate scientific writing and referencing required to validate statements and conclusions.
An article published against fracking mis-quoted a scientific paper and was available and popular enough that another author of scientific papers found this article and corrected the error on twitter. And this error was done by the Editor of sustainability! I would’ve thought that a professional (?) at least would clarify the facts, instead of writing for their own agenda.
The ease of finding such articles is good news in that errors can be seen and therefore corrected. However how many blogs are there that are not checked by a qualified researcher? And how much data is mis-interpreted and transferred to the public as fact?
Fame, fortune and media attention also play a role in skewing, exaggerating, and introducing bias to once scientific – or indeed never scientific – articles. A book that we were recommended to read 1st year of our biological sciences degree “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre (2009) highlighted what they deemed as conspiracies and health scares, impossible calculations reported as facts, and insufficiently considered theories. The issue wasn’t that facts were made up from thin air, the issue was an unqualified microbiologist doing microbiology in unlicensed facilities (MRSA); a combination of possible indicators of an emotional outcome that are highly subjective and highly dependent on predicted patterns that are highly variable, like weather (The Happiest/ Saddest Day Calculation); and a theorists reductionist approach, lacking full consideration of evidence in considering evolution (convergence of human traits to an average across all persons).
No doubt technology is great for knowledge transfer, speeding up understanding and development, but every article, blog post, or video must be observed with an open, non-biased mind, and subject to critic.
But don’t trust my opinion: see what a historian of science says , judge it, and make up your own mind. I’m not going to answer the questions I posed at the start, it’s time to think beyond the articles and trust yourself and your judgement
aquacultureandi 