| UNSCIENTIFIC AMERICA How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future Chris Mooney Sheril Kirshenbaum New York: Basic Books, July 2009 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-465-01305-0 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-465-01305-8 | 209p. | HC | $24.00 | |
This book is about how science is communicated to the public in America. It begins with a paradigmatic illustration: the "demotion" of Pluto from Ninth Planet of Sol to a mere chunk of rock and ice — larger than most, but otherwise like so many in the outer reaches of our Solar System.
Pluto's "demotion" happened in 2006, at the annual meeting of the International Astrononomical Union (IAU) in Prague. That body decided that Pluto simply was too small to meet the scientific definition of a planet.1 If it deserved to be called a planet, numerous other bodies in those frigid outer reaches did too. (The prime candidate was Eris, discovered in 2005. It now is considered to be the ninth most massive object orbiting the Sun.)
Kirshenbaum and Mooney point out that there was apparently little to justify demoting Pluto, as opposed to promoting those other similar bodies to the status of planets.2 They note that a large percentage of the public was outraged — as were some scientists.
"People were aghast. Not only did they recoil at having to unlearn a childhood science lesson, perhaps the chief thing they remembered about astronomy. On some fundamental level their sense of fair play had been violated, their love of the underdog provoked. Why suddenly kick Pluto out of the planet fraternity after letting it stay in for nearly a century, ever since its 1930 discovery? 'No do-overs,' wrote one cartoonist." – Page 2 |
I personally was not at all put out by this change. It is how science works: as we learn more about the universe, parts of our description of it change. But the authors have a valid case in holding it up as emblematic of the communications disconnnect between mainstream scientists and the American public. And they are correct to call this disconnect a reason for great concern, because the public has a huge misunderstanding of science. If the American people cling to their misunderstanding of science, and continue to elect representatives who do likewise, this country is in deep trouble.
The IAU formalized the definition of a planet in 2006. Three criteria are involved:
Pluto does not meet the third criterion.
"The furor over Pluto is just one particularly colorful example of the rift today between the world of science and the rest of society. This divide is especially pronounced in the United States, which is simultaneously the world's scientific leader—at least for the moment—and home to an overarching culture that often barely seems to know or care. (Unless scientists mess with Pluto, that is.) "It's a stunning contradiction, when you think about it. The United States features a massive infrastructure for science, supported by well over $100 billion annually in federal funding and sporting a vast network of government laboratories and agencies, the finest universities in the world, and innovative corporations that conduct extensive research. Thanks to such investments, Americans built the bomb, reached the moon, decoded the genome, and created the Internet. And yet today this country is also home to a populace that, to an alarming extent, ignores scientific advances or outright rejects scientific principles. [...] Meanwhile, the United States stands on the verge of falling behind other nations such as India or China in the race to lead the world in scientific endeavor in the twenty-first century." – Page 3 |
Falling behind other nations whose populations understand science better is not the only risk. The substantial numbers of Americans who understand science poorly make it that much harder to reach good policy decisions in a timely manner, because they are easily misled by those who seek to maintain their profits by prolonging harmful practices.
The authors ascribe this disconnect to two causes: First, the general aloofness of scientists which developed in the late 1960s; second, the "media merger mania" that began in the Reagan administration and continues today. Scientists turned aloof because of shrinking research budgets and growing public distrust. The distrust arose from the increasing number of problems being reported in those years (pollution, radioactivity, cigarettes, new diseases) and the often contradictory reporting of them in the media. Deregulation allowed media conglomerates to acquire large numbers of newspapers, radio and TV stations, and film studios. The result was a trend toward media outlets toeing the corporate line, along with an imposed focus on profit that shriveled many once-active and responsible news organizations.3 The statistics are alarming: from 1989 to 2005, newspapers with a weekly science section dropped from 95 to 34.
Which brings us to the next question: what to do about it?
The plan Mooney and Kirshenbaum provide is complicated, but it boils down to facilitating more effort from scientists at communication with the public. This will necessarily be done through intermediaries: namely newspapers, televised news, and feature films. Each of these has a specific mode which scientists in the communicator role will have to accomodate. It does little good to release a story heavy with jargon and expect the reporter to translate it. Neither do filmmakers want lengthy exposition and extreme accuracy in science-fiction films they produce; these drown the entertainment value of the piece, which means a box-office flop.4 There are exceptions, of course — films which retain a reasonable level of scientific accuracy and high entertainment value. The authors point out some of them in Chapter 7: among these are Contact, from Carl Sagan's novel of the same name, and Finding Nemo from Pixar.5 But one of the things that makes them noteworthy is how rare they are in comparison to films that mangle the science.
Progress is being made on both the film and news media fronts. The National Science Foundation has established the Science and Entertainment Exchange. It's been described as having a Nobel laureate on speed-dial: It brings film directors and other industry professionals together with experts in relevant sciences. And recently several scientists have set up a climate rapid response team to deal specifically with distortions in climate science that are picked up and spread by the media.
Blogging too has a role to play, although as the authors point out it requires a lot of time and special skills to use it effectively.
"Blogging also consumes a vast amount of time due to the speed of dialogue and the demands of 'feeding the beast,' a set of pressures that inevitably leads to much quick writing and posting rather than deep, sustained thought, and that favors polemicism over nuance. This means science blogging can rarely serve as a real subsititute for in-depth, considered, professional science journalism of the sort that is now in demonstrable decline—the kind of time-consuming writing that canvasses researchers, peruses the literature, and truly penetrates into where science is headed and why it mattters." – Pages 113-14 |
I think it's fair to say that effective blogging is like writing and presenting a new elevator speech on a different subject for every post you put together.
The recommendations the authors make are sound and well-presented. Yet I had trouble finishing this book, and more trouble finishing the review of it. Perhaps the reasons are that so much of what they say is simple common sense, and that I've heard similar proposals from diverse sources these past few months. In any case, I can find no reason to lower my rating; it stands at full marks.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.