A recent editorial by Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney in the journal Science has sparked an interesting conversation within the science community and the science blogosphere. In the article, Framing Science, Matt and Chris argue that scientists, when communicating to the public, need to put less emphasis on technical details and more emphasis on creating an emotional and political framework into which to conceptually place the topic. Their article has garnered strong criticism and defense, and is a revealing peak at the world of science reporting. Of course I have to weigh in on all this.

Reading the various blog posts on this topic I had the feeling that some bloggers were talking past each other – actually addressing different points. What I will try to do in my blog today is to separate out the various points and try to find the common ground and areas of disagreement.

First let me “frame” the debate. What Matt and Chris are talking about is that scientists need to think about what story they are trying to tell the public, and then craft their message to emphasize that story – rather than get bogged down in dry details, facts, and jargon. Critics argue that they are catering to culture and the media and rather scientists should stand firm in defense of truth and accuracy.

The reality on the ground

Regardless of the kind of world we all wish we were living in, first and foremost Matt and Chris’s article is about facing up to the reality as it is currently, and I largely agree with their portrait. It also seems that most of my fellow science bloggers agree, although some, like Larry Moran pointed out that the reality on the ground is different in different countries and places. I have written before about the fact that human perception and memory is organized around pattern-seeking, and that we perceive and remember the world around a framework of meaningful stories and concepts (Shermer frequently summarizes this by saying we are “pattern-seeking, story-telling animals”).

Another reality we have to contend with is that the world of the mass media favors the sound-bite: short pithy statements that capture the essence of an issue. The landscape of mass media is rapidly changing, however, with the internet. The blog discussion of this issue is a case in point. We now have the option of presenting science through multiple simultaneous media outlets, and we can craft our content to suit each one. Each has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of accessibility, widespread appeal, and tolerance for detail, etc.

Further we have to contend with a generally scientifically illiterate public (no matter what country you live in, although there are differences). This is always relative, but it will always be true in the sense that scientists will be talking about science to a general public that knows a great deal less about their topic than they do.

On the flip side, scientists often are not great communicators. They may obscure their message in jargon, or simply fail to capture the imagination. Characteristics that make one brilliant and successful in the lab may also make one dry and tedious in front of a camera, keyboard, or microphone.

Finally, we live in an ideologically charged culture. People tend to simultaneously possess multiple ideologies with which they view and explain the world. I think this was the primary focus of the Science article – that we must understand and work with these ideologies, and it is folly to fly in the face of them or ignore them.

What is a “frame”?

In the context of this discussion, Matt and Chris were referring to a political, ideological, or emotional framework that imparts meaning and significance to a science topic. Their point is that we cannot just report on atmospheric carbon levels, to grab the public’s attention and get them to buy into the science of global warming (for example) we need to talk about losing beach-front property and food shortages – things that have meaning to people.

Critics, like PZ Myers, argued that scientists need to create their own frames, and to break the frames that the public currently uses – not to cater to existing beliefs or prejudices.

I think, though, that both are partly right and partly wrong, depending on how you think of a “frame.” Frames is just another way of referring to a conceptual framework that tells a story about nature. I think that conceptual frameworks are vital to science – science must tell a story. However, science should avoid political or ideological frames. In fact, the frame of science should be one that advocated adherence to truth and accuracy, to be free from ideology or arbitrary belief, and to value rigor and intellectual honesty. This is the “metaframe” that scientists should also endeavor to operate within – I am a scientist, I come to my conclusions within a scientific framework, I try my best to weed out bias and ideology.

But we can frame science stories with scientific frames. Some bloggers very correctly pointed out that the best science popularizers do this. Carl Sagan (whose name always comes up in this context) was a master at this. Evolution is not just a story of fossils and DNA – it is a story of origins, of our origins, it is a story of our past and therefore of ourselves.

Sensitivity vs Cowardice

This seemed to be the most contentious issue in the discussion – the question of whether or not scientists should be proud and strong advocates for science or whether they should censor themselves to be sensitive to the religious and ideological sensibilities of others. Curiously, this was sometimes discussed in the context that scientists are often seen as atheists and liberals. To me, this is an excellent example of exactly why scientists do need to think about the conceptual frames of science.

What has science got to do with the current American political spectrum of conservative and liberal? Scientists should not use their authority as scientists to defend liberalism – rather they should make the legitimate point that science itself is not ideological. An individual scientist might be liberal, but that is irrelevant. A certain segment of the current political right may attack specific scientific claims because they offend their ideological sensibilities – but the response from science should not be a preference for liberal politics over conservative politics. It should be the defense of science from ideology – any ideology.

Religion is a more complex issue. Without getting into excruciating detail, I will just repeat my previously stated position that science is best defined as agnostic toward any unfalsifiable hypothesis, including any of the myriad beliefs under the umbrella of religion. This is not out of any desire to be politically correct, sensitive, or avoidant – it is, in my opinion, the proper framework for science. Unfalsifiable ideas are not science, they should be kept out of science – period.

Science and Politics

The findings of science often have political implications – and therefore scientists must inform political debate, but they need to be careful not to get dragged into political debate itself. In other words, it’s OK to say that science supports evolution as a proven fact, that ID/creationism is not science, and therefore evolution and not ID should be taught in public science classrooms. Scientists should be able to say, and in fact have a duty to strongly support, the definition of what qualifies as science.

To take a different example, science may also tell us details about the development of a human fetus, the amount of neurological sophistication at various stages, etc. but cannot, by fact alone, decide whether the mother’s rights or the unborn fetus’s rights hold greater sway. That kind of decision involves value judgments. Value judgments are the realm of politics, not science.

What we want is for politics to stay out of science (beyond a legitimate role in determining the way in which public resources for scientific research should be allocated in order to meet the needs of society – but even here this needs to be balanced with the advantages of allowing open ended and not goal oriented inquiry.) Likewise, science should inform politics, but not pretend that it can dictate political choices with the false authority of science.

Teaching Science

Much of the discussion was actually about how best to teach science. I admit, there is an art to teaching that may not be possible to fully capture with an algorithm. The conflict here is about how much to “water down” the science in order to make it accessible to a particular audience. Everyone seems to agree that we should always endeavor to be factually and conceptually accurate – truth and honesty must remain paramount. But scientific truth can be a complex thing. Orac correctly pointed out that whenever you teach a scientific topic at a certain level of complexity, you sacrifice the details and accuracy that are only obtainable at deeper levels. I sort of agree.

Stephen J. Gould professed that he wrote simultaneously to a professional audience and lay audience. He advocated this as the standard in science writing – capture all of the complexity and accuracy, but explain it so that it is accessible to a knowledgeable layperson. I agree with this, and also note that it’s not easy. But Gould’s approach is very difficult to apply to the not-so-knowledgeable layperson, i.e. the mass audience (not people who pick up his books or read Natural History magazine). It’s not impossible, it’s just much more difficult.

Also, I think it is true that some accuracy and precision must be sacrificed when teaching a topic at a beginner level. Often science educators must decide how to convey an understanding that is “true enough” even though it may gloss over some complexities. Again – this is a delicate art. I think many times the simple or lazy thing to do is to simplify and render inaccurate (science textbooks are riddled with this kind of sloppy compromise).

Conclusion

This topic is so much bigger than this one blog post can adequately address, but let me end by summarizing the main points. First, I think the various blog discussions contained the emotional tone that they did because this is a highly frustrating topic for scientists and science popularizers. At some level we all appreciate the Catch 22 we are in – we are trying to popularize science to a species that is fundamentally irrational, in societies that insufficiently value science and the intellectual virtues of which it is comprised, through media that range from unfriendly to hostile, all the time contending with competing ideologies (our own and others).

There is no perfect solution, so uncomfortable compromises have to be made – and that’s when people fight the most fiercely.

For me, the solutions (as much as they are) are to recognize human nature and work with it – that means telling engaging and meaningful stories that are informed by rigorous scientific facts and concepts. We need to follow the lead of Carl Sagan by finding the human angle in science – especially the positive uplifting ones – and emphasize them.

We should “frame” science stories, but not to avoid confrontation or offense, rather to remove inappropriate bias and ideology from science. We need to frame science as being above ideology.

We need to learn how to work with the media, while simultaneously training the media how to work with us and how to present science. Also, simultaneously, we need to grab the new media of the internet and make that work for us (which I think is happening quite nicely).

We need to understand the society in which science is embedded and make science work with that society, while also working endlessly toward making that same society more scientific, more mature, more rational, more skeptical, and overall a more receptive and fertile milieu for science.

How’s that for a framework.