AsianScientist (Dec. 2, 2016) – I no longer live in the US, but it was my second home for close to a decade. Since the shock outcome of the presidential election, my Facebook feed has been filled with emotional reactions from friends there, running the gamut from disbelief and fear to anger and sadness. Worryingly, numerous reports of heckling and harassment are already coming to light in the wake of the election results. Even from halfway across the world, it is an understatement to say that I feel disturbed.
I’d planned to write this month’s column about something completely different, but I just wasn’t feeling it. After all, why write about science when bigotry, misogyny, racism, and a blatant disregard for facts have won the day, with potentially global implications? In the face of all of that, this column, and my role here, felt inconsequential.
I went for a run to clear my head. Then I treated myself to some chocolate and overdosed on Joe Biden memes. I snapped out of my mini existential crisis. And now, maybe I can offer some thoughts on why stories about science remain important, perhaps more so than before.
Science in a post-truth world
First, the objective, rational thinking that defines science is more valuable than ever. In this free-for-all age of digital media, facts are optional, and online rhetoric increasingly influences public opinion. Yet, hotly debated issues—genetically modified organisms, medical ethics, and environmental policy, just to name a few—are seldom as simplistic as clickbait or memes (or presidential candidates) make them out to be.
With coherent, nuanced narratives, scientists and science writers can make the complexities underlying such issues more accessible to the public, and thus help drive productive discussion that is grounded in fact. This is all the more important now that the next leader of the world’s most powerful country believes that climate change is a hoax manufactured in China, and that vaccines cause autism. With a science-literate public, policy decisions are more likely to be made based on factual evidence, in the spirit of the scientific method.
But all that is, of course, easier said than done. In the aftermath of the US election, the echo chamber effect of social media—how we are more likely to read and share content we agree with, while ignoring what doesn’t fit into our worldview—is being highlighted as one of the driving forces behind the political divide. This effect also exists for science-related issues—scientists aren’t likely to follow many anti-vaxxers or climate change skeptics, for example, and vice versa.
So, how can we reach beyond these barriers and engage with the other side? Respect and a willingness to listen are probably part of the answer; yet, how do we do this without compromising on what the factual evidence points to? NEXT PAGE >>>
