How to communicate science during a crisis

[Music]

science has a communication problem

it always has but while we could mostly

brush it under the rug in the past

we are currently faced with big global

problems

that need action immediately one of

course

is covid19 i’m a science communicator

my job is to translate scientific

information

into something understandable and

accessible but

even i was overwhelmed by the absolute

fire hose of information

coming from every direction so i want to

talk about three things

why our science communication doesn’t

always match up with our science

education how misinformation uses

stories and our emotions

to spread a narrative and how we can use

the tactics of misinformation

to spread science stories instead first

our science education when we learn

about science in school

we learn about it as a series of facts

dna has four nucleotide bases

plants turn co2 into o2 through

photosynthesis

and pluto is a planet or

is it many of us learned that pluto was

a planet in school

but then in 2006 the international

astronomical union

downgraded pluto to a dwarf planet there

was

of course an uproar as many of us had

loved

the cold small planet but as scientists

learned more about our solar system and

the many objects in it

they changed definitions and statuses to

be more reflective of the new

knowledge that they had and in doing

this

to be as up-to-date as possible they had

to demote pluto

but this is exactly how science works

and how science

should work as we gain more information

about our world

we update our definitions and knowledge

and guidance

science isn’t just a static study of the

world

but rather a process of asking questions

learning new things and then asking more

questions

and this can be a messy process

experiments fail

questions lead to answers you never

expected groups disagree on methods and

how to best run experiments

and all of this is good it means that

science is always evolving and moving

and

adapting but it can take time to look at

all of the results

sort through all of the pieces and draw

a clear conclusion

and usually scientists communicate these

updates at the end of the process

after the studies have been done and the

data has been hashed out at conferences

papers have been reviewed and time has

passed

typically when i’m looking for a recent

paper on a topic i’m looking for

something that’s been published in the

past

five years but in the middle of a global

pandemic scientists have had to

communicate their findings

in real time messy data and all when i

look for an up-to-date paper to cite

these days

i am absolutely looking for something

from this year

or even better this month at the very

beginning of the pandemic

not much was known about the science of

covid19

yet people understandably wanted answers

and they wanted them quickly

so rather than having years to do

careful slow

studies on a newly emerging pathogen and

then

look at all of the results together to

form a full picture of the virus

data trickled out to the public as soon

as it was collected

often this was through pre-prints

scientific manuscripts that have not yet

been reviewed by scientific peers

while these are important parts of the

publishing process they can be

incomplete or missing evidence that

other scientists would deem necessary to

draw a conclusion

if each new study and new piece of data

around covet 19 was a puzzle piece

it was as if the public was getting

information piece by piece

as if someone was randomly plucking them

from a box

rather than seeing the final assembled

puzzle all at once

and so sometimes conclusions seemed to

change

as we learned more about how the virus

spread and that airborne transmission

was far more important than surface

transmission

advice from places like the who and the

cdc

changed from focusing on hand washing to

mask wearing

but this wasn’t because scientists were

wrong about covid at first

it’s because as they learned more they

updated their recommendations

and scientists like to be careful about

what they say

as we’re collecting data we use words

like likely

or possibly or may this is because as

we’re still learning

we want to make sure we’re not

overstating assumptions or drawing

wrong conclusions but again the public

is used to hearing

definitive headlines like researchers

find

coffee protects against alzheimer’s or

scientists find

coffee increases risk of alzheimer’s

these are statements

that are communicated like final answers

even if they’re clearly not the whole

picture

and i experienced this disconnect

between how scientists talk

and how science is typically presented

to the public first hand this year

as i searched for information about the

virus and about vaccines

i shared what i found publicly with the

world through social media

and like a scientist i used words like

likely that showed that the evidence was

still evolving

but i got comments with sentiments like

when i learned science in school

it had answers or you must not know what

you’re talking about if you’re just

saying might

is it or isn’t it what is seen by

scientists

as a responsible way to communicate is

seen by the public

as a lack of confidence or information

and at the same time

that scientists were carefully trying to

talk about uncertain data

a gigantic wave of misinformation arose

ready to provide

broad statements and misinformation that

sounded like answers

and pulled on heartstrings because there

wasn’t one

clear source of information during the

pandemic charlatans and fake medical

experts popped up everywhere with their

own theories and speculations

sometimes looking for notoriety and

other times looking to sell a product

misinformation is insidious because it

is so

often based on strong emotions like fear

and anger

rumors swirled that coven 19 wasn’t real

that it was just a way for the

government to take away your rights

instagram posts spread fear-filled lies

that the vaccines were going to affect

fertility

and while none of this was true it was

effective and it spread faster than the

careful

muted language that scientists were

using a 2018 study

found that fake news traveled farther

and faster than true news stories

on twitter and that false stories

inspired fear

disgust and surprise in replies while

true stories inspired anticipation

sadness joy and trust people are also

much more likely to share stories that

align with beliefs they

already hold this is confirmation bias

we assign more weight to evidence and

information that agrees with something

that we already believe

than evidence that refutes it and while

this has been backed up by scientific

data

it’s also something you can capture

yourself doing too i know that i am much

faster to retweet a news article based

on a headline i agree with

than stopping reading a headline i don’t

agree with and

investigating the source and so many of

us are prone to doing this

the twitter even has a new pop-up now

asking if you’d like to actually read

the article

before you retweet it but what can we

learn from that misinformation

i think what we need as scientists and

communicators to take away from this

is that emotions stories and narratives

are compelling

and that we can reach lots of people

when we use them and science has lots of

good stories to tell

but as scientists we’re often taught to

tell them dispassionately

and to lay out only the facts but i

think there’s a middle ground

i think we can structure those facts and

tell those stories in a way that can

empower people to feel supported by

science

rather than scared of it dr catherine

hey ho an amazing scientist and

communicator

also recommends meeting people where

they already are in tailoring messages

to beliefs that they already hold

this does not mean lying it means

finding

common ground and shared values and

using that as a starting point for a

conversation

and covid19 isn’t the only thing we have

to do this with

climate change is just as pressing of an

issue and we need to learn to tell

better