Should we believe the experts? (Part I)
Recently, a survey made the rounds on social media asking people what kind of scientific topics they would like to see covered in news articles. The responses were categorical: "climate change," "organic foods," "vaccines." We all want science fact to be reported in our news articles and shows, and more importantly, we want to believe that our scientific experts are right. But is this really true? I've spent the last few months thinking about this question for no other reason than my own curiosity. It has led me down a long path of incredible discoveries about how well-meaning experts can actually be wrong many times over when it comes to their newest fad diets or theoretical facts.
The survey made some troubling claims. It said that people don't trust scientific experts, yet it justified its existence by stating that "The BBC Trust does not allow its member news organisations to be funded by advertorials." The BBC will not allow a news outfit to be paid for a product endorsement. This is part of the reason why we get a ton of paid journalism in the United Kingdom (and, in some ways, why we don't get a ton of it here).
I find this one claim very troublesome. Firstly, I've been paying attention to the polls and surveys related to scientific expertise. I can assure you that they are very much in agreement with each other when they state that the public trusts more scientists than politicians.
Beyond that, the BBC Trust isn't funding this survey. It is being conducted online by Ipsos Mori and sponsored by a bunch of scientific organizations, including the Royal Society and the British Science Association. So if you're wondering about this claim's validity for the BBC, there you go.
The survey also stated that news sources don't believe their audience trusts them to act in their own best interests. This is categorically false; many news sources struggle mightily to be trusted as impartial when it comes to opinion pieces or reporting on political figures and their misdeeds (hello, Washington Post). So the claim is either false, or the survey is dangerously shallow, posing as scientific authority when it really doesn't have any.
The survey went on to ask people to pick a scientific topic they want covered in news stories. I thought this was a bad idea myself - if you're looking for expert opinion, why not ask experts? Instead, I wanted to think about how we could get better science reporting in our news.
I've been thinking about the role of authorities and scientists in the media for some time now. Opinions are easy to find; consensus is harder, but doable. A strict search of the scientific literature doesn't produce much consensus; a strict search of the media will find plenty of experts to interview. It seems like we should be able to cut out this middleman.
I'm not sure where I've been going with this, but here's what I've found so far. When it comes to authority, both scientists and media representatives are just as likely to be wrong about something as any other expert. The only difference is that some people make a concerted effort to conceal the fact that they're wrong - aided by their colleagues who use the same techniques, such as "replication" and "peer review," which helps them all get away with it.
A few years ago, a survey was released that stated that only one third of scientific experts believe that climate change is man-made. The poll included members of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Meteorology Society. It also included a broad group of experts in climate studies and related sciences - but not all scientists. I can't find this original data report anywhere now (original link ), but it would have been helpful to have had it for this article. The problem with this survey is immediately obvious; there's no real way to tell who is an expert in climatology, for example, without having a generally accepted list of who is and isn't an expert. This really isn't the same as surveys conducted by Gallup, which can be timed correctly and have questions that are pretty easy to understand, regardless of a person's political affiliation. The survey does refer to the respondents' expertise as "scientific," but that's about it.
The older this survey gets, the more problematic it becomes. For example, some of the American Physicists later went on to deny climate change or its effects - or at least question them. The errors might not have been due to their ignorance; some of them might have been trying to perpetuate the idea that scientists still aren't sure about climate change (again, looking at you here , Fox News). Regardless, one of the best sources of information regarding climate change is the scientific literature. Besides, there's no news being reported; this isn't complicated. Just my thoughts on how an unreliable survey can make its way into some big headlines.
A lot of what goes on in science is simply wrong because the scientists involved made a mistake or were incompetent in their work. Another problem I've noticed is when scientists are wrong, they don't always admit it. A significant portion of the public trusts their experts to be correct about everything, and a significant portion does not trust them to be correct about anything - at all, really (but for different reasons). This is part of why people are so skeptical about scientists and their authority .
So how do we fix the problem? For one, we can stop listening to news media. We can also stop thinking that scientific organizations are going to fix their own problems by compromising on their data or by using things like "peer review" to hide low-quality research. And I'm not saying that all of these organizations are trying to get away with something, but there's a lot of work out there that isn't meeting the basic criteria for being called scientific .
Here's another idea: if you're an expert in your field, you probably already know whom you trust and why. You probably also know what type of information you want to know about that field. You're well-informed enough to figure out how to conduct your own research or find the information you need, but you might not have time for it every day. And that's when you come over to my place!
The idea here is simple: scientific experts are going to be far more informed than the average person, and they can use this advantage to help people who are in the know make sense of their own lives.
Conclusion
I've got another few things to say about this. First, I want to thank you for bearing with me throughout all of this. I'm sorry if I've gone off-topic so many times; it's hard to find a good topic for an article like this and stick to it, because there could be a lot of landmines. I understand that you're not just reading an article about science or climate change, but information that will help you understand the world better and make decisions based on sound facts and logic.