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On the Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge and Extraordinary Science Ignorance

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On the Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge and Extraordinary Science Ignorance PREPRINT Oxford Handbook on the Science of Science Communication On the Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge and Extraordinary Science Ignorance Dan M. Kahan Yale University It is impossible to make sense of persistent controversy over certain forms of decision-relevant sci- ence without understanding what happens in the much greater number of cases in which members of the public converge on the best available evidence without misadventure. In order to live well—or just to live, period—individuals must make use of much more scientific information than any (in- cluding a scientist) is in a position to comprehend or verify. They achieve this feat not by acquiring expertise in the myriad forms of science essential to their well-being but rather by becoming experts at recognizing what science knows—at identifying who knows what about what, at distinguishing the currency of genuine scientific understanding from the multiplicity of counterfeit alternatives. A ra- tional form of information processing, their recognition of valid science is guided by recourse to cues that pervade their everyday interactions with other non-experts, whose own behavior convincingly vouches for the reliability of the scientific knowledge on which their own actions depend. Cases of persistent controversy over decision-relevance science don’t stem from defects in public science comprehension; they are not a result of the failure of scientists to clearly communicate their own technical knowledge; nor are they convincingly attributable to orchestrated deception, as treacherous as such behavior genuinely is. Rather such disputes are a consequence of one or another form of dis- ruption to the system of conventions that normally enable individuals to recognize valid science de- spite their inability to understand it. To preempt such disruptions and to repair them when they oc- cur, science must form a complete understanding of the ordinary processes of science recognition, and democratic societies must organize themselves to use what science knows about how ordinary members of the public come to recognize what is known to science. 1. The perils of ignoring the denomi- is scientific consensus by the most reliable measures of such—authoritative pronouncements issued by nator expert panels charged with aggregating and weigh- We live in an age of spectacular public conflict ing the extant evidence for the benefit of decision over policy-relevant facts. Is the earth heating up— makers, individual and collective (e.g., American and if so are humans the cause? Will vaccinating Academy of Pediatrics 2012; Intergovernmental schoolgirls against the human papilloma virus pro- Panel on Climate Change 2014; National Resource mote their health by immunizing them from a can- Council 2004). cer-causing sexually transmitted disease—or put The persistence of deep public division on such their health at risk by lulling them into unprotected facts is rightly understood to pose a significant chal- sex, thereby exposing them to other STDs and teen lenge to the prospects for enlightened self- pregnancy? Do laws allowing private citizens to car- government. Individuals of diverse outlooks can’t ry concealed handguns increase violent crime—or be expected always to agree on the ends of public reduce it by enabling potential victims to defend policymaking. But if, in the face of voluminous themselves and by deterring violent predation more quantities of sound, clearly articulated, and widely generally? disseminated scientific evidence they cannot even Each of these and numerous other factual ques- agree on the facts, how can democratic citizens be tions are subject to intense, sustained political con- expected to identify much less deliberate intelligent- testation. Yet each has also been the subject of ex- ly over the values-tradeoffs that competing policy tensive empirical investigation. Indeed, on each there responses entail? Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge—and Ignorance 2 Global warming Private gun possession Fracking Extremely 7 high risk 6 5 r = - 0.65, p < 0.01 r = - 0.55, p < 0.01 r = - 0.50, p < 0.01 4 3 2 1 None at all 0 Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Artificial food colorings Radio waves from cell phone Genetically modified food Extremely 7 high risk 6 5 r = - 011, p < 0.05 r = - 0.01, p = 0.56 r = - 0.06, p < 0.01 4 3 2 1 None at all 0 Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Very16 liberal1 Moderate0 Very1 Conservative16 Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Residential exposure to magnetic field Use of artificial sweeteners of high-voltage power lines in diet soft drinks Nanotechnology Extremely 7 high risk 6 5 r = - 0.09, p < 0.01 r = - 0.05, p < 0.05 r = 0.04, p = 0.08 4 3 2 1 None at all 0 Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Very liberal Moderate Very Conservative Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Strong Democrat Independent Strong Republican Figure 1. Risks, polarized and not. Scatterplots relate risk perceptions to political outlooks for members of nationally representative sample (N = 1800), April–May 2014. Source: Kahan (2015b). I will refer to the failure of valid scientific evi- This is a substantial problem in studies that dence to quiet disputes over policy-relevant facts as purport to “explain” controversy over a single issue the Science Communication Problem. The stock of em- (human-caused climate change, for example) by pirical studies examining how this state of affairs examining public opinion on that issue alone. But affects various issues is already ample, and is ex- the problem is barely any smaller for studies that panding at an accelerating pace. The central theme purport to explain the Science Communication of this chapter is that scholarly fixation on such Problem generally by examining only sets of issues controversies itself is inhibiting both scientific in- (climate change plus gun control plus nuclear power vestigation of the source of the Problem and dis- plus gun control plus the HPV vaccine etc.) that covery of effective means for counteracting it. feature it.The simple fact is that the number of is- sues that actually display the Science Communica- In a narrowly methodological sense, scholarly tion Problem is orders of magnitude smaller than fixation on controversies that feature the Science the number that do not but plausibly could. Diverse Communication Problem involves a form of select- members of the public in the U.S. are not divided ing on the dependent variable. Selecting on the de- over the hazards of chronic exposure to power-line pendent variable occurs when a study design tests a magnetic fields; they aren’t polarized over pasteur- hypothesis with a sample that has been assembled ized milk; they aren’t split on the carcinogenic ef- on the basis of criteria that assume the truth of the fects of artificial sweeteners or food colorings—and hypothesis—or that in any case exclude from the so on and so forth (Kahan 2015b) (Figure 1). A re- sample observations that could well falsify it. searcher who studies only public opinion on global warming or only global warming plus other issues Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge—and Ignorance 3 that conspicuously feature the Science Communica- more likely to be true) from the merely plausible is tion Problem will never be able to be confident that the principle mission of empirical research (Watts any influence she identifies as affecting those issues 2011). truly is affecting them if she has failed to confirm Four plausible explanations for the Science that those influences are absent in the myriad cases Communication Problem quickly become much less in which diverse members of the public have con- so when we don’t make the error of “ignoring the verged on the best available evidence (or at least denominator” —or systematically averting our em- converged on something). pirical gaze from the almost infinitely large class of But this mistake—one, essentially, of “ignoring cases in which we don’t see public conflict over deci- the denominator” when looking at issues that fea- sion-relevant science but easily could. I’ll call these ture the science of Science Communication Prob- mistakes the four “False Starts,” and give each one lem—shouldn’t be understood in narrow, methodo- its own label: logical terms only. It is in fact symptomatic of I. “The public is irrational”; something much bigger, much more fundamental: a II. “First thing we do—let’s kill all the cultural science of science communication literacy deficit. scientists”; The sorts of explanations for the Science Commu- III. “Welcome to the age of science de- nication Problem that appear plausible when re- nial”; and searchers and others confine their attention solely to IV. “The public is being manipulated.” controversies that feature conspicuous instances of the Science Communication Problem are ones that, 2.1 . The most plausible—and also most com- to be blunt, reflect widespread and long-standing monly asserted—explanation for the Science Com- misunderstandings of the ordinary processes by munication Problem is the public’s limited capacity which the public comes
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