An Ethics of Science Communication

Joan Leach An Ethics of Science Communication Fabien Medvecky · Joan Leach An Ethics of Science Communication Fabien Medvecky Joan Leach University of Otago The Australian National University Dunedin, New Zealand Canberra, ACT, Australia

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This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface

Look to the manner in which people in the middle might argue the case. —Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Jonsen & Toulmin, 1988)

In the outer suburbs of ethical circles, which is arguably where science communication lives, there has been a long-standing debate on how to make ethical decisions, choices and even sensible statements. It is useful for us to pause and take in the contours of this debate. Our guide for this layover might most usefully be the philosopher and historian, even polymath, Stephen Toulmin. Toulmin had an academic life that spanned continents and traditions, and he directly connects a long-standing philosophical tradition of ethics and reasoning with an equally long-standing tradition of communication, specifcally persuasive communication or rhetoric. In the mid-1970s, after writing a number of books on philosophy of science and informal logic, Toulmin served on the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research, established by the US Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988). This book attempted to reject the two poles of moral reasoning:

On one side are those who see some particular set (or ‘code’) of rules and principles as correct, not just now and for them but eternally and

v vi PREFACE

invariably. On the other side are those who reject as unwarranted all attempts binding on peoples at all times and in all cultures. (p.19)

In short, Toulmin and Jonsen wanted a middle path through rigid moral rules which might prove inadequate to every possible case of moral reasoning and a thoroughgoing casuistry that would insist that every case is so unique that no general moral reasoning is possible. What does this mean for science communication? Thus far, the feld seems to us be very much in the throes of the situation that Toulmin and Jonsen describe in the 1970s. On the one hand, calls for an ‘ethical code’ for science communication have been commonplace for some time. Many in professional practice in science communication feel bound to existing codes—for example, the codes of practice for public relation practitioners and the code of ethics for journalists are popular stand-ins for science communicators. On the other hand, our academic literature is loaded with case study after case study of episodes of moral quandaries that have been handled for better or for worse and without much reference to codes of ethics. Toulmin would tell us that we are in need of some pointers in moral reasoning in the feld—not a code and not the opportunity to study an infnite variety of case studies. He would admonish us to ‘look to the manner in which people in the middle might argue the case’. This is our attempt to inhabit the ‘middle’. Which bring us to the frst exercise in moral reasoning—who are these people ‘in the middle’ of ethical debates in science communication? For the most part, while scientists and communicators are seen to be the moral offenders, publics trying to make sense of both scientifc practice and actually trying to fnd meaning in science communication are ‘in the middle’. While this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to the behaviour of scientists and communicators, it does mean that we do need to pay more attention to how that behaviour frames and even creates moral muddles for publics and audiences for science. This is more diffcult than just paying attention to the moral reasoning of publics about science and communication. A big distraction is that ethics of science overshadow the ethics of science communication, and while they are sometimes inextricably interlinked, being clear about a science communication breach vs a scientifc breach is useful. PREFACE vii

Don’t Be Distracted by the ‘Ethical’ Breaches of Scientists Simpliciter Take, for example, the case of the so-called CRISP-R babies. In late 2018, He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls with genomes that he and his team had edited. There has been vigorous debate and con- demnation of this as a breach of the ethics of science. A Nature com- mentator put it this way:

By engineering mutations into human embryos, which were then used to produce babies, He leapt capriciously into an era in which science could rewrite the gene pool of future generations by altering the human germ line. He also fouted established norms for safety and human protections along the way. (Cyranoski, 2019)

As more information emerges, however, it is also pretty clear that He Jiankui fouted established norms for science communication. These only appear, however, under more patient scrutiny. For example, He Jiankui chose to announce his scientifc work, not in the pages of an academic journal, but in a panel session at an international conference and as an ‘announcement’, not as a discussion of ‘interim fndings’. Media teams were summoned to take in the ‘announcement’, and though at that point no verifcation was possible that He Jiankui had done what he said he had done—alter the human genome—the story was promptly international science news. This is not the frst time that ‘publishing by press release’ has been condemned in science communication circles. The most famous episode might be Pons and Fleishman’s press conference announcement that they had achieved cold fusion in 1989. A Google search now conveniently comes up with ‘Pons and Fleishman bad science’. While they did not achieve cold fusion in 1989, they also fagged the danger of making a grandiose public announcement as quality science communication. Without the press release, cold fusion would still not have happened. However, the press release raises questions of its own about how and when knowledge gets called knowledge and the ethics of its public announcement. The public announcement in the He Jiankui case is one of the many ‘case study of episodes of moral quandaries’, one where the ethics of science are messily intertwined with the ethics of science communication, viii PREFACE and such case studies are helpful. But in seeking Toulmin’s ‘middle’, we want more than case studies. We want case studies that acknowledge the uniqueness of individual contexts, and we want broader theoretical foundations that can meaningfully respond to a call for a code of ethics for science communication. If science communication is going to tackle its ethics questions in any depth, it will do so in this ‘middle’, by drawing on case studies, by exploring existing codes and norms and by appealing to ethical discourse more broadly. It is this ‘middle’ we strive for in these pages.

Dunedin, New Zealand Fabien Medvecky Canberra, Australia Joan Leach

Bibliography Cyranoski, D. (2019). The CRISPR-baby scandal: what’s next for human gene-editing. Nature, 566, 440–442. Jonsen, A. R., & Toulmin, S. E. (1988). The abuse of casuistry: A history of moral reasoning. Berkeley: University of California Press. Acknowledgements

Both Joan and Fabien wish to acknowledge the many interlocutors we’ve had as we thought about and then wrote this book. The professional associations in the part of the world where we live and work, the Australian Science Communicators (Joan is past President) and the Science Communicators’ Association of New Zealand (Fabien is past President) have sponsored conferences where we’ve tried out ideas with both academics and professional science communicators. This also extends to the international network of PCST and the Society for Risk Analysis. Thank you to all of our many colleagues who care about an ethics of science communication and have been generous with your comments and ideas. Thank you also to our editors at Palgrave and the anon- ymous reviewers who improved the book. Joan would like to thank her colleagues and students at the Australian National University, Australian Centre for Public Awareness of Science for their support and engagement over seminars, lunchtime discussions and in the conversations that make the ANU such a great academic environment. I’d also like to thank my partner, Phil Dowe, whose laser-like focus is capable of both cutting and remaking an argument at 50 paces and whose support for me and my work seems limitless. Thank you also to my daughters Iris and Ruth who don’t like rules and are always up for reasoning with me, on ethics and much else. Fabien is deeply grateful to his colleagues and students at the Centre for Science Communication, at the University of Otago, for putting up with him talking at immoral length about ethics of science

ix x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS communication and for indulging him in seminars and talks about the topic. I’m also very grateful to the Australian National University’s Humanities Research Centre for welcoming and hosting me on a visiting fellowship grant on this project. And on a more private level, I want to thank my son, Yannick, who keeps reminding me what matters (which usually centres around food and generally enjoying life). Contents

1 Introduction: What’s so Good About Science Communication? 1

2 Ethics, Values and Science 15

3 The Multiple Ethics of Science 23

4 (Science) Communication as Ethics 33

5 Kairos 41

6 Knowing and Ignoring: The Utility of Information 53

7 Storytelling and Selling Science 63

8 Show Me the Money 73

9 What Are the Guiding Ethical Principles of Science Communication? 83

10 Ethical Science Communication in Practice 93

xi xii CONTENTS

11 Is Science Communication Ethical? A Question of Justice 103

12 Conclusion 113

Index 121 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: What’s so Good About Science Communication?

Abstract This chapter introduces the relationship between valuing knowledge and valuing science communication as a way to open the discussion on the role of ethics in science communication. The main ideas and concepts that are discussed in the book are presented, from core ethical issues in science communication to a brief overview of existing ethical principles relevant for science communication. An overview of the structure of the book is also provided.

Keywords Introduction · Value of knowledge · Science communication · Ethics

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. Address by Secretary-General Koﬁ Annan to the World Bank conference “Global Knowledge ’97”, in Toronto, Canada, on 22 June

Knowledge, it is often argued, is inherently good. Knowledge isn’t just good because it’s instrumentally useful, like mathematical objects or a hard- ware tool.

Knowledge is good in a deeper, moral way, a little like compassion or equality. Indeed, knowledge for knowledge sake is worthwhile, the well- known refrain tells us. And not only is knowledge good, the pursuit of knowledge is likewise good. We should seek knowledge as one of the most valuable things one can have. By contrast, ignorance is bad, and knowledge sets us free of the shackles of ignorance. To be knowledgeable is good, while to be ignorant is bad. To become knowledgeable is the ethical thing to do; to remain ignorant is unethical. Knowledge’s close cousin, information, is likewise good as the ingredient of knowledge. Gathering and understanding information helps us be better people. Importantly, this allows us to make good decisions. Informed decisions, we often hear, are what we should all strive for. And education, the sharing of information and imparting of knowledge, is the pathway to being informed and more knowledgeable. In all of this, the moral value of knowledge is taken as prima facie, a moral value that sits at the heart of science communication. Science communication is a broad term and a notoriously hard one to clearly define. It can be defined quite narrowly (public communication about science by scientists or the media) or very broadly (Trench & Bucchi, 2010). In this book, we take a broad-church view or science communication, and following Davis and Horst, we’ll understand the term to mean ‘any organised action aiming to communicate scientific knowledge, methodology, processes of practices in settings where non-[experts] are a recognised part of the audience’1 (Davies & Horst, 2016). This means we sometimes take risk communication, health communication or environmental communication to be forms of science communication (when the risks are science based or have significant science content, for example). Fundamentally, we take science communication to be an umbrella term, one that encompasses almost any form of communication where science is an important part of the communicated content. Morally, science communication, this umbrella term for public understanding of science and public engagement with science, is generally seen as the right thing to do. Indeed, the moral virtues of science communication are widely taken as read, and this moral footing appeals to the moral value of knowledge in a fundamental way. Science is about knowledge (the root word scientia simply means knowledge). So science communication

1Like Davis and Horst, we exclude both science fiction and science education. Note that we replaced the term ‘non-scientists’ with ‘non-experts’ because scientists in one field will still be non-expert audience to science in an other field. 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 3 doesn’t just communicate any old thing; it communicates something good: knowledge. And science communication is, at least at times, about the sharing of this scientific knowledge. It engages and educates about knowledge, thereby transmitting information and increasing understanding. The claims made about the value and importance of knowledge echo throughout the science communication literature, from the importance of having a public capable of making informed decisions to the value of a scientifically knowledgeable society. The aim of this book is to make explicit some of the unquestioned assumptions held about science communication, to highlight some ethically problematic aspects and practices and to invite deeper reflection on the ethics of science communication understood broadly. This should matter to practising science communicators, to science communication researchers and to those studying science communication. While much effort is spent on being good at science communication (in terms of being effective), less effort is spent on being good science communicators (in terms of morals). We think this is because the value of knowledge often goes unquestioned. But why is more knowledge necessarily better than less? Specifically, why is more scientific knowledge always better than less? Why would that be the case? And who for? Consider the following case discussed in the NYT in 2014.

Jennifer was 39 and perfectly healthy, but her grandmother had died young from breast cancer, so she decided to be tested for mutations in two genes known to increase risk for the disease. When a genetic counsellor offered additional tests for 20 other genes linked to various cancers, Jennifer said yes. The more information, the better, she thought. The results, she said, were “surreal.” She did not have mutations in the breast cancer genes, but did have one linked to a high risk of stomach cancer. In people with a family history of the disease, that mutation is considered so risky that patients who are not even sick are often advised to have their stomachs removed. But no one knows what the ﬁnding might mean in someone like Jennifer, whose family has not had the disease. (Grady & Pollack, 2014)

Maybe Jennifer would have been better off with less knowledge rather than more (Hofmann, 2016). And Jennifer is just one case where we might start to question the presumed moral worth of sharing knowledge. In this book, we take our starting point to be that while knowledge, its pursuit and its communication, is, in many cases, a (morally) good thing, it 4 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH is not always nor necessarily a good thing. The communication of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, needs to be a considered activity. To communicate science ethically, we need to be consider when it is a good thing to do so, and when it may not be; how it should be done; who we should engage; why it should be done. We need to have a base for the ethics of the field, and this is what this book aims to do: to start the process of establishing the moral foundations of science communication and to define the core ethical principles guiding the field. By investigating the moral foundations for science communication, we want to address the following pertinent problems at the core of the field.

When Should We Engage in Science Communication?

Sometimes the ‘when’ of communication is as important as the ‘what’ of content. A sensitivity to the timing of communication was a central tenant of rhetorical theory from classical times when it was labelled kairos.This attention to the ‘when’, the kairotic nature of communication, has eluded much discussion in science communication. And yet, ethical issues not only lurk there, but we have the potential to guide science communication practice by paying attention to the ‘when’. The classic idea of kairos also suggests that there is an opportune or ‘right’ moment for communication. And herein lies a discussion to be had. Around the world, governments tout innovation as a key to prosperity and emerging technologies as important components of global as well as local success. Scientific organisations, too, insist that sharing the riches of technology and the results of science will propel economies and publics into new relations with each other. But when is the ‘right’ moment to discuss the details? In a case of ‘we know it when we see it’, the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA safety in 1975 was a kairotic moment of science communication (Fredrickson, 1991). The conference publicised the idea that recombinant DNA technology and research had evolved to the point that guidelines were needed, a public debate needed to be had about the uses of the technology, and scientists needed to be clear about boundaries around the research. This conference is pointed to as ‘the end of the beginning’ of recombinant DNA research and a key moment where a need for public discussion was communicated. Paying attention to kairos, then, what other conversations are especially timely—and conversely, what are discussions that have happened too early or too late? Nanotechnology, 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 5 artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the continued evolution of gene editing are all areas of science and technology (or even ‘technoscience’ as the science and technology are so inseparable) where there have been continued calls for ‘public debate’. But when? Recent moves in research policy, most notably Responsible Research and Innovation (to which we’ll return in Chapter 3), have been pushing for engagement throughout the research and innovation process, starting at inception. But there are challenges. If communicators and scientists communicate too early, they can be accused of ‘hype’; too late and they risk being accused of ‘covering up’ risky or valuable science. The role of science communicators in specific events also raises questions of ‘kairos’ and the question of the ‘right moment’. After the tragic earthquake and tsunami that crippled Fukushima’s nuclear plant, science communicators were seen to be ‘too slow’ (as well as not knowledgeable and even giving false information) in talking about the potential effects from nuclear leakage, its relation to the food supply and its implications for human health (Sugiman, 2014). If sociological predictions that tech- nologically driven disasters will become more commonplace due to climate change as well as the ubiquity of technology, do science communicators know when the ‘right’ moment to communicate is? What is the definition of the ‘right’ moment in these cases of urgency? Shakespeare in the mouth of Brutus from Julius Caesar nails the dilemma:

There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the ﬂood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now aﬂoat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.

Is It Ever Ok to Wilfully Remain Ignorant?

As we saw in the above example with Jennifer, there are clearly times when as individuals, we might prefer to remain ignorant of certain facts; knowledge is not always a good thing. But much of science communication and engagement is not just about individual decisions; it’s about societal decisions. Is it ever permissible, or even desirable, to remain ignorant at a societal level? Should we, as citizens and as a society, always pursue more 6 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH knowledge? Are we always and necessarily better off being fully informed when making social decisions? We seem to think so, but some of the literature on the importance of ignorance may lead us to reconsider this prima facie assumption. When solar power began to take off commercially in the late 1970s, it was 250 times more expensive than it is today. This was at a time of seemingly massive energy supply, and the feasibility of making this technology viable seemed remote (Fig. 1.1). More importantly, when solar panels ﬁrst began to garner attention in the late 1950s, they were so inefﬁcient it required much more energy to

Fig. 1.1 By Rfassbind—Own work, based on Hanjin’s 2013-version amended with average sales prices for 2014 and 2015 (Original Source Data 1977–2013 Bloomberg, New Energy Finance, (archived) 2014: based on average sales price of $0.36/watt on 26 June 2014 from EnergyTrend.com 2015: based on average sales price of $0.30/W on 29 April 2015 from EnergyTrend.com compare to current spot-market prices here. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/ w/index.php?curid=33592736) 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 7 produce them than they could ever generate over their lifetime. Impor- tantly, at the time, we had no idea that solar energy could ever become truly valuable environmentally. Some thought it would, some didn’t. So why did we pursue the technology, given it was economically unviable and scientifically uncertain? Part of the answer is wilful and strategic ignorance. To strategically ignore the facts that at the time, there were no clear reasons to pursue this. Of course retrospectively, we can look back and see why ‘it was always going to be a good idea’. But historically, scientific and technological progress relies on wilful ignorance to push into area where we have no reason to believe they’ll be useful or successful. It’s important to note here that most of the scientific and technological avenues that are pursued don’t lead to anything clearly worthwhile or valuable. And in many cases, these avenues prove futile (think of any number of technologies that were short lived… does anyone remember ‘:CueCat’?).2 And in some rarer cases, these avenues deliver more than we could have anticipated. But in all cases, these avenues can only be pursued if we wilfully ignore some facts, such as the low likelihood of success, the likely insurmountable economic costs, etc. And we all, socially, benefit from this wilful ignorance. As Ravetz quipped, ‘if a cost-benefit analysis had been made at the crucial time, then sail would never have given way to steam’ (Ravetz, 1987). It’s just as well the facts at the time were ignored! Ignorance, then, is not always an evil to be avoided. Indeed, at times it may be something desirable or even necessary. So how does the role of ignorance affect the normative basis of science communication? And what moral principles can we draw upon to help us navigate the intersection between science, knowledge, ignorance and communication?

What Are the Terms in Which Science Gets Sold? What Are the Ethics of Storifying Science?

In a moment of poetic lucidity in the film, Fight Club’s Chuck Palahniuk offers this reflection on both his character and the film’s predicament, ‘Be- cause everything up to now is a story and everything after now is a story’. Increasingly, science communicators have been recognising this and storifying science and technology in various ways. The logic is drawn from various

2:CueCat was a cat-shaped hand-held barcode scanner that allowed users to open a link on the web by scanning a barcode found in a printed article or catalogue. PC World magazine names it one of ‘The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time’. 8 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH theories and experiments from social psychology that seem to suggest that human cognition is effectively ‘hacked’ by the telling of stories—they are efficient vehicles for human understanding. Indeed, as one of us (Leach) has taught science communication for over 20 years, one of the most effective exercises she’s used is telling scientific stories around the core structural narratives of biblical or other archetypal stories. Narratologists call this the ‘fabula’—the structure of the story around which the characters (the subjects) can act and add, if you will, personality. Thus, scientific careers can be narrativised along the Book of Job (long-suffering but noble scientists working around a fabula of continuous trials), scientists or even experiments themselves can follow the arc of classic hero narratives, and science and technology itself get narrativised around ‘opening Pandora’s box’. More critically, discussion of the frames of science has flagged to communicators that there may be a limited set of frames in popular discourse about science and technology at any one time (Bubela et al., 2009;Nisbet, 2009). But, let’s pause here. On the production end, telling scientists and budding science communicators that there are frameworks around which narratives of science can be built, and that these narratives seem to have public resonance is one thing. Advocating for this is another. What potential dam- age might we do with such techniques? What about events and characters that are not easily shoehorned into such stories? What gets left out or implied in these narrative structures? What if it is more complex than that, at our peril?

Are Science Communicators Beholden to Their Paymasters…and Who Is Their Paymasters? The forms in which science and technology are communicated are not just about the level of story. These forms also include the genres and mediators for science communication at higher organisational levels. The simplest way into this discussion is to take the example of ‘native content’ in science journalism. Recently, Joan was reading a really interesting article in a national broadsheet about brain research into the causes of insomnia. She noted in passing that the research cited was from a local university but also international research was namechecked. At the end of the article, though, it became clear that this article was placed in the newspaper by the local university as an advertorial. Immediately, Joan grew suspicious. And yet, 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 9 the article was written by a very good science journalist (on the payroll at the university); the content was good, the research sound. Given that science and technology are produced in the context of big institutions and big money, how much should this trend in media content, genre, and the changing role of science journalists worry us about science communication? ‘Follow the money’ has always been a reliable guide for journalists looking to investigate or critically capture an issue or subject area. But what if the journalists themselves are ‘in on it’. Standard ethical guidelines for journalism pretty much say that as soon as a journalist needs to say anything in particular, they are no longer functioning objectively as a journalist. And yet, some of our best content is starting to be produced in this context. Do we need to re-examine the ethical norms of where science and science communication and science journalism meet?

Is Science Communication Itself Ethical?

Science communication is generally seen as the morally right thing to do. Indeed, the moral virtues of science communication are often taken as self- evident. But should that be taken to mean that, in the right circumstances, acts of science communication are a good thing (and in most cases, they are), or should that be taken to mean that science communication as a field and discipline is morally good (even though some acts of science communication may be bad). We tend to think of most fields as morally neutral, each with the capacity to lead to both (morally) good and bad outcomes. Chemistry can help us develop new drugs to fight disease (which we generally think of as good) as well as give us new material for chemical weapons (which we generally think of as bad). Chemistry itself, though, is neither good nor bad. But some fields have a veneer of moral virtue about them, most notably so-called crisis disciplines such as conservation biology (Cox, 2007). No doubt, there might be some morally dubious things done in the name of conservation biology, but the field itself is regarded as having a morally virtuous mandate. All things being equal, conservation biology is a morally good thing to do. So is science communication ‘a morally good thing to do’, or is science communication more like chemistry: an amoral field with good and bad outcomes? Certainly, many of the claims made about science communication position the field as a social good, a useful and necessary project, and more likely to have the moral impetus of a crisis discipline than the moral neutrality of classical fields (Meyer & Sandøe, 2012). It is important to communicate 10 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH science to the public, we are told, for economic, democratic and social reasons, to name a few (Stocklmayer, 2001). But there are also concerns that science communication may, in fact, lead to some skewed public perception of science’s role in society. Likewise, there are concerns that much of what counts as science communication is little more than advertising for ‘brand science’ (Burns & Medvecky, 2018). These challenges force us to reconsider the prima facie moral virtues of science communication as a field. And, if we are to hold that science communication is indeed an especially moral project, then we need to think deeply about what justification we have for holding such a stance.

What Are the Guiding Ethical Principles of Science Communication?

The ethical hybridity of science communication means the field inevitably sits in the midst of ethical tensions. So how can we go about establishing the moral foundations of science communication and how can find our way through these ethical mazes? Part of the challenge for science communication is that it is a mix of various fields, each with their own guiding ethical norms and principle. The most prominent are the norms of science, journalistic ethics, PR codes of ethics and communication ethics. The four Mertonian norms of science are Communism, Universalism, Disinterested- ness, and Organized Scepticism (CUDOS). These are prescriptive norms that guide how science should be carried out: how do we do good science. Journalistic ethics has many forms, but some core elements are commonly found, namely truthfulness and accuracy in reporting, and the harm limitation principle. These are both guiding and constraining: how do we do good (science) journalism. They are often written in quite precise guidelines (Journalists, 2014). Lastly, communication has its own set of ethical guidelines. These are based on the premise that ‘ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and other’ (NCA, 2017). In the case of communication ethics, the concern is not simply ‘how do we do (morally) good communication’ but also, how do we use communication to create more good in the world, and much like journalism ethics, it is quite precise and constraining. 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 11

All such sets of guidelines offer useful guidance for science communicators,3 but they also sometimes pull in different directions. For example, the communication ethics guideline to ‘Advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings’ is hard to reconcile with the Mertonian norm of universalism that assumes an impersonal character of science. Likewise, the journalistic guideline to ‘support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they [the journalists] find repugnant’ clashes with the communication ethics guideline to ‘condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity’. But there’s no reason to assume the aim is to have a nice, neat composite of all possibly relevant guidelines. All this tension shows is that science communication practice and research could not adopt one of these existing codes as is, without significantly failing to provide guidance for much of science communication. Instead of aspiring for a coherent, one-size-fits-all ethics of science communication, those in the field could draw on each and any ethical guideline as they relate to the specific contexts relevant to the practice under consideration; a science communicator working on piece for a media outlet could abide by the journalistic code of ethics, while a scientist communicating their research in a public talk could seek guidance in the Mertonian norms. The problem with the ‘use whichever code fits best’ approach is that much of science communication simply falls between the cracks. Yes, some science communication is science journalism, and some science communication is public relations, and some science communication is part of scientific practice, but much of science communication doesn’t fit neatly (if at all) in any of these categories. The premise for this book is that we think there is something specific about science communication that requires it has its own ethical stance. Defining the ethical principles for science communication is important both for the practice and research of the field as it develops in its identity. While science communication came out of a mixture of fields, from the sciences to communication to journalism to sociology and many more, science communication has galvanised into its own field and discipline, both professionally and academically. It may be a fairly new, budding field, but it is its own thing. Science communication is more than the sum of

3There have also been some suggestions for codes and principles for science communication though not clearly articulated as ethical principles, and there is significant variability in the scope of their applicability (who they apply to and in which context). We’ll look return to these briefly in Chapter 9. 12 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH its parts; by bringing and blending a broad range of fields and disciplines, science communication opens up new and unique spaces, and new and unique challenges. Science communication is young, no doubt, but it is a field in the process of forging its own identity both professionally and academically. And this is why it needs its own ethical principles. Defining what makes for (morally) good science communication is an important and necessary part of defining what the field is and what it stands for. While science communication might draw on science, journalism, public relations and communication, it actually is something distinct from those fields; science communication is just that: science communication. What is needed is an ethical guide that speaks specifically to the tensions of science communication and, in doing so, helps define what it is that science communication stands for. This book presents a set of principles for ethical science communication. The first part of the book, consisting of Chapters 2–4, presents an overview of the relationship between values (and especially ethical values), science and communication. Chapter 2 discusses the interaction between science and values, including different forms of values that science dances with at various times. Chapter 3 narrows in on various normative codes of science, from the Mertonian norms to bioethics through to more recent moves like Responsible Innovation, all of which hold communication (in some form or another) to be an integral part of ethical practice. Closing this section of the book, Chapter 4 shifts its attention from the ethics of science to the ethics of communication by looking at ethical codes in journalism, public relations and communication more broadly. Building on this foundation, the second part of the book directly addresses the pertinent problems introduced above as a way to think through what it might take to have an ethics of science communication. Chapter 5 delves into the place of Kairos or opportune timing as an ethical consideration. Chapter 6 revisits the value of knowledge by first making sense of the scope and limits of communication in sharing knowledge before turning to consideration of the value of ignorance. The next two chapters address issues around that challenge science’s commitment to reliable, accurate information with Chapter 7 tackling the uncomfortable dance between storytelling, persuasion and accuracy while Chapter 8 addresses the role of funding in science communication. Armed with these considerations, the closing three chapters make a case for an ethics of science communication based on principlism. Chapter 9 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT SCIENCE COMMUNICATION? 13 presents both principlism and for a set of four principles specifically tailored to science communication. In Chapter 10, we take an applied turn and consider what this ‘principalist’ approach to an ethics of science communication means in practice by considering a few case studies. And lastly, Chapter 11 closes the book with a meta-question about the inherent moral force of science communication. We ask not ‘How to communicate science ethically’, but ‘is science communication inherently ethical’. There is much also that we don’t cover, and no volume could ever claim to be close to comprehensive on this topic. But while there has been much work on individual ethical aspects of science communication, no path has yet been forged towards an ethics specifically aimed at and tailored for science communication. Through the following chapters’ journey, we offer some first yet solid steps to what it might mean to have ‘an ethics of science communication’.

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Annan, K. (1997). If Information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are conditions for development. Paper presented at the Address given to the World Bank Conference on Global Knowledge, Toronto, ON, Canada. http://www. un.org/press/en/1997/19970623.sgsm6268.html. Bubela, T., Nisbet, M. C., Borchelt, R., Brunger, F., Critchley, C., Einsiedel, E., … Hyde-Lay, R. (2009). Science communication reconsidered. Nature Biotech- nology, 27 (6), 514. Burns, M., & Medvecky, F. (2018). The disengaged in science communication: How not to count audiences and publics. Public Understanding of Science, 27 (2), 118–130. Cox, R. (2007). Nature’s “crisis disciplines”: Does environmental communication have an ethical duty? Environmental Communication, 1(1), 5–20. Davies, S. R., & Horst, M. (2016). Science communication: Culture, identity and citizenship. Wiesbaden: Springer. Fredrickson, D. S. (1991). Asilomar and recombinant DNA: The end of the beginning. In K. E. Hanna (Ed.), Biomedical politics (258–298). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Grady, D., & Pollack, A. (2014). Finding risks, not answers, in gene tests. The New York Times, p. 22. Hofmann, B. (2016). Incidental ﬁndings of uncertain signiﬁcance: To know or not to know—That is not the question. BMC Medical Ethics, 17 (1), 13. https:// doi.org/10.1186/s12910-016-0096-2. Journalists, S. o. P. (2014). Society of professional journalists: Code of ethics.Society of Professional Journalists. 14 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Meyer, G., & Sandøe, P. (2012). Going public: Good scientiﬁc conduct. Science and Engineering Ethics, 18(2), 173–197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948- 010-9247-x. NCA. (2017). Credo for ethical communication. National Communication Associ- ation. Nisbet, M. C. (2009). Framing science: A new paradigm in public engagement. In L. Kahlor & P. Stout (Eds.), Communicating science (pp. 54–81). New York: Routledge. Ravetz, J. R. (1987). Usable knowledge, usable ignorance: Incomplete science with policy implications. Science Communication, 9(1), 87–116. https://doi. org/10.1177/107554708700900104. Stocklmayer, S. M. (2001). Science communication in theory and practice (Vol. 14). Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. Sugiman, T. (2014). Lessons learned from the 2011 debacle of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Public Understanding of Science, 23(3), 254–267. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0963662513494973. Trench, B., & Bucchi, M. (2010). Science communication, an emerging discipline. Journal of Science Communication, 9(3), C03. CHAPTER 2

Ethics, Values and Science

Abstract Science has a fraught relationship with values. Indeed, claims to the objectivity of science are still often heard. Taking the well-known Tuskegee study as a starting point, this chapter makes explicit the science, to be worthwhile and good science, not only can’t be value-free, but should- n’t aim to be so. This leads into a discussion on various forms of values, namely sociocultural values, economic values and ethical values. Given the centrality of ethics to this book, special attention is given to ethical values, including a discussion on how different ways to apply ethics.

Keywords Values in science · Value · Ethics

It’s 1932, Alabama, and 600 subjects are entered into a new study. These are all black men and of the 600 participants, 201 are (by and large) healthy while the other 399 have syphilis (Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion, 2009). Syphilis was considered a major issue for the black community in Alabama in the late 1920s. With as much as 35% of the reproductive age population affected, a study that looked at the development of the condition in order to provide better understanding was both scientiﬁcally and socially praiseworthy. Indeed, local community leaders were strongly in favour of this research and actively participated in its promotion. The study was originally only intended to run for 6 months, but syphilis is a complex condition and such as short timeframe proved counterproductive

© The Author(s) 2019 15 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_2 16 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH to the deeper and more complete understanding of the development of the condition. Syphilis is a complex sexually transmitted disease comprised of four stages; primary, secondary, latent and tertiary. The primary stage occurs shortly after infection (between 3 days and 3 months) and sees lesions at the point of contact where the infection occurred. If untreated, these lesions can last for up to 6 weeks before the diseases progress to the secondary stage. The secondary stage sees symptoms broaden from the area of infection to other areas of the body—most commonly the skin, lymph nodes and mucosa—in the form of a rash, sore throat, weight loss, hair loss, headache and more. Within 6 weeks, these symptoms usually disap- pear before the diseases progress to the latent stage, though in some cases, secondary symptoms may return. The latent stage is asymptomatic, but the disease is still present. A person can remain in the latent stage indefi- nitely, but if untreated, it can develop into the tertiary stage. About 32.5% of people with untreated syphilis will develop to the tertiary stage, which comes in three different forms: late benign syphilis (16%), cardiovascular syphilis (10%) and late neurosyphilis (6.5%) (Kent & Romanelli, 2008). Late benign syphilis is the development of soft, tumour-like balls of various sizes, most commonly on the skin or bones. Cardiovascular syphilis is an inflammation of the blood vessels, which can have various serious effects as it can lead to a restriction of blood supply to tissues. Finally, late neurosyphilis is the infection of the nervous system which leads to various neurological conditions from meningitis to general paresis to dementia to seizures. In the early 1930s, treatment for syphilis consisted of mercury and bis- muth. The success rate was less than 30% with ‘side effects [which] are toxic, sometimes fatal’ (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). With such unpromising treatment, the desire to better understand the condition led to extending the study period beyond the initial 6 months. Given the disease can continue in the latent stage for numerous years, the study was continually extended so as to gain further scientific information. Indeed, even when penicillin became accepted as both suitable and effective for the treatment of syphilis in 1945, the study continued to monitor the disease progression. Importantly, in order not to interfere with the quality of the scientific data being gathered, access to the newly established treatment was withheld. Participants were actively not given penicillin so as to allow the disease to continue its progression, and thus provide further scientific data. 2 ETHICS, VALUES AND SCIENCE 17

While some concerns were raised about the ethics of the study in the 1960s, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) continued to endorse the study. Indeed, the CDC reiterated the need to see the study to its conclusion as late as 1969; seeing the study to its conclusion meant to continue with it until all participants have died. All this came crashing down with the publication of a 1972 Associated Press story on the study. The article led to massive public outcry over the (un)ethical practices carried out in the name of science which culminated in the study’s closure. At close, 74 of the original 600 participants were still alive. During the course of the study, 40 of the participant’s wives became infected, and 19 of the participants’ children were born with con- genital syphilis (an often asymptomatic form of syphilis transmitted during pregnancy or childbirth). No doubt, the ‘Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male’ is one of the best-known ethical disasters of scientific research (and the name is a misnomer, the participants did receive the standard pre-penicillin treatment, they just didn’t get effective treatment). But it’s too easy to pass judgement with hindsight; the study was set up with well-founded motivations, the study followed well-established and accepted scientific methods, and the study did generate some of our best scientific understanding at the time of a very complex disease. Scientifically, it’s actually quite hard to fault the study…if science is taken to be the pursuit of knowledge, independent of values and ethics and led to publication and all such valued scientific outputs (Rockwell, Yobs, & Moore, 1964). And that’s the point. Science without values and ethics is, well, less admirable and substantially less praiseworthy than one might like the enterprise of science to be. Indeed, the Tuskegee study is commonly cited as one of the reasons we have research ethics committees and research ethics guidelines. As a result of studies like the Tuskegee study, it is increasingly being argued that science without ethics is not science. It’s folly. Science has a difficult relationship to ethics, and to values more generally. There is the oft-repeated claim of the objectivity of science. While almost no one really thinks that science is free of human values the view remains that science is as untarnished of subjective values as possible is commonly held. Take marine scientists as an example. Noella Gray and Lisa Campbell conducted a large survey of marine scientists’ attitudes and views towards engaging in the policy process and in activism. ‘Scientists routinely distinguish between facts (objective, scientific information) and values (policy preferences)’, they note. While a majority of their respondents believed science provides objective knowledge about the world, a non-trivial minority 18 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH believed that values and judgements could be eliminated from science altogether (33% of academic marine scientists) (Gray & Campbell, 2009). Now think about this (and if you have time, reread the above on the Tuskegee study); it was this pursuit of objective knowledge, unhindered by the mess of human values and judgements that drove the Alabama researchers to not provide the participants with penicillin. These kinds of outcomes would be more common if the view of the non-trivial minority that endorses elimi- nating values from science was universally endorsed. The majority of scientists simply see the findings of science as objective while acknowledging that the practice of science is still driven by human values. Values and judgements appear in the questions researchers choose to ask, in the way they choose to answer these questions, and in many other ways besides. In the context of engaging in the policy process and in activism, it is the objectivity of the findings that makes science an important voice. What fundamentally strikes here is that science has a complicated relationship with values. If we, as a society, think science is valuable, then we better be prepared to talk about how science and values interact. And, if we want science to be force for good in the world, then we better be prepared to talk about how science and ethical values interact. Science, it seems, cannot really be separated from values. It is also always ethically laden. And that’s ok. But the topic of science and ethics needs to be on the agenda for science communicators. Further, science communicators, whether scientists or not, also need to have some awareness of the ethical features of science so that communicators are confident in raising these issues in ways that improve both scientific and public dialogue and debate. This does not ‘just happen’, and as we set out at the end of this chapter, the ability to ethically reason is an important outcome in applied ethics. For science communication to achieve this outcome, the tools, topics and issues for ethical reasoning in science communication need to be further developed. One set of tools to think with is the identification of values within science itself.

The Various Forms of Values

There are many different ways values manifest themselves in science. A good place to begin is to look at the different types of values that often interact with science. Three common types of values are: ethical values, sociocultural values and economic values. 2 ETHICS, VALUES AND SCIENCE 19

Economic value is the value individuals and society place on scarce resources (both material and non-material) with regard to exchange and trade. Most commonly, this is assessed in terms of price, but this need not be the case. The economic value of a resource or good is, fundamentally, a reflection of what or how much an individual would be willing to forego, give up or trade to obtain that good. Economic values play an important role in shaping science, from forcing collaboration on large projects that no single entity can afford single-handedly (think CERN and the large hadron collider), to the guiding incentives for research in fields such as mining or pharmaceutical. And doing science is economically rewarded by increases in salaries, grants, etc. Economic values also shape who does the science; better-funded centres have larger cohorts of post-docs, lesser funded centres rely more heavily research students (Stephan, 2012). Sociocultural values are the customs, practices and shared values that define a social group. Sociocultural values might reflect the views a society takes on gender equality or on accepted forms of social interactions, such as humour or language. Sociocultural values are part of science in two ways. Firstly, the sociocultural setting in which science occurs shapes science, for example, in determining the autonomy of researchers, or in determining what counts as socially acceptable gender roles, ratios, and relations in research organisations (Longino, 2002). Secondly, science is itself a complex sociocultural enterprise that has its own customs, practices and shared values, from the language and structure of scientific research and writing as found in the format of the scientific paper to the (rarely questioned) acceptance of p = 0.05 as a determinant of significance to the perceived hierarchy across and between disciplines. So science is inescapably intertwined with economic and sociocultural values. Ethical values are a measure of the ‘rightness/wrongness’ or ‘goodness/badness’ of an action or outcome or event (or person) based on moral factors. Fundamentally, ethics is about determining the right conduct of our lives, either as individuals or as a society (Singer, 1994). Ethical values range from questions about how one ought to act as individuals—what would be the right thing for me or for you to do in a given context—to large social questions about what we ought to do as a society, as nations or as a species, whether this be about societal actions or about justice. It is these ethical values that this volume is especially interested in, and how these values interact with science and science communication. There are a three branches to ethics: meta-ethics, which looks at fundamental questions overarching ethics, such as whether humans have free 20 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH will, and what implications follow from there for ethical claims in more applied settings; normative ethics, which considers the theories and reasoning principles used to make ethical decisions, such as consequentialism or deontology (the specifics of which we won’t get into here); and applied ethics, which deals with the application of ethical reasoning to specific applied problems and topics. So while we’ll draw on both meta-ethics and normative ethics, our concern here is primarily one of applied ethics; the application of ethical reasoning to science, the application of ethical reasoning to communication and, most importantly, the application of ethical reasoning to science communication.

Before looking more closely at the way ethics has become an increasingly important part of science, both as a practice and as a discipline, it is important to note one distinction in how applied ethics can be carried out. On the one hand, applied ethics can start from some ethical theory (some pre-stated reasoning principle) and apply that theory to an issue or topic. For example, the ethical process might start with endorsing a consequentialist theory (this is the view that the morally right thing to do is to pursue the option that leads to the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people) and apply that theory to a specific issue, such as whether people in Jennifer’s scenario should be encouraged to have all these genetic tests for cancers markers, including for the one they have no family history of. With this approach, the starting point is to take an underlying theory as given and work algorithmically through the decision to work out what should (or shouldn’t) be done. What matters here is determining what is permissible; it’s finding out what one ought to do. Alternatively, the ethical process can begin by looking at the specifics of a case, issue or topic prior to, or independent of assuming any ethical theory. From there, an argument might be made for which theory (if any) best suits the case. This axiological approach invites thinking through an issue. It invites considering all aspects and concentrating on the reasoning process rather than the derived outcome. For example, again taking Jennifer’s case as an example, this approach would demand a serious consideration of her situation, her circumstances, and from there, possible theories might be considered and judged on their relative merit; relative to this specific case, that it. What matters here is thinking through what is permissible; it’s reasoning about what one ought to do rather than determining what one ought to do. The thinking and reasoning process is an important part of ethics; if someone did ‘the right thing’ accidentally, without intention or reasoning (say a 2 ETHICS, VALUES AND SCIENCE 21

$20 note dropped from your pocket and accidently landed in a charity dona- tion box), their action would not likely be morally praiseworthy. It might be viewed as a fortunate accident—it turned out for the best—but that’s not the same. Intentionality and reasoning matter in ethics. Thinking deeply and thoroughly through issues, and being able to come to a reasoned decision about how one ought to act is essential to ethical practice. And having theoretical and conceptual tools to help us to so is equally important in enabling us to proceed with such reasoning. This is Toulmin’s ‘middle’ and it holds for ethical issues in science; in communication; and in science communication.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2009). The Tuskegee timeline. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gray, N. J., & Campbell, L. M. (2009). Science, policy advocacy, and marine pro- tected areas. Conservation Biology, 23(2), 460–468. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1523-1739.2008.01093.x. Kent, M. E., & Romanelli, F. (2008). Reexamining syphilis: An update on epidemiology, clinical manifestations, and management. Annals of Pharmacother- apy, 42(2), 226–236. https://doi.org/10.1345/aph.1K086. Longino, H. (2002). The social dimensions of scientiﬁc knowledge. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame. Rockwell, D. H., Yobs, A. R., & Moore, M. B., Jr. (1964). The Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis: The 30th year of observation. JAMA Inter- nal Medicine, 114(6), 792–798. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1964. 03860120104011. Singer, P. (1994). Ethics: Oxford readers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stephan, P. E. (2012). How economics shapes science (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CHAPTER 3

The Multiple Ethics of Science

Abstract Science communication sits funnily between the sciences and the humanities, sometimes pulled in one direction, sometimes in the other. This chapter focuses on the science side by considering three ways ethics and norms have already been included in science and the scientiﬁc process. These are the Mertonian norms of science which focus on science itself, the participant-centred bioethical principles that are generally applied to all research involving humans, and ﬁnally, the more recent Responsible Research and Innovation move, which is more broadly socially and environmentally concerned. The chapter closes with a discussion on the importance of communication in each of these.

Keywords Ethics of science · Mertonian norms · RRI · Research ethics

It’s clear science does not operate in a social or moral vacuum. Indeed, there have been some well set out ethical norms for science, for research and so on. Of course, there is debate about exactly what these should be—what counts as the ethical norms of science—but a good place to start is the most commonly accepted bases for the norms of science and scientific research. As mentioned in the previous chapter, there are now well-established ethical guidelines for research involving humans, especially medical research. These largely come out of bioethics and we’ll consider these below, but first, let’s consider the broader case of science, scientific research, and scientific

© The Author(s) 2019 23 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_3 24 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH practice more generally. The most widely accepted norms for the practice of science are, arguably, the Mertonian norms (Anderson, Ronning, Vries, & Martinson, 2010; Merton, 1979). These are largely concerned with research from the scientists’ perspective. The four Mertonian norms of science are Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized Scepticism, commonly clustered under the acronym CUDOS. When Merton introduced these norms, he posited that scientists’ orientations towards them gave a feeling for the ‘ethos of science’, the kind of ethical activity that science is. While ‘communism’ as a political philosophy might have some adherents in scientific research, Merton was pointing to the idea that science itself is a communal activity. As a sociologist, Mer- ton was alive to empirical observations that the results of science are very much results of a social enterprise, with a history, and not the work of single researcher. As such, Merton proposed that the communism norm indicated that scientific results should be seen as ‘common goods’ to be communicated freely. Indeed, he went so far as to admire the works of scientists, like J. D. Bernal, who engaged in ‘free and open’ communication. Merton saw, as early as the 1940s, that intellectual property constraints would encourage secrecy in science—and he saw this as a source of norm conflict in science. And so it is. In 2018, Ryan Abbott and colleagues have written a handy guide for ‘managing disputes in the life sciences’ where IP disagreements are all too common (Abbott, Lack, & Perkins, 2018). The norm conflict that Merton anticipated has also accelerated as innovation has entered the scientific lexicon. While Merton identified communism and sharing as central norms of the scientific enterprise, such norms are being challenged, not least by economists who have even proposed that soviet- style secrecy could be a key to novelty and innovation in science. With calls for ‘open science’ and moves towards ‘open access’ sitting alongside more stringent rules about institutional IP and concerns about the negative externalities brought about by communication, Merton’s communism remains a potent, if contested, norm. Merton’s articulation of universalism, too, is contested. Concerned with objectivity (more on that below), Merton posited that universalism would mean that individual scientists would be bound more by the epistemic norms of science than they would be by the social norms of the culture that they inhabited. Sometimes shortened to ‘what is scientifically true for someone in Chicago is scientifically true for someone in Bangkok’, Mer- ton’s view of universalism emphasises the truth generated by the scientific process over the background or personal circumstances of the scientist. 3 THE MULTIPLE ETHICS OF SCIENCE 25

While few will argue that ice freezes at zero degrees Celsius around the world, building that fact of the matter into a climate model does depend on where you are, what disciplinary assumptions you import, and how you interpret various data points from ice cores (all at or below zero Celsius!). The issue of universalism is also contested from a perspective advocating hybrid ways of knowing. From indigenous knowledges to knowledge of ‘terroir’ in wine-making, there are ample examples of how who you are constrains what and how you can know things. As an ultimate challenge to Merton, many of these ways of knowing are scientific, except in the sense that they are not ‘universal’—it does depend on who you are and where you are. Researchers should not act for personal gain, says the disinterestedness norm. In the course of doing research, while a researcher will obviously ‘care’ about the outcome, they won’t care for one outcome over another. Merton went so far to claim a ‘low fraud rate in science’ which he attributed to this disinterestedness norm. John Ioannidis and others, however, have found this norm to be failing. There are many reasons for this—journals do not publish null results, academic careers are made along laboratory-set trajectories, it is difficult to get truly original results from novel domains published at all. Finally, and perhaps most contested of all, is the organised scepticism norm. Merton thought (hoped?) that scientists and their institutions could step back from their work and openly and critically examine both the results of the scientific process and the methodology that got them there. The idea here is that closeness to the process should be no deterrent to seeing the flaws in either the process or results. Critics would eagerly point out that there is little incentive in contemporary scientific institutions to pick holes in one’s own research nor is there much time or inbuilt framework within one can enact such scepticism. But what does this all mean for the science communicator? Following the idea that science communication needs concepts to reason with, the Mertonian norms stand out as a set of ideas to which science communicators need an orientation. That these norms are contested is so much the better—where will science communicators stand in relation to a scientific community that is well divided? 26 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Asking questions of the Mertonian norms for an ethical science communicator 1. Communism: For whom is science communication? Is science (or some of it?) a public good whose methods and results should be freely communicated? And what should the attitude of science communicators be to research results and methods that are not visible due to IP constraints? 2. Universalism: Whose science is most interesting and important? While twentieth-century science seemed to come from the Global North, might there be other sciences worth communicating? What about other knowledge that might vie for the label of science—might science communicators ﬁnd these knowledges, too? 3. As journalists might say, ‘follow the money’. If disinterestedness is failing as a norm, why? What is hampering free enquiry? Where can free enquiry ﬂourish? 4. How do we communicate scepticism? Later in this volume, we’ll discuss timing as an appropriate element, but, in addition to communicating uncertainty which has long been an element of science communication, we also need to be able to communicate scepticism—when results seem ‘too true to be believed’, or the methods are unevenly understood or relayed. And, in the face of hype over a new development, can science communicators manage a collective ‘meh’?

A second set of norms stems from the concerns with the effects of research on participants, especially human participants. This participant-centred set of norms (as opposed to the scientist-centred Mertonian norms) came out of health and medical research, but has now expanded to be much broader and is commonly applied to all research involving humans. The guiding principles of research involving humans and bioethics more generally are usually presented as the following: respect for persons, also referred to as autonomy; beneficence (this is sometimes broken down into two separate principles: non-maleficence and beneficence)andjustice (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 2014). Autonomy, or respect for persons, makes bioethics a deeply person-centric set of norms (as opposed to many action-centric or outcome-centric norms). There are a number of ways the principle of respect for persons can be spelled out, but let’s take the UK Clinical Ethics Network as an starting point(UKCEN, 2018). This defines respect for persons as ‘respecting 3 THE MULTIPLE ETHICS OF SCIENCE 27 the decision-making capacities of autonomous persons; enabling individuals to make reasoned informed choices’. At the core sits a recognition that it is individuals who will be most directly impacted by the research such as patient in the development of a new drug. The principle of respect for persons demands that the ‘welfare, beliefs, perceptions, customs and cultural heritage, both individual and collective’ be treated with respect and dignity throughout the research process (NHMRC, 2007). Importantly, respect for persons in this context is non-paternalistic. In bioethics, respect means to recognise that individuals are self-determined. Those involved and directly impacted should be given both the scope and the resources to make their own decisions. Beneficence focuses on the outcomes of research and takes the view that research should be first and foremost carried out for the benefit of those directly impacted or affected by the research, whether this means specific individuals or the wider community. The principle of beneficence also acknowledges that benefits rarely come without risks and so requires a weighing exercise. The aim is that the ‘likely benefit of the research must justify any risks of harm or discomfort’ (NHMRC, 2007). The UK Clinical Ethics Network describes the principle of beneficence as considering ‘the balancing of benefits of treatment against the risks and costs; the healthcare professional should act in a way that benefits the patient’ (UKCEN, 2018). Non-maleficence (the ‘do no harm’ principle) is sometimes separated from beneficence (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001). Of course, there are tensions here. As the UK Clinical Ethics Network explains, ‘All treatment involves some harm, even if minimal’ (UKCEN, 2018), and much of research does not specifically provide any clear benefit. Non-maleficence demands that, at the very least, it should not intentionally cause undue harm. Lastly, justice (or fairness) draws attention to distributive issues that can arise from research. All research raises questions of fairness. The resources required for research are scarce (there are not enough resource for everyone to get what they would ideally want), and the risks and benefits of research are not equally distributed (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001). Taking the UK Clinical Ethics Network as out starting point, justice in bioethics is described as ‘distributing benefits, risks and costs fairly; the notion that patients in similar positions should be treated in a similar manner’ (UKCEN, 2018). The principle of justice invites us to think not only of who will be directly impacted, what their wants and interests might be, and what that impact will be, but also to think about who will miss out or 28 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH who might be getting less than they deserve. By looking at web of interactions in research, including the distribution of resources, of harms, and of benefits, the principle of justice brings to the fore systemic issues. Justice asks that the fairness of each practice be taken into consideration. Respect for persons, beneficence and justice are all very lofty and wonderful principles, but what does that mean in practice? How does having such principles help us make decisions about what you or I ought to do in specific cases? Enter principlism. Principlism is an approach to ethics that guides the agent’s thinking rather than shaping or determining their decision. Principles are used as a way of highlighting what core issues need to be considered, assessed and brought to mind. Unlike ethical theories such as consequentialism or deontology, principlism does not provide a mechanical, algorithmic process for calculating which action is right or wrong, or which outcome should be sought. As the Australian National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research states, the principles ‘are not simply a set of rules. Their application should not be mechanical. It always requires, from each individual, deliberation on the values and principles, exercise of judgement, and an appreciation of context’ (NHMRC, 2007). What principlism does is guides the agent towards areas that must absolutely be considered. One way to think of principlism is as a stage for ethical deliberation, with all possible points of relevance already on the stage. What the principles do is act as a spotlight, focusing our attention on where the most important areas of (ethical) action are. Of course, everything on the stage matters. None of this is dismissed by principlism. What is highlighted by the principles is where our attention should focus when thinking about a specific issue. If there were to be an ethical edict in principlism it would be ‘It is right to make a decision about X only if you have thoughtfully considered how each of the principles play out in X or are affected by X’. Ethical behaviour requires, at the very least, that we, as persons making an ethical decision, think about our actions and decisions. Exactly what actions and decisions this leads us to endorse is left open in principlism. For some, this is a good thing; it is putting the emphasis back on the individual to be responsible for their own morality. For others, this is a failing; an ethical system should provide a clear guide or code of what to do, when and how. While both the Mertonian norms and human research ethics are quite widely accepted as standard in science (or at least, in the places where they are seen to apply), ethical and value considerations have also appeared under different, less broadly endorsed guises. These approaches are often quite 3 THE MULTIPLE ETHICS OF SCIENCE 29 domain specific, such as the precautionary principle, which is largely limited to environmental concerns. One move to incorporate social and ethical values in research that has garnered substantial traction is Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) (EU, 2011). RRI is also domain specific, being largely focused on innovation, and more specifically, technological innovations (Blok & Lemmens, 2015). But the core concepts of RRI have slowly seeped to fields beyond the original intention, such as agriculture, and RRI has taken a central role in research governance, at least in Europe. Indeed, RRI had ‘its own cross-cutting theme in Horizon 2020’ the Euro- pean Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (de Saille & Medvecky, 2016). At its core, RRI is premised on the view that if research is going to be carried out with the aim of innovating, if the research being carried out will lead to new goods and services coming into the public space, then this better be done responsibly. Indeed, this seems like a no- brainer; of course research and innovation should be done responsibly. So what does it mean to be responsible for RRI? Responsibility in RRI is about ensuring societal and ethical norms, views, and values are included throughout the research and innovation process, including views and concerns over the environment, the economy, etc. Importantly, RRI is non-paternalistic and inclusive; it’s not enough for researchers and innovators to include what they think societal and ethical values are or what they believe is best for society; RRI requires engagement with a broad range of societal actors to ensure that norms included in the research and innovation really are reflective of society. In fact, RRI is, to a large extent centred on public engagement with science and technology. For RRI to imbed those values, it also requires the research and innovation process to be responsive. If the current research or innovative trajectory is misaligned with social views and societal ethical expectations, then the trajectory should not just be followed without a satisfactory response to the social concerns. While there are varying ways of spelling out exactly what might be expected by RRI, ‘there is a general agreement that responsible forms of innovation should be aligned to social needs, be responsive to changes in ethical, social and environmental impacts as a research programme develops, and include the public as well as traditionally defined stakeholders in two-way consultation’ (de Saille, 2015). What makes RRI particularly pertinent for science communication is its emphasis on public engagement as the ethical thing to do. Research that does not engage is deemed irresponsible. 30 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Looking at the science, research and innovation side of things, no neat picture of what counts as ethical norms of science emerges, but what does emerge is a sense of the fundamental recognition that social and ethical aspect are integral to science. While much of the focus is on the practice of research and its outcomes and effects (the outcomes of innovations or the effects of research human participants), what counts as ethical practice is much more procedural. What makes a practice ethical (or unethical) is not so much the effects or outcomes of the ensuing actions; it’s fundamentally about the processes that are followed throughout the actions. And integral to this process is communication and engagement, from Communalism in the Mertonian norms to informed consent in research ethics to engagement in RRI. This is a thought worth holding on to as we work our way through the ethical landscape of science communication.

Bibliography

Abbott, R., Lack, J., & Perkins, D. (2018). Managing disputes in the life sciences. Nature Biotechnology, 36, 697. https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.4197. Anderson, M. S., Ronning, E. A., Vries, R. D., & Martinson, B. C. (2010). Extend- ing the Mertonian norms: Scientists’ subscription to norms of research. The Journal of Higher Education, 81(3), 366–393. Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics.New York: Oxford University Press. Blok, V., & Lemmens, P. (2015). The emerging concept of responsible innovation: Three reasons why it is questionable and calls for a radical transformation of the concept of innovation. In B.-J. Koops, I. Oosterlaken, H. Romijn, T. Swier- stra, & J. van den Hoven (Eds.), Responsible innovation 2 (pp. 19–35). Cham: Springer. de Saille, S. (2015). Innovating innovation policy: The emergence of ‘responsible research and innovation’. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2(2), 152–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2015.1045280. de Saille, S., & Medvecky, F. (2016). Innovation for a steady state: A case for responsible stagnation. Economy and Society, 45(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10. 1080/03085147.2016.1143727. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. (2014). The Belmont Report: Eth- ical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. The Journal of the American College of Dentists, 81(3), 4. Horizon 2020. (2011). The framework programme for research and innovation. Merton, R. K. (1979). The normative structure of science. In The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations (pp. 267–278). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 3 THE MULTIPLE ETHICS OF SCIENCE 31

NHMRC. (2007). National statement on ethical conduct in human research. National Health and Medical Research Council. UKCEN, C. E. N. (2018). Ethical frameworks: The four principles.Fromhttp:// www.ukcen.net/ethical_issues/ethical_frameworks/the_four_principles_of_ biomedical_ethics. CHAPTER 4

(Science) Communication as Ethics

Abstract Science communication is as much about communication as it is about science (if not more). In this chapter, we turn to the communication side of the ﬁeld and presents existing ethical codes and principles from communication-related ﬁelds closely linked to various forms of science communication. Beginning with a case study of a science journalism to set the scene, the chapter then presents an overview of journalism ethics, public relations ethics and ethical principles from communication associations and discussed what these can bring to our understanding of ethics relevant to science communication. The chapter closes with a discussion on the role of rhetoric in science communication.

Keywords Ethics of communication · PR ethics · Journalism ethics

Let’s pick up the view of communication and engagement as essential to an ethical process. Communication is often presented as the moral act. To do science properly (thinking of Mertonian norms) means to communicate with others in the academic and scientiﬁc community through published articles and conference presentations; to do research on innovation responsibly (thinking of RRI) means to open communication channels between researchers and their broader social community; to do research with humans participants ethically means to communicate with participants such that they are sufﬁciently informed so as to make a meaningful

© The Author(s) 2019 33 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_4 34 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH decision about participation. Fundamentally, the right thing to do is to communicate. And this highlights a substantial point of difference between science and communication. While science treats morality as an external constrain, communication embraces morality as its raison d’être. Science aims to be as value-free as possible; communication is what gives value. On the other hand, not all (science) communication is viewed as ethical. In October 2013, Catalyst, the leading science journalism/science programme on Australian television, ran a two-part series on statins titled Heart of the Matter. Statins are a type of drugs that are used to lower cholesterol and are used to help prevent heart attacks and stroke. The two Catalyst episodes ‘questioned the link between high cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease, and suggested that the benefits of statins had been overstated and the harms downplayed’ (Schaffer, Buckley, Dob- bins, Banks, & Pearson, 2015). The series was watched by an estimated 1.5 million viewers. The airing of the series has been directly linked to a decrease in dispensings of statins, with estimates that up to 55,000 patients may have stopped taking statins as result (Carter, 2013). While there were indeed some concerns over the overprescription of statins and their potential harms (at least, there was when the series was aired. A 2016 review has since found the reverse: their harms exaggerated and their benefits underestimated [Collins et al., 2016]), the view presented by Catalyst was not the mainstream view of the medical community. Indeed, the series has since been removed from the network’s website for breaching standards on impartiality and for omission of important information. But in some way, the series was presenting one side of a public debate, showing the uncertainty inherent in science, and such like. What made this case so problematic was that as a science show, as the leading science show in the country, aired on the national broadcaster (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), the series had an inherently authoritative tone, and the effects of that tone very literally put people’s life at risk. So yes, communication is usually seen as the right thing to do, but it needs to be the right sort of communication, in the right context, with the right sort of attributes. So where does this leave acts of science communication? In the previous chapter, we considered various ethical constraints on science (or related spaces) and noted that communication played a central role in each of these. Perhaps, then, more can be gleaned by focusing on the communication side of science communication than on the science side. There are a number of communication or related spaces that have thought 4 (SCIENCE) COMMUNICATION AS ETHICS 35 deeply about what ethics means for them and have developed relevant codes of ethics, notably journalism ethics, communication ethics, and ethics of public relations. These may offer insights for science communication. The catalyst case discussed above-raised concerns and was reproached for failing the ABC’s journalistic standards. Journalism has well-established (if not necessarily well followed) normative and ethical standards about what ‘good journalism’ is, and what is permissible for journalists. While there are a number of such codes, these various codes largely share similar core ideas. Among the most important principles are those relating to unbiased factual reporting (truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness), the harm limitation principle, and principles of public accountability. Journalism has, as an ethical grounding, a commitment to informing and enlightening the public so as to foster better social justice and a stronger democracy (SOP Journalists, 2014). Indeed, the freedom of the press is classically viewed as a core requirement for a functioning democracy. In order to do this, the press must be accurate, unbiased and factual in its report. Journalism’s moral grounding is also, therefore, linked to public accountability since, according to the Society of Professional Journalists, ‘The highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public’. Still, there is a recognition with journalistic codes of ethics that some reporting may lead to grave harm (classic examples include identi- fying sources, or disclosing the names of victims of sex crimes, especially juveniles), and the risks of such harms need to be balanced against the possible public benefit from the reporting. Of course, not all science communication is journalistic. Much of it, in fact, is closer to public relations than journalism. Much like journalism, while there are a number of PR ethical codes, these share some core principles. Two central principles are a commitment to factual accuracy and a commitment to loyalty. Public relations is an interesting case ethically as it is often seen as inherently unethical, self-serving and a largely unpleasant cousin of marketing (Bowen, 2007). While there are practices in PR that are exactly that, much or PR is significantly more ‘public focused’ and, in that sense, closer to journalism. Indeed, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has as a principle the ‘highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public’ (Public Relations Society of Amer- ica, n.d.). Similarly, the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) has a commitment to refraining from ‘Subordinating the truth to other requirements’ and ‘Circulating information which is not based on established and ascertainable facts’ (Watson, 2014). Where journalism and PR 36 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH really come apart is in journalism’s commitment to balance and to primarily serving the public, while PR has a commitment to advocacy for and loyalty to those the PR professional represent. However, this loyalty is not absolute and is tempered by a balancing commitment to the public. The PRSA demands of its members that they ‘adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public’, and to be ‘faithful to those we represent, while honouring our obligation to serve the public interest’, while the IPRA requires its members ‘To communicate to avoid misunderstanding, and to show loyalty and integrity in all circumstances so as to keep the confidence of the clients or employer, past or present, and all of the publics that are affected by the practitioner’s actions’. In many ways, much of science communication activities are much more like PR than they are journalism. National strategies that aim to bolster the standing of STEM in the public mind aim to be factual and accurate, while clearly advocating STEM, and indeed, communication professionals in research institutes often do (and arguably should) demonstrate a loyalty to their institution’s cause. Both PR and journalism are part of science communication, but there is more to science communication than these, as indeed there is more to communication simpliciter. Much of science communication, at least as the academic strands encourages, is motivated by engagement, by listening, by two-ways communication and by co-creation. Science communication includes and invites all forms of communication, and within communication studies more broadly, ethics have also been discussed, albeit in a less consistent and coherent manner. Indeed, comparing the Inter- national Communication Association (ICA)’s Code of Ethics (draft from March 2019) with the Credo for Ethical Communication from the United States’ National Communication Association (NCA) makes this explicit. The former is largely about ethical scholarship (e.g. Scholarly and scientific integrity; Plagiarism; Fair use of copyrighted material) (International Communication Association, 2019) while the latter is about ethical communication beyond the scholarly realm (e.g. truthfulness, accuracy, honesty; understanding and respect for other communicators; promoting ‘access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfil human potential and contribute to the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and society’ (NCA, 2017). And this should not surprise us; communication is rich and challenging for ethics, in part because it has both a ‘conceptual and practical orientation’ (Cheney, May, & Munshi, 4 (SCIENCE) COMMUNICATION AS ETHICS 37

2011). One code responds to the need of those working on the more practical aspects while the other is predominantly targeted at those working in the conceptual arena. What these various codes also highlight is that there is no overarching code or common ground. This lack of common ground leaves science communication, where the interplay between application and theoretical considerations is also well-rehearsed, no more advanced about what makes for ethical science communication.

The Duty to Communicate: Where from and Who For?

Maybe it’s time to take a step back and ask: Do we have a duty or responsibility to communicate science? Certainly, the Mertonian norms, RRI and research ethics all suggest we ought to communicate. But where does this duty come from? And whose duty it is? The Mertonian norms place the duty to communicate at the feet of the scientists themselves. By contrast, RRI places the duty to communicate with the research project, which may be a research organisation, an institution, or an individual. RRI, along with many other science communication processes, has its philosophical roots in the political move to democratise science. The call to make science more open, more democratic, carries with it a range of views and ideals, and in some way, the distinction between who should communicate science, and why they should communicate it is a reflection of a long-standing duality with science communication: the popularising move of the Public Understanding of Science ethos, and the democratic move of the Pub- lic Engagement with Science ethos (Dahlstrom, 2014). This highlights the way the duty to communicate, and who is responsible for fulfilling that duty, is engaged in a complex dance over the rationale we have for communicating. The implications over who has a duty to communicate science, and what does such a duty entail has serious implications for the way we think of the various actors involved in science communication… and their resourc- ing. Science communication, like any other activity, takes resources. Some of these resources are material or financial, but others are more abstract, such know-how. No matter who does the communicating, they will need resources, support and experience. Here is what we can say about Science communication. It is, in all its guises, a communicative practice that is socially engaged, embedded, personal, interested. It is part journalism, part PR. And it is also part science, 38 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH or at least, science communication is attached to some of the ethos of science, from its association to accuracy and its aspiration for universalism and disinterestedness. The fact that science communication draws on these various fields is certainly enriching, but it is also a source of tension. One of the reoc- curring debates in science communication is about the purpose of science communication; should it be about comprehension, engagement or persuasion, which we’ll discuss this in more depth in Chapter 7 (Dahlstrom &Ho,2012)? But perhaps the casting of this tension is somewhat naïve. Perhaps this stems from science communication failure to grasp rhetoric in the classic meaning of the term—rhetoric as the study of language as a means of communication and persuasion—where persuasion is everywhere. The field of science communication (and arguable journalism also) have an underlying assumption that rhetoric/persuasion as bad, arguing for something is bad, convincing others is bad. Giving information, on the other hand, is good, although exactly how one gives information without some level of persuasion is left unexplained (seemingly when we’re giving information, we are, at the very least, trying to persuade that the information we’re giving is true and accurate). While classical rhetoric cannot provide us with the moral compass we seek, it may provide insights for an ethics of science communication and we can draw on it, alongside the fields of journalism, PR and communication to make sense of what an ethics for science communication might look like. But we need to do more than that. We need to draw on the practice of science communication, on its failings and challenges, and springboard from there to paint a more unique picture of ethics for science communication. A picture about who should be communicating, how and why. We’ll start by calling on the concept of Kairos from classical rhetoric.

Bibliography

Bowen, S. A. (2007). Ethics and public relations. Gainesville, FL: Institute for Public Relations. Carter, L. (2013). Catalyst fallout: Heart Foundation warns patients stopping anti-cholesterol drugs, statins. ABC News. Retrieved from https://www.abc. net.au/news/2013-12-11/heart-foundation-warns-patients-changing-meds- over-catalyst/5148802. Cheney, G., May, S., & Munshi, D. (2011). The handbook of communication ethics. New York: Routledge. 4 (SCIENCE) COMMUNICATION AS ETHICS 39

Collins, R., Reith, C., Emberson, J., Armitage, J., Baigent, C., Blackwell, L., … Peto, R. (2016). Interpretation of the evidence for the efﬁcacy and safety of statin therapy. The Lancet, 388(10059), 2532–2561. https://doi.org/10. 1016/s0140-6736(16)31357-5. Dahlstrom, M. F. (2014). Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13614–13620. Dahlstrom, M. F., & Ho, S. S. (2012). Ethical considerations of using narrative to communicate science. Science Communication, 34(5), 592–617. https://doi. org/10.1177/1075547012454597. International Communication Association. (2019). Code of ethics.From ICA https://www.icahdq.org/page/EthicsTaskForce?&hhsearchterms=% 22ethics+and+code%22. NCA. (2017). Credo for ethical communication. National Communication Associ- ation. Public Relations Society of America. (n.d.). Code of ethics.FromPRSAhttps:// www.prsa.org/ethics/code-of-ethics/. Schaffer, A. L., Buckley, N. A., Dobbins, T. A., Banks, E., & Pearson, S.-A. (2015). The crux of the matter: Did the ABC’s Catalyst program change statin use in Australia? Medical Journal of Australia, 202(11), 591–594. https://doi.org/ 10.5694/mja15.00103. SOP Journalists. (2014). Society of Professional Journalists: Code of ethics. Society of Professional Journalists. Watson, T. (2014). IPRA Code of Athens—The ﬁrst international code of public relations ethics: Its development and implementation since 1965. Public Rela- tions Review, 40(4), 707–714. CHAPTER 5

Kairos

Abstract Science communication is as much about the when as it is about the hows and whys. This chapter draws on the classical rhetoric notion of Kairos to help us think through some major ethical issues in science communication. Beginning with science communication’s uneasy relationship with persuasion, this chapter then considers the interaction of a fast-paced media landscape on the timing of science communication. Timing of communication matters to science communication as the when of communication is inextricably linked to both hype and urgency. The chapter closes with a discussion on the (historical) time in which the communication takes place, and how this relates to the (historical) time of our audience, because to be a good science communicator, the when really does matters.

Keywords Kairos · Persuasion · Science hype

Timing is all.

As intimated in the introduction to this volume, some ideas in ethics and communication are very old and that does not make them less good. How- ever, an understanding of these ideas may not have yet reached full articulation in newer contexts of communication—like science communication. Kairos, the idea that there is a ‘right way and a right time to say the right

© The Author(s) 2019 41 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_5 42 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH thing’ is just such a notion. Originally theorised by Aristotle and Isocrates, Kairos is a classic Greek concept that avoids easy translation into modern languages—a ‘sense of timing’ gets close but the Greek concept had an ethical tinge to it (Kinneavy & Eskin, 2000). Kairos implies that there is a ‘right’ way and when to communicate and thus, there must be a wrong way and when. Scholar of rhetoric, Sheri Helsley, unpacks the concept of Kairos as ‘Right timing and proper measure—directly related to the rhetorical importance of time, place, speaker, and audience, the proper and knowledgeable analysis of these factors, and the faculty of using the proper means in a particular context to arrive at belief’ (Helsley, 1996). And so, this idea of a right time, place, speaker and audience is essential to an ethical moment of communication where people form beliefs, what we might more familiarly call persuasion. The ethical ‘tinge’ to the concept comes from the ‘rightness’ of both what is communicated and the timing of that communication. In the approach to ethics in this book, we place a lot of emphasis on values, including which values are prioritised in science communication and whose values matter most. What is ‘right’, then, in terms of Kairos, is when the values of science, science communicators and audiences align. While this alignment might need to also be in accord with meta-ethical principles (like truth or public good or social justice) to be seen to be truly ethical, this notion of Kairos is useful for understanding, and teaching, an ethical approach to science communication, especially if we conceive of science communication as a persuasive activity.1 For science communication, persuasion is a difﬁcult topic. Many of the models for science communication advocate ‘behaviour change’ and therefore must have baked into them some model of persuasion. Consider the popularity of the so-called nudge theory where situations are crafted to make people do the ‘right thing’ without much reﬂection (Thaler & Sun- stein, 2009). The popularity of this idea in government and elsewhere tends to ignore the persuasive nature of the ‘nudge’ and focus on the public good that results from it instead. An easy example of this is giving small refunds for bottle recycling. We accept the small coins for recycling bottles and don’t have to engage in much soul-searching about our consumption habits or the nature of the bottles themselves; the coin provided the suasory resource ‘to do the right thing’. Nudge approaches are attractive precisely

1Silva Rhetoricae, http://rhetoric.byu.edu is an online resource which provides a good introduction to rhetorical terminology, some very useful to the science communicator. Kairos and its related terms in classical rhetoric are linked, with examples. 5 KAIROS 43 because they don’t unpack either the persuasive or ethical nature of how they work. Science communication, writ large, seems to suffer from the same issue as nudge approaches; it claims for itself impact and the public good but is unclear about the persuasive or ethical nature of how this public good is achieved. At its most unreflective, science communication seeks to present ‘just the facts’ (as if this is possible) and disavow any future or epideictic persuasive function for communication. Science communicators might sometimes readily acknowledge that persuasion and even advocacy are at least part of their role (advocacy for science itself, advocacy for funding, advocacy for others to join in the scientific project). And yet, the suasory power of science communication itself is not well understood. Sometimes drawing on science as authority, as a power discourse, science communicators adopt the voice from nowhere as a way to make their appeal to evidence timeless. At other moments, science communicators attempt to create urgency—think now, act now. This chapter is how we can start to think ethically about time and timing in science communication and how the very notion of Kairos asks science communicators to reflect on their values, the values at play in the moment, persuasive purposes, and methods and strategies of communication in new ways.

Kairos Meets Twenty-First-Century Time

Much has been written about the speeding up of the ‘news cycle’—that from 1980 (the start of CNN), the news cycle moved from a more leisurely pace of giving the news, getting reaction to the news and starting afresh over a matter of days to a faster evolution over 24 hours. The advent of social media further sped things up such that some micro-blogging platforms can both create and respond to the news in mere minutes. Media analysts and critics have pointed out that this speed has also entailed volume—more content is needed to make more news and more reaction which can drive more attention, more advertisement and more influence. How does science communication ‘fit’ with this high-speed communication environment? On the one hand, there is more mediated space for science. Blogs, Twitter and Instagram provide platforms for science that didn’t exist 10 years ago and researchers have taken advantage of these new spaces (Brumfiel, 2009). On the other hand, more is not necessarily better and the glut of scientific communication of varying quality can actually stymie effective communication. Who hasn’t read two similar but 44 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH slightly different descriptions of a new technology or discovery? And then, what is our obligation to search out a clarification in a sea of other slightly different descriptions? So, in the mediated landscape of more and faster science communication, a new set of obligations are entailed on both science communicators and their audiences if the overarching value is one of dissemination of accurate and meaningful information. Here, as we are more interested in the obligations for science communicators, we will discuss a few practical obligations that fall on science communicators and how attempting to meet these obligations may lead to tension and ethical conflict.

Obligation 1: Curation in Science Communication Given the kairotic (not to mention chaotic) context of more and faster science communication, science communicators should consider their obligation to effective curation for audiences. While ‘tailoring your message to your audience’ is science communication 101, the work of curating material, making sense of the variety of interpretations possible, placing your science communication activities in relation to others (that might have occurred prior, been better or offered competing interpretations), is work that can place science communicators in conflict with funders, with scientists and with other science communicators (a point we discuss in more depth in Chapter 8). But, contrast the idea of curation against the idea of encyclopaedic collection of ideas or the single-minded communication of only one message relentlessly. While both of these are extreme formulations, they also allude to regular practices of science communication. Fact sheets are used to encyclopaedi- cally list things audiences should know about a science or technology issue: social media platforms like twitter are used by organisations, as well as individuals, to polish their brand by repeating iterations of one specific message. Both of these tendencies have a significant feature that violates our principle of Kairos—they pretty much ignore audience needs in communication. So while science communicators might feel they are communicating the right stuff at the right time, audiences may feel quite differently, indicating poor alignment of values in science communication. 5 KAIROS 45

Being Transparent About ‘the When’ of Science Communication

In the opening pages, we mentioned the controversy, at least the communication aspects of it, of the editing of human embryos with CRISPR technology. There is a strong aspect of Kairos gone wrong in this story and it continues to unfold. Who knew what, when, and said nothing is as much of a problem for the ethics of science as the use of the technology itself. After all, transparency is, at least in some sense, about communication. There is also the discomfort of ill-timed press releases and potentially unethical researchers publishing articles about ethics that are revealed within days of ethical breaches. Again, in the CRISPR case, He Jiankui published an article discussing the ethics of working with CRISPR (Jiankui, Ferrell, Yuanlin, Jinzhou, & Yangran, 2018) technology in the days before his work was made public. This article has since been retracted by The CRISPR Journal. We have concepts of green-washing (making proposals seem environmentally sound) and whitewashing (where we pretend to investigate something but do it perfunctorily so we can quickly return to the status quo). But what of making the practice of science seem transparent, even ethical, when it is not clear that it is? Is science communication at risk of ‘clearwashing’? By merely raising ethical issues and problems, are scientists and science communicators ‘off the hook’ of any ethical responsibility? There is a clear danger that science communication is implicated in ‘clearwashing’ if we accept that mention of ethical breach sufﬁces without going further with recommendations or remedies for the ethical breach. That’s not to say that guidelines about communicating ethics in science are simple and easily applied. But, it does suggest that in an era of speed, science communicators may ﬁnd themselves with obligations to unpick the implications of the timing of announcements, critical responses, publications and public concern.

Obligation 2: Addressing the When While science controversies are not new, and ethical breaches in the practice of science have been increasingly attended to by both the scientiﬁc community and critics from outside science, science communicators need to attend to communication norms in science as well as the science itself. The CRISPR example of ‘science by press release’ recalls earlier breaches in the infamous ‘Cold Fusion’ case where Pons and Fleishman announced cold fusion to 46 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

the world without peer review at a hastily called news conference. We’ve been there before and ‘science by press release’ is uniquely decried as a bad example of how to communicate science. The history of science is a story of many things, but one important part of the overall story is the emergence of communication norms within science. The structure of the scientiﬁc paper, the reliance on a certain language of description and the position of ‘virtual witness’ in the discussion of scientiﬁc research—any other scientist should be able to reproduce the research—these are all norms of science communication. When they are violated, science communicators should suspect an issue, point to it and point to a possible remedy for the breach. This entails that science communicators must know the norms and values of science as well as their own norms and values. Again, this obligation is not small, but if the goal is the communication of the right thing at the right time, science communicators need to know the norms of the right time and the right communication.

Kairos Meets Science Policy and Stakeholder Urgency

The speedup of mediated science, as suggested above, entails an obligation for curation. This obligation will suit well in a range of contexts. However, let us also consider when the context makes yet further demands for speed and attention in relation to science. The first context is that of the policy- maker. Synthetic biology, biosecurity, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and machine learning—the list could cover some pages—offer contexts where policy and science meet and the science communicator might find themselves on the back foot. The policy-maker quite rightly asks, ‘what is being developed that I need to be ready to make policy for in the next 10 years’. The scientist, quite rightly, hears ‘what are the great things your science is going produce in the next 10 years’. Obviously, the conversation does not necessarily go well from here for a variety of reasons. First, scientists are not necessarily the best people to know which science is going to have a policy front—and what that policy front might be well into the future. These are different skill sets and rarely overlap. Second, policy- makers would like this answer yesterday. Scientists would prefer to give a more circumspect answer after a lengthy literature review. Finally, an important problem here is that the policy cycle (measured in election cycles) is 5 KAIROS 47 not conveniently matched to timelines for scientific discovery (estimated on average at 6 years) or technological development (can be from 6 to 80 years depending on whether you are discussing a crop intervention, drug development or spin-offs from space exploration). A quick aside—one could observe that granting cycles, themselves an attempt to drive discovery and innovation, have shrunk in the Global North over the past 30 years to a 3–5 year cycle of funding; this is roughly equivalent to many election cycles in the same regions. The key point is that there is a serious timing mismatch between the time of policy-makers and that of scientists. Enter the science communicator. There are serious dangers in the context of science policy-making for the science communicator. Over- promising, imaginations run wild, undue pessimism, even a betting attitude, can all undo the unsuspecting science communicator as they try to be ‘relevant’ to the policy-maker who is cognizant of where they are in both policy and political cycles. And yet, while commenting that science has one timeline and policy-making another is commonplace enough, more critical reflection on how this should effect science communication has been woe- fully lacking. A key role for science communicators may not be in explaining science to policy-makers or policy-making to scientists but it may be exam- ining and making clear timelines for all parties, thus aligning their sense of time. Stakeholders, audiences, publics, counter-publics, the disinterested, the dismissive, however we theoretically want to figure the people who are the interlocutors for science communication, all have differing urgencies for what science communicators have to communicate. One special context that has been under-worked in science communication is the ‘need to know’ context. For any parent who has scoured the Internet at 2 a.m. to find out how much medication to give a feverish child, urgency is not a mys- terious concept. Urgency is also felt by publics, stakeholders and counterpublics who hope that some information, some interpretation, some set of iterative discussions or dialogues with scientists or science communicators will give them what they need to make a decision, to act, to accuse, to demand change. This urgency would compel more than fact sheets, more than spokesperson responses, but a communication style that matches the urgency felt by people who genuinely need information. In some areas of public communication, this is labelled ‘crisis communication’ and there are checklists for such eventualities. These are very useful to guide communication, but the real issue is understanding the value of time in the eyes of your interlocutor. While policy-makers’ sense of urgency is driven by 48 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH policy and political cycles, science communicators need to understand the urgency of other publics and what drives feelings of complacency, panic, frustration and the need for acknowledgement.

Obligation 3: Understand and Value the Nature of Urgency for Science Communication The first rule of communication is ‘know your audience’. In the spirit of Kairos, the second rule of communication might be ‘know your audience’s sense of urgency’. A codicil might also be ‘how do the relevant actors understand and value urgency in this context?’ Science communication’s own history, careering among ‘crisis management’, ‘creating urgency’ and a more relaxed crafting of key messages, is worthy of reflection and study. There are questions to answer for science communicators—not least, whose urgency is most important? Again, this is a question of values and it is worth considering these up front. Is urgency defined by the science communication funder in crisis? The audience in crisis? When, if ever, does turning away from an urgent request for information match the values of all actors in science communication? Are there issues, such as climate change, where urgency is profoundly felt, and yet, science communication does not reflect this urgency? Our sensitivity to Kairos needs to be cultivated in science communication. Once values are articulated, the sense of urgency of all parties identified, effective communication can begin.

TheTimeWeFindOurselvesIn

Science communication exists in the first quarter of the twenty-first century in a moment where it is possible to celebrate science and technology and to make arguments for its further advance, and simultaneously, doubt that much good can come from it all. There are groups of people around the world, some in the Global South, but not exclusively, who have been left out of the narrative of science’s march of progress. However, science in the Global South takes unique forms of its own and it’s important to think about the responsibility of science communicators to invent and pursue new narratives of this kind of science. Shabaz Kahn, Director of Science for the Pacific region of UNESCO, has made the point powerfully that ‘science is a human right’ and, by extension, science communication makes science potentially available to those who have been left out of the narrative of 5 KAIROS 49 science. Science communication, on his view, then, is an ethical enterprise specific to our moment. It is also not difficult to find people who have been victims of science— indigenous communities, for example, whose blood or tissues were taken without consent and whose genetic information resides with others and not themselves; critics have called this a ‘vampire project’ (Kahn, 1994). It is not difficult to find communities or even entire nations whose populations alternate between hope and scepticism that science and technology will do something to change the climate, change the water supply, change the opportunities available for both young and old job-seekers. This means that the contexts for science communication are so diverse that saying the right thing at the right moment necessarily entails grappling with the ethics of the situation. To pick up the example of indigenous communities, the National Cen- tre for Indigenous Genomics in Australia found themselves in possession of blood samples taken without consent from indigenous people across Australia. Researchers there, in collaboration with colleagues across disciplines, and most importantly, in collaboration with indigenous communities, designed a consultation practice to begin to determine the future of the samples—this necessitated complex science communication to an understandably deeply sceptical audience. The result is a co-designed piece of science communication that provides a hybrid story of the use of genetic material—a story communicated by indigenous Australians and added to by contemporary science (National Centre for Indigenous Genomics, n.d.). This is a rare example of time spent together yielding a shared future, and it continues to take legal and regulatory work to make such a future possible (Dodson, 2000). It is completely understandable why indigenous people would be sceptical of science and science communicators after several hundred years of their ancient knowledge and contributions being ignored and destroyed. This ‘delayed’ recognition of indigenous knowledge and how it sits with scientific knowledge creates a context in which indigenous scepticism is justified (and here we hopefully assume that recognition of indigenous knowledge around the world is becoming the norm). Here, we must appeal to deep time; a culture whose knowledge extends back 60,000 years rightfully questions a knowledge of genetics barely 50 years old. This is a special context for science communicators—and the urgency for science communicators to engage with leaders and communicators from indigenous groups around the world is pressing. 50 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Cultural memory is a powerful thing. For example,

Racial disparities in adult ﬂu vaccination rates persist with African Americans falling below Whites in vaccine acceptance. Although the literature has exam- ined traditional variables including barriers, access, attitudes, among others, there has been virtually no examination of the extent to which racial factors including racial consciousness, fairness, and discrimination may affect vaccine attitudes and behaviors. (Quinn et al., 2017)

At least in the case of vaccination, someone is asking the question. The sources of possible scepticism about science and science communication from African-Americans are not difﬁcult to ﬁnd. Rebecca Skloot’s account of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose ovarian cancer caused her own death, but advantaged the researchers who harvested her cells, without consent, to use in research (and patents) is a harrowing tale. Tuskegee, a town synonymous with suffering, whose story began this book, is another example where African-Americans were deeply impacted by unethical science. One can only wonder at who was told what, when, in cases like these. In this context, when science communicators speak of ‘targeted messages’ to ‘disengaged audiences’, they deeply misunderstand our time in history and kairotic communication becomes yet more elusive.

Obligation 4: Understand the History of Your Interlocutor; Hear Their Plans for Their Future Creating images of the future can sometimes be associated with hype or its opposite, dystopia. But, let’s co-opt this idea to refer to a broader activity of the constitutive imagination when science communicators approach people they don’t know much about (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015). The history, concerns and future plans of people are essential to kairotic communication. It takes time to know them, to work towards understanding and yet more time to work together towards a new context where science communication becomes possible.

Kairos and Science Communication: A Curriculum

While the format, the media and the role of the communicator have been the source of endless commentary in science communication, timeliness 5 KAIROS 51 and the fit of the message to the moment have not received a lot of attention. If, as above, it is more central to the ethics of science communication than we have yet thought, how do we begin reconsidering the ethics of Kairos in science communication and how would we develop it as part of an ethical practice of science communication? The obligations presented to science communicators organise our thoughts about a curriculum for developing a kairotic ability in science communicators. While the tendency in most communication-oriented practices is to head directly for strategies, tactics and platforms, there is a need to step back (maybe take a bit more of our own time for reflection). Developing the curatorial approach to science communication is an exercise in understanding context in a deep way and asking questions that may entail some research—who has communicated about this science or technology already? How would I know? What impact has this had? What are the competing messages? How are audiences oriented towards messages over time? To be able to ‘address the when of science communication’, science communicators need an understanding of the norms and values of science as well as audiences. To truly understand this takes effort and study of the emergence of communication in science in a variety of contexts—why did Sir Peter Medawar ask if the scientific paper was a fraud? What language practices emerged to allow reproducibility in science? Why are they under threat right now? The answers to such questions will help to orient the science communicator to their discipline and how their discipline has evolved over time. The science communicator needs to be partly a sociologist of time. What factors feed into the urgency of communication? What methods might help to find this out? Empirical methods for the science communicator to discern urgency are a crucial part of the curriculum; these are methods of ethnography, interview, survey, deliberation and iteration. Finally, there are timelines other than those of contemporary science or the science communicator. Such timelines deserve respect and understanding. Listening can be more valuable than producing a ‘targeted message’. In a curriculum for the kairotic communicator, teaching listening, the skills of the historian and the techniques of the negotiator are central and prior to the skills of crafting a message. 52 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Obligation 5: Become the Kairotic Science Communicator Doubtless, there are many more ways in which the notion of Kairos can be generative for thinking about the ethics of science communication—how much time should a science communicator give to listening, for example? Such reﬂection on practice will help to articulate values and move towards aligning values in effective science communication. This is not a tick box for when to do science communication to be ethical. We doubt such a tick box would be that useful. Instead, Kairos is a generative term; work with it and ethical science communication begins to be visible, its contours clearer, its challenges more distinct.

Bibliography

Brumfiel, G. (2009). Science journalism: Supplanting the old media? Nature News, 458(7236), 274–277. Dodson, M. (2000). Human genetics: Control of research and sharing of benefits. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1(2), 56–64. Available: ISSN: 0729-4352 (cited 11 October 2019). Helsley, S. L. (1996). Kairos. In Encyclopedia of rhetoric and composition: Commu- nication from ancient times to the information age (pp. 1371–1972). New York: Routledge. Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S.-H. (2015). Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imag- inaries and the fabrication of power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jiankui, H., Ferrell, R., Yuanlin, C., Jinzhou, Q., & Yangran, C. (2018). Draft ethical principles for therapeutic assisted reproductive technologies. The CRISPR Journal, 1(6). https://doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2018.0051. Kahn, P. (1994). Genetic diversity project tries again. Science, 266(5186), 720–722. Kinneavy, J. L., & Eskin, C. R. (2000). Kairos in Aristotle’s rhetoric. Written Com- munication, 17 (3), 432–444. National Centre for Indigenous Genomics. (n.d.). About.Fromhttps://ncig.anu. edu.au/about. Quinn, S. C., Jamison, A., Freimuth, V. S., An, J., Hancock, G. R., & Musa, D. (2017). Exploring racial influences on flu vaccine attitudes and behavior: Results of a national survey of White and African American adults. Vaccine, 35(8), 1167–1174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.12.046. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New York: Penguin. CHAPTER 6

Knowing and Ignoring: The Utility of Information

Abstract As explained in the opening of this book, science communication is often premised on the idea that knowledge and knowing are inherently good. But knowledge is a messy ﬁeld. This chapter begins by distinguish- ing between knowledge, knowing, information and informing. Making the point that information is the currency of science communication, the chapter then considers what makes the information communicated valuable and worthwhile to the audience. Speciﬁcally, the relevance of the information to the audience and its usability (broadly understood) are considered. The chapter then offers a mirror discussion on the place (and value) of ignoring and ignorance in science communication.

Keywords Value of knowledge · Value of ignorance · Relevance of knowledge

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian – ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey (2003)

Remember Jennifer? Jennifer’s case brings into question the idea that knowledge is inherently valuable; that more knowledge is always better than less knowledge. For some, Jennifer’s case might even suggest that, in some cases, we ought to actively pursue ignorance; to work at ignoring. But what needs to be thought through here is the context. When is knowledge the ‘right’ aim? Before launching into this discussion, anchoring down what is meant by knowledge and information is crucial. Putting aside the lengthy debates in philosophy about the nature of knowledge (Audi, 2010), what is more relevant here is the role of information and how information relates to the act of knowing. Roughly, data are bits of raw facts, information is data organised so as to increase its usefulness, and knowledge is the subjective experience (of an individual or a collective) of evaluating and incorporating new information and experiences into a meaningful mental frame (Ackoff, 1989; Boisot & Canals, 2004; Wallace, 2007). For example, the numbers counted by each group in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count form data. Once the data are aggregated and presented in a more useful form, say a table or chart, it becomes information. And it becomes knowledge for an individual once that individual has taken that information in and incorporated it as part of their mental structure (and here philosophical discussions on epistemology begin). It becomes knowledge for a collective, such as an organisation or a state, once that collective has incorporated the information in its knowledge structure (and here discussions on institutional knowledge and memory begin). Three points are important to note. Firstly, the topics that are of particular interest here are information stemming from or related to the techno- scientiﬁc world. Exactly what that is a little messy, but we can safely include some topics (the elements on the periodic table; public views on the ethics of GMO; etc.), and some topics are clearly unrelated (information about what I had for breakfast, for instance). Secondly, science communication not only communicates data and information, but also often creates and generates new data, as much science communication happens as an embedded part of research projects. The mess of what and who counts as data in engagement activities does raise some interesting questions around consent, though much of this has been well rehearsed in research ethics, most notably around action research (Coghlan & Shani, 2005; Locke, Alcorn, & O’Neill, 2013). Thirdly, science communicators can only share and communicate data and information, but can never lead someone to know something. Knowing is an individual process, much like drinking for the horse 6 KNOWING AND IGNORING: THE UTILITY OF INFORMATION 55 led to water. Communication might occur with the aspiration of creating/generating knowledge, but only the facts and the information that form the basis of knowledge can be shared. So back to the start of this chapter; rather than questioning the claim that ‘more knowledge is always better than less knowledge’, what is of concern for science communication is whether more information is always better than less information, and the extent to which the pursuit of knowing should be encouraged, given a set of information. Obviously, some techno- scientiﬁc information is worth knowing and should be encouraged (such as being informed about risk management in case of natural disasters, or knowing about the health outcomes of smoking). And while these aren’t especially interesting, they have something worth noting: they are all very relevant to the individual’s life.

Relevance

The value of information being relevant to the individual’s life is well acknowledged in science communication, most commonly as part of the refrain that to be effective, science communicators should ‘frame scientific advice and findings in terms of their personal or social relevance’ (Nisbet & Markowitz, 2016). Indeed, if information is relevant, that provides a good reason to go to the effort of knowing it (yes, it takes work to know something). But this is not the rationale here. The question at hand is not ‘how to use relevance for more persuasive communication’—there is much already written on the topic—what matter from an ethics point is ‘what information (genuinely) is relevant to the individual’s life’ and how such relevance affects our sense of responsibility to communicate the information. Back to Jennifer, the information about the gene mutation linked to stomach cancer was clearly relevant to her life, yet that may not be a good enough reason for her to want to know it. Sometimes, relevance isn’t enough. In other cases, the information seems (largely) irrelevant, and yet, communicating the information is still perceived as valuable. Much of the information in nature documentaries is of limited direct relevance to its audience, and yet, the enjoyment and novelty seemingly make its communication worthwhile. So relevance to the individual’s life seems to matters, but only partially. The individual’s capacity to interact with the information (from one’s capacity to act on the information, to one’s capacity to benefit 56 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH from the information) seems equally, if not more pertinent. We’ll refer to the latter as the usability of information.

Usability

The catch for Jennifer was that while the information was relevant to her (it was her genes that had a mutation, after all), there was no capacity for her to interact with it in any way that would enrich or better her life. And now the discussion about ethics, and the core issues about the value of science more generally, really kicks in: What does it actually mean for information to be valuable? What gives value to information, what makes for ‘good’ information? What counts as ‘good’ can be interpreted in two different ways. On the one hand, there is an epistemic view of good: knowledge for knowledge’s sake. On the other hand, there is a utilitarian view of good: how much good/happiness/enrichment can knowledge/information produce. This is where the earlier discussion on the distinction between information, knowledge and knowing becomes important. While science communication might make appeals to the importance of the ﬁeld in creating knowledge, this is in fact beyond the remit of the ﬁeld. Science communicators can’t share knowledge, only information. Information might lead to knowledge, but this takes effort on behalf of the potential knower. So while there might be value in ‘knowledge for knowledge’s sake’, this is an individual journey that the science communicator ought to be humble enough to accept is not theirs to complete (unless they are talking about their own knowledge). As for ‘information for information’s sake’, this is universally viewed as a being of little value and as a waste of material and mental resources (Arnold, Karamitsos, Shirodaria, & Banning, 2009; Rogers & Bamford, 2002; Scholtz, 2002). Communicators are in no position to create knowledge (for whatever sake) in another. At best, they can make information explicit and as conducive to knowing as possible. To do so, communicators have to be selective: selective about which information is presented, how it is presented, who it is presented to, and when, as was discussed in the last chapter. And this pushes communicators to consider the value of information based on its utility: the value of a piece of information in terms of what it can contribute to an individual or collective’s betterment. This can be intellectual (such as satisfying curiosity), emotional (such as providing enjoyment), physical (such as health communication) and a myriad of other ways to better or enrich an individual and collective’s existence and experience. 6 KNOWING AND IGNORING: THE UTILITY OF INFORMATION 57

Communication is about information, not knowledge Ideally, the information is directly relevant to the individual or collective. But more importantly, there needs to be consideration of how the information communicated betters or enriches the individual or collective.

Ignorance and Ignoring

We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (2006)

Having a sense of what makes information valuable is a two-edged sword. It permits better thinking over which information should be communicated (and how, to whom and when), but it also brings up the question of what should be done with information that is not so valuable, or worse still, information that may be harmful? Recall from above that part of making information valuable (whether this be being conducive to knowing or whether this be being valuable in its own right) is being selective about which information is presented, how it is presented, who it is presented to and so forth. That selection necessarily requires that some information, some details be left out or not be communicated. It requires some level of ignorance. In fact, it doesn’t require just any old sort of ignorance; it requires intentional, strategic ignorance. It requires ignoring. It seems counterintuitive to think of the value of ignoring when discussing the communication of science given the latter’s attachment to knowledge, but ignoring is an integral and essential part of science. For a start, scientific research is premised generating new knowledge and providing answers to as yet unanswered questions. But as Stocking and Hol- stein point out, this requires acknowledging that this new knowledge or new answers do not yet exist; that we are currently in a state of ignorance (Stocking & Holstein, 1993). Moreover, ignorance is an important of the answers too. Take any model of biophysical system; say an ecosystem model or climate model, for example. Such models sit at the very heart of much of modern science, and what these models require, among other things, is for the modellers to accurately assess what needs to be included, and what can be left out. What is left out, what is strategically ignored, is essential in 58 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH allowing the scientists working with these models to focus on what is of importance and relevance. Strategic ignoring, it turns out, is a fundamental quality of science as a knowledge-creating enterprise. From the outset, let’s be clear that ignorance and ignoring cannot be thought of as mirror images of knowledge and knowing. For knowledge to be, there must have been, at some stage, an act of knowing. There can be no knowledge about the curvature of space-time without someone actively going through the process of knowing about it. However, the same is not true about the ignorance and ignoring. Ignorance can come about through active ignoring, but ignorance can also come from a passive lack of knowing (termed specified ignorance and unrecognized ignorance respectively by Merton) (Gross, 2007). Put simply, there can’t be knowledge without knowing, but there can be ignorance without ignoring. Unrecognised ignorance—an unintentional absence of knowledge from mental blind spots—is difficult to morally justify. Such ‘unknown unknowns’ cannot be justified (nor vilified) as they are simply beyond our intellectual field of vision. Specified ignorance is more complex (and the demarcation between the two is not sharp, but it is a useful starting point). Specified ignorance—yet-to-be-explored areas of potential knowledge— allows reflection on whether knowing more is something to be pursued. It allows for strategic ignorance, and this is where we can make some moral calls. Indeed, we often have, both as individual and as collectives. Strategic ignoring is actively valuable in some contexts. In particular, there are cases where actively knowing some piece of information can be paralysing, for example, ‘when one is unable to summon the courage to jump a ravine and thereby get to safety, because one knows that there is a serious possibility that one might fail to reach the other side’ (Pritchard, Carter, & Turri, 2018). Scientists (and academics more generally) commonly engage in such strategic ignoring. Much of the scientific research is undertaken with the aspiration that it will generate new learning that will advance the field, society, etc. Indeed, the belief that a given piece of research has the potential to be meaningful to broader society is a profound driver for much of science, from funding organisations to individual scientists. But the odds aren’t good. Firstly, not all scientific researches get published or shared beyond a departmental seminar, and this for a myriad of reasons from the research not yielding expected or publishable results to the researcher being side-tracked or overly committed to see the work carried out to a stage where it could be communicated further. Even when research does lead to publication (the gold-standard in research), it hardly 6 KNOWING AND IGNORING: THE UTILITY OF INFORMATION 59 gets read. Indeed, the 10-years citation average across all fields is 10.81 (World University Ranking, 2011). It is humbling to accept that for all our hard work, on average, across all fields, a published paper gets cited about once a year for the first 10 years (and is probably not read much more widely). Being published is also no guarantee the research will truly advance the field in meaningful ways. This is not to advocate ‘high-impact’ research nor is it to say that research shouldn’t be carried out unless it truly is likely to contribute as hoped for by the researcher. Rather, the point is that scientists and researchers are better served in their endeavours by ignoring the reality that most of their research will have next to no impact on either the knowledge base of their field or society more broadly beyond ensuring their employment and the self-satisfaction they derive from their work. But strategic ignoring can also be incredibly harmful. Well-known cases such as the Barings investment bank and Société Générale executives’ strategic ignoring of unauthorised trades by more junior members of staff (these came to light as they resulted in massive losses of £860 million and $7 billion, respectively) bring to the fore the dangers of intentional ignorance (McGoey, 2012). Strategic ignoring is a powerful tool that can be wielded to spectacularly harmful effect. Indeed, as Taussig states, one of the most powerful forms of social knowledge is ‘knowing what not to know’ (Taus- sig, 1999). Strategic ignoring, then, can be incredibly harmful in some contexts, yet in others, deeply empowering. To make headway, Gross’s categorisation of knowledge and ignorance is helpful (Gross, 2007). Gross defines Negative Knowledge as ‘Knowledge about what is not known, but considered as unimportant or even dangerous’, and also notes it can lead to Non-Knowledge (Non-Knowledge being ‘knowledge about what is not known but taking it into account for future planning’). Strategic ignoring is not quite Negative Knowledge, as someone may, in fact, know it, but an agent or collective may bracket the information. This goes back to the point that knowledge isn’t just about information, it’s about the act of integrating this information; it’s about knowing. We might make a case, then not for strategic ignorance per say, but for Nega- tive Knowing.UsefulcasesofNegative Knowing we might consider are the widely endorsed decision to ban research on human reproductive cloning. Scientists could have extended knowledge through ongoing research, but actively chose to gain refrain, thereby engaging in Negative Knowing (Williams, 2003). Choosing not to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but instead to allow ‘Knowledge about what is not known, but considered 60 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

[…] dangerous’ to be left unknown. There are similar sentiments in science communication, if unstated (and possibly not even critically considered). For example, there is near universal agreement that ignorance on some topics is the right approach—no self-respecting science communicator would share a ‘how to make your own’ for chemical weapons for a chemistry outreach programme or in the name of increasing public awareness of science. From a communication perspective, ignoring (in the form of Negative Knowing) seems especially justiﬁed when the information has the capacity to signiﬁcantly harm or hinder the individual or society. And in this way, ignoring is a valuable counterpoint to knowing and should be weighed as equally; all knowing should be considered, both Positive and Negative Knowing.

Accidental ignorance is unjustiﬁable; intentional ignoring (Negative Know- ing) can be valuable. There needs to be consideration of how the information communicated might harm or hinder the individual or society, and of the potential beneﬁts of Negative Knowing. There needs to be consideration of the (un)importance and (ir)relevance of information communicated.

Bibliography

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Gross, M. (2007). The unknown in process: Dynamic connections of ignorance, non-knowledge and related concepts. Current Sociology, 55(5), 742–759. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392107079928. Locke, T., Alcorn, N., & O’Neill, J. (2013). Ethical issues in collaborative action research. Educational Action Research, 21(1), 107–123. McGoey, L. (2012). The logic of strategic ignorance. The British Journal of Sociology, 63(3), 533–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2012.01424.x. Nisbet, M. C., & Markowitz, E. (2016). Science communication research: Bridging theory and practice. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advance- ment of Science. Pritchard, D., Carter, J. A., & Turri, J. (2018). The value of knowledge. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ knowledge-value/. Rogers, P. R., & Bamford, C. E. (2002). Information planning process and strategic orientation: The importance of fit in high-performing organizations. Jour- nal of Business Research, 55(3), 205–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148- 2963(00)00136-3. Scholtz, V. (2002). Managing knowledge in a knowledge business. In E. Coakes, D. Willis, & S. Clarke (Eds.), Knowledge management in the sociotechnical world: The Graffiti continues (pp. 43–51). London: Springer, London. Stocking, S. H., & Holstein, L. W. (1993). Constructing and reconstructing scientific ignorance: Ignorance claims in science and journalism. Knowledge, 15(2), 186–210. Strachey, L. (2003). Eminent victorians. New York: Oxford University Press. Taussig, M. T. (1999). Defacement: Public secrecy and the labor of the negative. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wallace, D. P. (2007). Knowledge management: Historical and cross-disciplinary themes. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. Williams, N. (2003). Top scientists back human cloning ban. Current Biology, 13(20), R785–R786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2003.09.041. World Univeristy Ranking. (2011). Citation averages, 2000–2010, by fields and years. From http://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/citation-averages- 2000-2010-by-fields-and-years/415643.article. CHAPTER 7

Storytelling and Selling Science

Abstract A common refrain in science communication ‘how to’ guides and textbooks is ‘tell a story’. But what are the downstream ethical effects of narrativizing science? This chapter considers the ethical implications of three strategies for effective science communication—narrativizing, framing and selling. Thinking about narratives, stories and framing highlight two special issues, which point to what we might think of as ethical hybridity. Firstly, science communication there is an ethical hybridity in the science being communicated and the act of communicating it. A secondly, there is ethical hybridity because of the breadth of what comes under the umbrella of science communication, each with its own underlying values. The chapter closes by considering ethical systems in adjacent ﬁelds to see if these can provide a roadmap for science communication.

Keywords Storytelling · Narratives · Framing · Ethical hybridity

Tell a Story. Sell an Idea.

Science communication has adopted ever more sophisticated strategies and tactics to communicate science broadly. It is now a mainstay of science communication training to encourage both researchers and communicators to tell a story—to adopt narrative techniques from ﬁction, to create characters

© The Author(s) 2019 63 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_7 64 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH and heroes that compel interest, to develop storylines with familiar plots to accommodate scientific methods or results that might otherwise be unfa- miliar (Olson, 2015). This chapter gives a brief overview of the ethical orientations emerging from three of these strategies—narrativizing, framing and selling. Our goal is not to solve the ethical issues arising but to point to how they arise and how the field of science communication might further develop as we address these issues. Thinking about narratives, stories and framing highlight (at least) two special issues, both of which point to what we might think of as ethical hybridity. Firstly, science communication must address the ethical orientation of the science in which it is entwined. We illustrate that with some recent work in Neuroethics below. A second complexity stems from the breadth of what comes under the umbrella of science communication, from the breadth of scientific fields to the breadth of settings, to the breadth of underlying values. And the more fields, the more boundaries and the more spaces interact, so the other side of the hybridity issue is the boundary-spanning one. This is illustrated below in consideration of science communication in public health. We also consider if other ethical systems in adjacent fields provide a roadmap for us; while there are rich traditions to help, science communication needs to pave its own road. What follows is gravel for the roadbed. In the early 2000s, science communication academics re-animated a concept from 1960s sociology—framing (Nisbet & Mooney, 2007). In the light of controversial public issues such as climate change and genetic mod- ification, the scholars argued that getting the frame right around scientific information may make it easier to include scientific results and explanations in conversations between politically opposed camps—and potentially shift the dial on important conversations. Climate change is a key example. If an interlocutor is arguing against anthropogenic climate change on the grounds that remedying it will take jobs away from their region, arguments about the accuracy of scientific climate models are unlikely to sway her. However, arguments about new economies based on renewable energy technologies might be a way to keep the conversation going and address concern. Alternatively, there are some frames that are just likely to stay con- tentious. Value differences about biodiversity being a ‘good in itself’ are not likely easily re-framed so might be better off tackled by staying off that framing of the issue altogether. Such techniques in communication have been discussed for millennia; Quintillian’s rhetorical method for lawyers— to define what is ‘at issue’ and make sure that you can not only argue that case, but be able to pivot to other issues and make them at issue—is 7 STORYTELLING AND SELLING SCIENCE 65 one example that is a bedrock of legal argumentation to this day. This technique is largely about arguing current contexts—epideixis, in rhetorical terminology. Classical Greek rhetorical scholars usually saw this as a communication field for finding out whom to praise or whom to blame in a certain context and recognised the fundamentally moral features of this kind of argumentation. Contrast the framing model with another description of science communication—selling science. Dorothy Nelkin pointed out in the 1980s that the power of mediated forms of communication has presented a limited story about what science was and how it functioned—media was selling individual science stories, but also a story about science itself (Nelkin, 1987). This story included breakthroughs around every corner (Contopoulos- Ioannidis, Ntzani, & Ioannidis, 2003), scientific heroes labouring like the biblical Job without much recognition or reward, stories featuring science for economic advancement and the mobilisation of scientific controversies to shut down dissent in science. Both selling science and framing science rest on how we tell the story of science, its impact, its place, its purpose, so back to our initial and the ethical implications of ‘Telling a story. Selling an Idea’.

Ethical Hybridity and Neuroscience

Science communication is not a ‘new’ activity, despite continued worries about the ‘newness of the discipline’ or how science communicators’ work has been professionalised over the past 40 years. One indication of this is the way in which entire science disciplines can see science communication as a resource to build public recognition and even support for their science. Neuroscience is such a case in point. There has been a consistent and self-conscious effort by neuroscientists to strategically plan a science communication campaign for neuroscience over about a decade. At least part of this is driven by an assumption on the part of science communicators and science advocates that there is a zero-sum game for public attention, an idea we will pick up below in relation to public health. Neuroscience, as a field, brings with it enormous possibility for public good, but as an emerging field, there are always both practical and moral questions hanging over this science. Will researchers, for example, be able to model the complexity of the human brain given what we know at present? Until we have such a model, should we be planning interventions into the human brain? Do animal models help with this end of neuroscience 66 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH research? After all, our brains are similar to monkeys. To have these robust animal models, however, we need to use animals in experimentation. While this might be necessary, how many animals? For how long? Very quickly, one descends into an epistemic and moral tunnel. So, how to communicate this? What story gets told? Thus far, neuroscience communication has been a form of advocacy for brain science in general. But there are signs that this is about to change. A global effort towards neuroethics is working through some of these practical and moral issues with an eye to guiding the field forward. For example, neuroethi- cists are asking a series of questions about neuroscientific practice globally (Global Neuroethics Summit Delegates et al., 2018). They’ve identified 5 questions on which the field needs to focus its attention:

1. What is the potential impact of a model or neuroscientific account of disease for individuals, communities and society? 2. What are the ethical standards of biological material and data collection and how do local standards compare to global ones? 3. What is the moral significance of neural systems that are under development in neuroscience research laboratories? 4. How could Brain interventions impact or reduce autonomy? 5. In which context might a neuroscientific technology/innovation be used or deployed?

What does this turn towards neuroethics mean for science communicators? In a word, it adds a layer of complexity to storytelling about neuroscience. Narratives of addiction as a brain disease circulate—neuroscience tells us what is going on inside our brains as an answer to the question of why we are addicted to alcohol, opioids and our phones. But the question above should also appeal to science communicators to think more deeply and ethically and what those stories encourage. For example, if we say addiction is a brain disease, does that reduce social stigma around addiction and what does that mean for notions we hold of autonomy, free will, accountability and empowerment? Science communicators need to embrace this complexity and start to wrestle with it. The stories about science and future technologies that will emerge from such an approach will be new, thoughtful, and perhaps they will also encourage such questions to emerge for science communicators. 7 STORYTELLING AND SELLING SCIENCE 67

Imagine a list like the neuroethics one above, but applied to science communication:

1. What is the impact of science communicators frames about a specific science? Should science communication work towards narratives that advocate for the public good? 2. What are the ethical standards of science communicators when communicating about a field like neuroscience? Do we adopt frameworks from that field or do we develop our own? 3. Do science communicators need to address the moral significance of the innovations they tell stories about? This is a pressing question in the context of the brain, but also AI, Synthetic Biology, Ecolo- gy…probably just about every science. 4. Some fields adopt overarching principles for ethics—protect autonomy—what might these be for science communication? 5. How do science communicators address the move from the lab into the world? What features of science and technology are most important to communicate such that audiences can work to understand potential impacts?

What this discussion of the case of neuroethics underscores is the potential hybridity of science communication ethics. Researchers and ethicists in specific scientific fields are setting their norms. Interestingly, the notion of ‘engagement’ figures prominently in the norms of many emerging scientific fields. The need for communicators to articulate their own norms of engagement and negotiate these with specific fields is becoming urgent.

Ethical Hybridity and Prevention in Public Health

The field of public health has a long and somewhat noble pedigree of public communication. Indeed, one of the pillars of the field is communication of evidence of effectiveness of interventions to improve the health of communities. The field is both like neuroscience—public health researchers pursue their science and produce reams of data about the outcomes of their interventions, develop models, have evidence of technologies that work. But it is also unlike neuroscience—it has long integrated social science into its practice and has worked at the boundaries of other disciplines. This has made 68 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH an ‘easy’ narrative of communicating the research of public health elusive. Two narrative strategies have emerged to communicate public health research, both with implications for how the researchers and the research are seen by a broad cross-section of publics. Penny Hawe calls one narrative the ‘hero narrative’ (Hawe, 2018)—where public health researchers talk about the results of their research in terms of heroic interventions into societies ills of addiction, obesity and infectious disease. This heroic version of the science has the positive effect of pointing to success in the field of public health—from the early epidemiology of John Snow and the pump handle that led to the successful eradication of cholera in London in the nineteenth century to Peter Piot and AIDS/HIV eradication strategies in Africa in the twenty-first century. Such narratives are great science stories to tell—indeed, there is a recent book on the heroism of Peter Piot in Africa. But there are downfalls to the hero narrative, as Hawe explains:

Most of all, the hero narrative is about values. This appeals to public health, a ﬁeld which centres on particular values (i.e., social justice, equity). However, the narrative runs the risk of not connecting with people who, while not opposed to those values, do not think about them much. And while much effort is put into trying to make more people care about the values, maybe we should consider new tactics. Maybe we could make public health more interesting and reach new audiences in different ways?

Like neuroscientists, public health researchers are awake to the values of their field and how it impacts the stories they tell. Can Science Communi- cation do the same so that we negotiate these values effectively? On way to see this complexity in the ethical landscape for science communication is to focus on the boundaries at which we work. For science communicators, this covers a vast territory—neuroscience one day, ecology the next. The advancement of the field, however, depends upon how well science communicators understand and work these value boundaries. Ellen Phiddian and colleagues, science communication researchers, had a look at the boundaries of public health narratives (Phiddian, Hoepner, & McKinnon, 2019). What they found is that there are narratives in ethical conflict that undermine public health prevention. The example they looked at was ‘choice’. In a neoliberal framing of social action, individuals make choices that impact their health—whether to exercise, what foods to choose and drinking alcohol to relax. Much public health research shows, however, that this neoliberal framing makes invisible the structural inequities 7 STORYTELLING AND SELLING SCIENCE 69 that bring about health—food deserts, communities with no walking paths, readily available alcohol with few social opportunities without it. So preva- lent is the choice narrative that when people are playing a game where the structural inequities are highlighted and choice is not an option, they will still insist that choice is important. This research finding is in line with what Michael Dahlstrom has raised as an ethical problem for narrative science communication:

Because they describe a particular experience rather than general truths, narratives have no need to justify the accuracy of their claims; the story itself demonstrates the claim. Similarly, the structure of narrative links its events into a cause-and-effect relationship, making the conclusion of the narrative seem inevitable even though many possibilities could have happened (52)… Because narratives are able to provide values to real-world objects without argument, it is difﬁcult to counter their claims. (Dahlstrom, 2014)

In short, narrative is powerful, but has its ethical downside in that stories quite literally write options for interpretation, critique and other possibilities out of the story.

Who Tells Science Stories? It Matters

The field of feminist ethics and philosophy of science is a rich area that science communication has not explored, nor has been seen as relevant to the practices in the field. However, in the Global North, while professional science communicators are dominated by women, scientific spokespeople remain predominantly male (and white and heterosexual)—so much so that programs have now been designed to help female scientists communicate publicly and develop their professional voice, social media profile and become ‘go to’ experts for public commentary (Biba, 2017; Fahy, 2015). But making women the professional voices and the storytellers creates tension for science communication. First, encouraging female scientists to leave the lab to be spokespersons and role models for their science may deplete science itself of female researchers. There are some indications that the scientist—science communicator role is a zero-sum game. More female science communicators may mean fewer female scientists. The jury is out as to whether more female science communicators mean more female scientists. Second, misogyny awaits women who dare to publicly communicate their science. In research on women scientists demonstrating science on 70 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

YouTube, for example, women can expect to be the object of negative comments about everything from their manner of dress to their perceived competence (Amarasekara & Grant, 2019). These are crucial issues and of course, more research is needed to understand how science communication fully impacts women and how women impact science communication. In the absence of research results, however, we can at least flag that gender is important in science communication ethics and much like our earlier discussions of other vulnerable groups in Chapter 2, in need of open conversation in the field. Another downstream effect of the stories we tell and of who tells them comes out of the ethics of science itself. The ethics of science typically refers to the ethical compass of an individual scientist despite some gestures towards the ‘norms of science’ and assumes a self-policing community. The case of He Jiankui and the CRISPR babies made that explicit. But there is also a reverse side to this self-policing, individualistic ethos in terms of who is telling the stories. Sometimes the suggestion is that only scientists can comment on the ethics of science, as there is something special about the nature of science that only scientists can discern or that ethical questions in science will be so mired in technical issues that the ‘true’ nature of ethical problems will be difficult to discern. While the field has increasingly profes- sionalized and there have been roles for ‘science communicators’ since the 1960s, scientists themselves remain committed to science communication and perhaps feel the commitment most strongly when they work in areas such as climate or earth science that have been increasingly subject to public scrutiny and concern. But such ethical loaded areas are filled with social content, philosophical subtleties, economic implication and much more, and these also require technical knowledge, so scientists aren’t always best placed. This is important if science communication is seen to be a scientist- driven activity and the problem is exacerbated by the notion of a unified ‘science’. Whether the methods of contemporary bioscience align with the methods of astronomical science is a matter of serious debate. Further, the international STEM movement, encouraging students of all ages to study science, technology, engineering and maths, has encouraged scientists to represent and advocate for ‘all of science’ in their public discussions, not just their specific discipline, with an underlying narrative that science is socially useful and professionally worthwhile pursuit, despite little evidence that all STEM degrees are equally good for either the students or society (Long, Goldhaber, & Huntington-Klein, 2014). Finally, the emergence of the scientific celebrity re-animates some long-standing questions 7 STORYTELLING AND SELLING SCIENCE 71 about science communication and the personal and professional interests of scientists and brings us full circle—is the job of scientists to advocate and explain only for their science or can they also speak from other points of view and perspectives? One response to this chapter is to wonder if science communication needs to take on all of these issues at once in the stories it tells and the way it tells them given the ethical hybridity these engender. The answer is no. But science communicators need a broader awareness of these issues, be able to think through and discuss them with others and negotiate the values that drive their practice. Adoption of techniques of selling, storytelling or framing without further discussion about the values associated won’t do. It is also clear that scientific disciplines are emerging as more ethically engaged and articulate in about their own value structure. To pursue the ethical hybridity and boundary spanning of which science communication is capable, science communicators, too, must be more ethically engaged and articulate in their value structures.

Bibliography

Amarasekara, I., & Grant, W. J. (2019). Exploring the YouTube science communication gender gap: A sentiment analysis. Public Understanding of Science, 28(1), 68–84. Biba, E. (2017). Science celebrities: Where are the women? https://www.the- scientist.com/news-analysis/science-celebrities-where-are-the-women-31511. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, D. G., Ntzani, E., & Ioannidis, J. (2003). Translation of highly promising basic science research into clinical applications. The American Journal of Medicine, 114(6), 477–484. Dahlstrom, M. F. (2014). Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13614–13620. Fahy, D. (2015). The new celebrity scientists: Out of the lab and into the limelight. New York: Rowman & Littleﬁeld. Hawe, P. (2018). [Personal Correspondence]. Long, M. C., Goldhaber, D., & Huntington-Klein, N. (2014, February). Do students’ college major choices respond to changes in wages. Paper presented at the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Research Conference, American Institutes of Research, Washing- ton, DC. Nelkin, D. (1987). Selling science: How the press covers science and technology.New York:W.H.Freeman. 72 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Global Neuroethics Summit Delegates, Rommelfanger, K. S., Jeong, S. J., Ema, A., Fukushi, T., Kasai, K., … Singh, I. (2018). Neuroethics Questions to Guide Ethical Research in the International Brain Initiatives. Neuron, 100(1), October 10, 19–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.09.021. Nisbet, M. C., & Mooney, C. (2007). Framing science. Science, 316, 56. Olson, R. (2015). Houston, we have a narrative: Why science needs story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Phiddian, E., Hoepner, J., & McKinnon, M. (2019). Can interactive science exhibits be used to communicate population health science concepts? Critical Public Health, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2019.1575948. CHAPTER 8

Show Me the Money

Abstract Science communication takes resources. It costs money, time and effort to communicate. This chapter looks at the costs of communicating and what this means for science communication. Speciﬁcally, the effects of funding for science communication are considered, with an eye to how these effects communicators’ independence. A parallel with editorial independence is drawn before we consider the rise of native content as a form of science communication. The chapter closes with a discussion on the ethical implications of the funder-practitioner relationship for the often-stated science communication aspiration of truth and honesty.

Keywords Economics of communication · Funding · Editorial independence · Native content

Fracking is the mining process of injecting water mixed with sand (or similar) under high pressure into rock formations so as to fracture them and create cracks that enable natural resources, most commonly natural gas, to ﬂow more freely. The process has been used in mining for over 60 years, though not without concerns. Indeed, mining has a long history of being both an economic blessing and an environmental curse. So how can we ﬁnd out more about this practice of fracking?

On a cold Canberra winter’s morning, we type ‘Fracking explained’ into Google, an innocuous enough query. These were the ﬁrst page results (18 June 2018):

What is fracking and why is it controversial?—BBC News Fracking: a simple introduction—Explain that Stuff Fracking, explained—Vox Fracking Explained | oilandgasinfo.ca APPEA | Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) Fracking Explained (brieﬂy) | Keep Tap Water Safe Fracking explained: What is it and why is it so controversial?—ITV News The Process of Unconventional Natural Gas Production—EPA.

Of these eight sites, three were from a news agency (BBC, Vox, ITV), two from gas industry (oilandgasinfo, APPEA), and one each from general education (Explain that Stuff), activist (Keep Tap Water Safe) and government (EPA) sites. Fracking is controversial, and this is clear in the way the news agencies represents the topic. But are the new agencies’ representations accurate or are they playing up the controversy to increase sales and circulation? Maybe the industry’s discussion is more accurate, or are they more biased as they have commercial incentives to present fracking in a positive light. What about the government’s website is that more definitive or is it driven by internal policy demands? And the same could be asked of any such website. Of course, a different set of search terms, such ‘what is fracking’, would return a slightly different set of results, but that’s immaterial here. Each of those results would likewise have its individual agenda and influences. Fundamentally, there are questions about the relationship between the funding for science communication and its practice. Some questions are about exactly how the funding does affect the practice—these are the empirical questions—and then there are questions about how the funding of science communication should affect the practice—these are the ethical questions, and the ones of interest here. Let’s start with some basics: information comes at a cost, an economic cost. Not only the production of information, but it’s distribution too. Gaining information takes resources, both tangible (such as buying a subscription to a magazine) and intangible (such as the time it takes to watch a video on the web). More relevantly, creating and sharing information 8 SHOW ME THE MONEY 75 takes resources both monetary and otherwise, from how much funding is required for the materials for an exhibition, to the effort it takes to plan the exhibit. In many (most) cases, specific groups, collectives, organisations or institutions fund science communication. Indeed, of the eight results on our first search page above, only one was a self-funded project (the general education one: Explain that Stuff). Organised groups or institutions funded all the other examples. And each ‘sponsors’ or funders of science communication come with their own agendas. Sponsors and funders of science communication include government departments, some directly requiring science communication, for example, environmental protection agencies or public health departments. Other departments indirectly sponsor science communication, such as education departments (funding science education), and ministries of science, who often fund public engagement science strategies (DIISRTE, 2009; MBIE, 2014). Government-funded science communication is often either teleo- logical (end or goal driven, such as an anti-smoking campaign) or peda- gogical (aimed at teaching or educating). Funders and sponsors of science communication also include universities and research institutes, as well as science-related industries, for example, mining or pharmaceutical industries. Clearly, industry sponsors of science communication have economic and financial considerations at heart, and this is also increasingly the case for scientific research institutions, including universities (Brown & Carasso, 2013; Nelson, 2004; Slaughter, Slaughter, & Rhoades, 2004). Non-profit and NGOs of various stripes also fund and sponsor science communication efforts, from activist and advocacy groups to charity organisation. While such groups may not be focused on the financial aspects, they are classically issue and agenda driven. And of course, one of the best established and most commonly discussed spaces for science communication is science journalism and the news media (Bauer & Bucchi, 2008). There’s a long historical tie between science communication and science journalism, both historically and conceptually. For example, Treise and Weigold’s ‘Advancing Science Communication: A Survey of Science Communicators’ surveyed members of the National Association of Science Writers, editors of news sections and science publications mass communication scholars conducting research in science communication with the (unstated) assumption that journalism-based science reporting is reflective of the broader science communication field (Treise & Weigold, 2002). Indeed, the connection between science communication and science journalism is also evident on our Google search results 76 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH where three of the eight entries returned were from news organisation. This long-standing tie to journalism provides a good starting point for thinking about the relationship between funding for science communication and its practice. One of the pillars of journalism is independence. Deuze, in ‘What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered’, describes this independence as an environment that ‘protects its media from censorship; in a company that saves its journalists from the marketers; in a newsroom where journalists are not merely the lackeys of their editors’ (Deuze, 2005). Specifically, editorial independence—‘independence from proprietorial influence’ (Hanretty, 2014)—is of relevance here. Editorial independence is viewed as an ideological value for journalists and is cher- ished for its role in ensuring integrity and objectivity in reporting (or at least as much these as possible). In many ways, these are some desirable traits for science communication (Polderman, 2008), and it is tempting to appeal to some practitioner’s equivalent or editorial independence, say ‘Practitioner independence’. To paraphrase Hanretty, practitioner’s independence could be defined as (Hanretty, 2010):

the degree of independence practitioners have in making day-to-day decisions about their output or the output of their subordinates, without receiving and acting on the basis of instructions, threats or other inducement from funders and sponsors, or the anticipation thereof; or considering whether the interests of those funders and sponsors would be harmed by particular choices about outputs.

This ethos of independence is embedded in a greater set of what has been termed journalism’s ideology and cannot be extricated from that. The idea of journalism as public service and objective sit as core values very widely shared by journalists and includes the view that journalists should ‘stray away from influencing public opinion and advocating social change’ (Han- itzsch et al., 2011). This resonates with deeply ingrained norms in science. Specifically, two of the Mertonian norms are relevant here: Universalism (the validity of scientific claims should be based on universal criteria and not on socio-political traits) and Disinterestedness (scientific work should be pursued for the benefit of the common scientific enterprise, not for personal gain). These closely align with editorial independence (universalism) and with a notion of public service (disinterestedness). But while science 8 SHOW ME THE MONEY 77 communication might hold an attachment to objectivity from its connection to the scientific norms, the notion of science communication being a public service and not influence public opinion is more difficult to embed. Science communication, after all, is not science; it’s communication. Science communication has a much less cohesive range of practitioners than journalists; in fact, there is an astounding breadth and variety of science communication practitioners, and this is part of the field’s strength. Some science communication might easily align with these journalistic notions of public service (e.g. the Explain that Stuff description of fracking we found on Google). But other acts of science communication do aim to change behaviour or to present a very specific view based on who the funders are (e.g. the oilandgasinfo.ca description of fracking). Even more benign examples that seem like close relative of journalism make the challenge for science communication evident. Let’s consider two cases: institutional newsletters and magazines, and native content and advertorials. Almost all institutions from universities to research centres publish newsletters and/or magazines. Classically, such newsletters and magazines contain a blend of news as well as events related to the organization, making such newsletters a close relative of newspapers and of journalism. For example, CSIRO, Australia’s government science research agency, pub- lishes Snapshot, a monthly newsletter of ‘our science news highlights for the month’, which also contains job opportunities and some more current affairs type articles (CSIRO, n.d.). But the main focus on ‘highlights’ is a good example of how institutional newsletters and magazines have the dual purposes of organisational communication and corporate communication. The former is a largely internally focused form communication that aims to inform members of the organisation and close associates about its activities. The latter is more externally focused and has the aim positively promoting the organisation to its stakeholders. Science communication undertaken in such forums are not simply informative and have more than solely a public service agenda; the purpose of such newsletters is to inform about what is going on and to promote the institution’s work to their readership. In the introduction, we mentioned Joan’s reading of university-funded advertorial about brain research into the causes of insomnia that she’d come across in a national paper. Advertorials and native content are forms of advertising that have the look and feel of the media where they are met. Joel defines native content as ‘an ad format that must be created specifically for one media channel in terms of the technical format and the content’ (Joel, 2013). Take, for example, C&EN Brand Lab, C&EN Media 78 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Group’s in-house native advertising studio that creates ‘engaging content to serve the marketing needs of chemical and pharmaceutical organizations’ (C&EN, n.d.). This is not unique; The Guardian has its own internal native advertising agency, Guardian Labs, and so does the New York Times with T Brand Studio. But C&EN is especially pertinent given it is specifically about science writing and science communication. The writers working for C&EN BrandLab are experienced science writers with articles in Science Mags among other, and as with the newsletters above, they have dual aims: to create interesting and informative content and also to promote groups or organisations so as to create brand loyalty. These mixed purposes challenge the notion that something like practitioner’s independence can really hold for a field as broad and varied as science communication. Part of the relationship that needs to be considered is more akin to that of client- consultant, and such relationships come with their own set of norms. According to Mulligan and Barber, the basis for client-consultant relationships is that ‘The client needs help with something that they are unable or choose not to do for themselves, and the consultant offers assistance and expertise in one form or another in response to this need’ (Mulligan &Barber,2001). This needs-assistance interaction is as much present for those in more classical employee-employer relationships as it is for consultants, and consultants, like employees, face varying degrees of power and autonomy (Bloomfield & Best, 1992; Pozzebon & Pinsonneault, 2012). Acknowledging this relationship, including the variety and complexity of the power-relations and autonomy faced by different actors in science communication, is an essential aspect of making sense of the permissible power of funding, the extent to which it is ok for the funding to affect the practice. A study of consultant in a field increasingly close to science communication, public relations, suggests that, for PR consultants at least, two main ethical themes stand out: respect and honesty (Place, 2010). Interestingly, the notion of respect was predominantly focused towards third parties (such as journalists, other consultants) while honesty focused both on clients and third parties. Honesty with regard to clients had a dual function: honest business practices and honest communication with their clients, as well as honesty in terms of ‘presenting a quality, timely product to a client’ (Place, 2010). Given the plethora of roles and backgrounds science communicators per- form in, let’s draw on both the norms of consulting, and especially PR 8 SHOW ME THE MONEY 79 consulting, and on the norms of journalism, and especially editorial independence when working out the how the funding of science communication should affect the practice. At heart, the tension for science communication is how to reconcile an attachment to intellectually rigorous claims within a diverse, financially embedded setting. Leaning too much towards the journalistic ethos of independence leads to artificially culling what counts as science communication—anyone advocating for a certain position or hoping for their communication to change behaviour no longer qualifies as a science communicator. Leaning too far away from placing intellectual rigour centre stage, and science communicators just become mercenaries with no ethos other serve your (pay)master. The PR consultant’s appeal to honesty offers a way to bridge these views, if honesty if understood as intellectual honesty (as opposed to honesty to the clients about the quality and timeliness of product). Honesty seems particularly relevant when talking about science communication as both honesty and science relate to some notion of truth. To be honest is to be truthful. And science is often viewed as aiming to provide true (or as true as possible) and accurate explanations of the world around us (Psillos, 2005). ‘Areas of science sometimes tell us the truth about nature’, Kitcher tells us in a wonderful discussion about science’s uneasy relationship with truth (Kitcher, 2003). This is not to say that science ever does (or could) provide Truth, but there is an aspiration towards truth, a certain truthiness to science’s aims at least in terms of explanations of the empirical world. Another way to think of honesty is in terms of integrity. Integrity has two meanings, to be whole, complete and to be morally upright, honest. As Polderman notes, both physical and moral integrity are relevant to science communication. The integrity of the data and facts communicated should be maintained, and communication should be done with integrity (Polderman, 2008). These notions of truth, honesty and integrity take on a unique flavour in science communication due to science’s special conceptual relationship to truth, facts and accuracy. This is a deep running relationship, and one that can’t help but shape the ideals of how the funding of science communication should affect the practice. More, thinking about the way science communication is always embedded in an economic setting with various actors highlights one very fundamental aspect of science communication: 80 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH science communication is always and necessarily relational, from the relationship between sponsors/funders and communicators to the relationship between communicators and their audience/public, to the relationship between researchers and funders, and so many more. Very fundamentally, all science communication activities are about and are dependent on human relationships, and specific relationships bring specific moral obligations.

Science communication occurs in a variety of ﬁnancially embedded settings and through a variety of relationships. There needs to be consideration of the integrity of the information communicated (its truthiness) and of the communicator. Of the ﬁnancial setting the communication is happening in, and the effects of this on the communication, as we as of the relationships at play, and the moral obligations these relationships bring with them.

Bibliography

Bauer, M. W., & Bucchi, M. (2008). Journalism, science and society: Science communication between news and public relations. New York and London: Routledge. Bloomﬁeld, B. P., & Best, A. (1992). Management consultants: systems development, power and the translation of problems. The Sociological Review, 40(3), 533–560. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1992.tb00401.x. Brown, R., & Carasso, H. (2013). Everything for sale? The marketisation of UK higher education. London and New York: Routledge. C&EN. (n.d.). BrandLab. https://acsmediakit.org/blog/editors-desk-cen- launches-the-cen-brandlab/. CSIRO. (n.d.). Snapshot. http://www.csiro.au/en/News/Snapshot. Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism?Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism, 6(4), 442–464. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1464884905056815. DIISRTE. (2009). Inspiring Australia: A national strategy for engagement with the sciences. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Mellado, C., Anikina, M., Berganza, R., Cangoz, I., … Kee Wang Yuen, E. (2011). Mapping journalism cultures across nations. Jour- nalism Studies, 12(3), 273–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2010. 512502. Hanretty, C. (2010). Explaining the De Facto independence of Public Broadcasters. British Journal of Political Science, 40(1), 75–89. 8 SHOW ME THE MONEY 81

Hanretty, C. (2014). Media outlets and their moguls: Why concentrated individual or family ownership is bad for editorial independence. Euro- pean Journal of Communication, 29(3), 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0267323114523150. Joel, M. (2013). We need a better definition of “native advertising”. HBR Blog Network. Kitcher, P. (2003). Science, truth, and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MBIE. (2014). A nation of curious minds: A national strategic plan for science in society. Wellington: New Zealand Government. Mulligan, J., & Barber, P. (2001). The client-consultant relationship. Manage- ment Consultancy: A Handbook for Best Practice (2nd ed, pp. 83–102). London: Kogan Page. Nelson, R. R. (2004). The market economy, and the scientific commons. Research Policy, 33(3), 455–471. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2003.09.008. Place, K. R. (2010). A qualitative examination of public relations practitioner ethical decision making and the deontological theory of ethical issues management. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25(3), 226–245. https://doi.org/10. 1080/08900523.2010.497405. Polderman, A. (2008). Integrity in science communication. European Science Edit- ing, 34(3), 62. Pozzebon, M., & Pinsonneault, A. (2012). The dynamics of client–consultant relationships: Exploring the interplay of power and knowledge. Journal of Informa- tion Technology, 27 (1), 35–56. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2011.32. Psillos, S. (2005). Scientific realism: How science tracks truth. London: Routledge. Slaughter, S., Slaughter, S. A., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Treise, D., & Weigold, M. F. (2002). Advancing science communication: A survey of science communicators. Science Communication, 23(3), 310–322. https:// doi.org/10.1177/107554700202300306. CHAPTER 9

What Are the Guiding Ethical Principles of Science Communication?

Abstract Drawing on what has been so far discussed, this chapter turns face on to the task at hand and proposes a set of ethical principles of science communication. After reviewing existing effort to move science communication down the path of ethical principles, this chapter discusses ethics in an applied setting to make a case for why principlism and relational ethics are especially helpful in making headway into an ethics of science communication. The chapter then proposes four principles for an ethics of science communication, namely Utility (of the information communicated), Accu- racy, Kairos and Generosity. These are each described and deﬁned with reference to previous chapters.

Keywords Ethics of science communication · Principlism · Relational ethics

Science communication is filled with ethical challenges. In part, it is the breadth of what counts as science communication and its youthful aspiration to be almost everything that makes it so ethically complex and messy. As science communication evolves and matures, there’s a dance with the ethical, stepping this way to defines science communication’s space, both practically and intellectually, then stepping that way to assess what its ethical principles are. And through this dance, both help define one another

© The Author(s) 2019 83 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_9 84 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH in something like Rawls’ reflective equilibrium.1 The dance never ends, of course. New ethical challenges will arise, as will new ways of communicating science and new questions to be asked in the field. But dancing with the ethical helps science communication define itself and become more sure-footed. So how should questions of ethics in science communication be approached? As we explained at the start of this volume, we think there is something specific about science communication that requires it has its own ethical principles. Science communication can draw upon existing ethical codes and principles, but it needs more than that. It needs an ethical space that speaks uniquely to its challenges, its unique hybridity and its issues. There have been some attempts to provide some principles for science communication or its close cousins. Indeed, O. Keohane, Lane and Oppenheimer’s suggested principles for risk communication shares similarities with what we propose, but we have a broader target than risk communication: science communication more generally (Keohane, Lane, & Oppenheimer, 2014). Others have talked more directly about science communication, but have yet to suggest ethical principles. There have been suggestions for ethical competencies (what skills one might need ‘to engage in meaningful dialogue about their research with diverse audiences’) and principles to engage more holistically in science communication, with a large focus on effectiveness (Seethaler, Evans, Gere, & Rajagopalan, 2019; Spitzer, 2017), but ethical principles is not the same as either competencies or principles simpliciter. What we offer here is something more targeted; we want to offer a set of principles for ethical science communication or, put differently, an ethics of science communication. Before diving into an ethics of science communication, there are some aspects of the field that need to be kept in mind. Firstly, science communication is both an academic field and a practical one, and while these two sides sometimes work in unison, they are also at times a source of tension. Secondly, science communication covers a broad spectrum of activities and

1Reflective equilibrium is the balanced outcome of reasoning between theoretical principles and specific particulars. John Rawls suggested we go back and forth between principles (e.g. equality suggests we should all contribute similarly in taxes) and our intuitions or moral judgements about related particular cases (e.g. some people will remain incredibly wealthy not matter how much they pay in taxes because they were born wealthy while others, partially because of their background, are unlikely to ever be very wealthy, so making them pay the same seems intuitively wrong). According to Rawls, we should revise our views about what is ‘right’ accordingly until we reach equilibrium. 9 WHAT ARE THE GUIDING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES … 85 intellectual pursuits, and this breadth makes it seemingly impossible to define ‘an explicit, comprehensive, coherent set of ethical principles applicable to the way science is communicated’ (Priest, Goodwin, & Dahlstrom, 2018). This is certainly true if the aim is to establish ethical principles based on what Held describes as rational and individualism-based ethical approaches (Held, 2006) such as rule-based ethics (think deontology) or consequence-based ethics (think utilitarianism). These approached to ethics aim for universality in moral reasoning by following a set rational pat- tern, in an almost algorithmic way, with little consideration for the specific contextual details. Indeed, this is part of the appeal of these theories, their universality. Most professional ethics are deontological or rule-based ethics, where the principles are taken as rules. Because practical ethics is mired with contextual subtleties that demand consideration, rule-based ethics works well for fields that operate within a limited and coherent context where the ethical issues are likely to be recurrent and fairly consistent. But as Priest, Goodwin and Dahlstrom explained, for a field as varied and diverse as science communication where the context and details are often significantly unique, a ‘universalised’, algorithmic approached approach such as rule-based or consequence-based ethics fall short. Once more fine-grained, detailed context is taken into account, the application of seemingly universal rules regularly lead to deeply counter-intuitive (and often outright fallacious) claims. For example, Kantian deontology—the view that a principle is morally right if it can be universalised and wrong if it can’t be—might cope well with a high-level view on the morality of lying. A deontologist would consider the principle ‘it is ok to lie’ and follow the universalisation of the idea algorithmically. If lying was universalised and everyone did it, no one would trust one another. If there were no trust left, then lying would be futile. So it is would be irrational to want lying to be universalised as it would be self-defeating. Therefore, it is morally wrong to lie. But it’s very rare to just lie; lying occurs in context and with details; we lie to protect someone we love; because we’re ashamed; because we want to make others happy; and so on and so forth. The details and context matter, and once we do include them, thing becomes a little strange. Take the simple act of having lunch. While having ‘It’s ok to have lunch’ is a fine principle according to Kantian deontology, it turns out that the detailed and contextualised principle ‘it’s ok to have lunch at the cafeteria at 12.30 on Mondays’ is immoral. Because if everyone did so, the cafeteria would be overly full, and almost no one would get their lunch or a seat, so I couldn’t want to universalise the claim 86 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

‘it is ok to have lunch in the cafeteria on Monday at 12.30’. And similar troubles are found when details and contexts are added to any universalised, rational, algorithmic ethical approaches. For science communication, the context and details of decisions matter because the breadth of the field means these are likely to be vastly varied. In response to this ‘applicability’ challenge, alternative approaches to ethical reasoning have garnered attention; of specific interest here are principlism and relational or feminist ethics. These two approaches to ethics have come to present rich alternatives, especially in applied contexts, and suggest useful and appropriate ways forward to thinking about an ethics of science communication. One of the most effective and successful approaches to broad and complex ethical fields has been medical and bioethics. As explained in Chapter 3, bioethics takes a principlism approach based on three core principles: respect for persons, beneficence and justice. While these principles don’t seem particularly relevant to science communication, the approach— principlism—has appeal. Unlike the approach taken in science, journalistic or communication ethics, which are all somewhat rule-based, principlism doesn’t dictate or prescribe what should be done. Instead, it directs the decision-maker towards ways of reflecting on their decision by inviting those involved to consider how their actions interact with the principles. But there is something more that bioethics offers that is specifically pertinent to science communication; bioethics has been successful at helping both practitioners (clinical ethics) and researchers (research ethics) think through the complex issues they may face. Science communication is also a blended field of practitioners and researchers. This leads us to think that principlism could serve science communication well. Relational ethics also provides a rich area that science communication has not explored, nor may be seen as relevant to the practices in the field. In Chapter 8, we discussed the importance of relationships, from the client- professional relationship to the communicator-public relationship. Rela- tional ethics can help us making sense of the role of relationships as a determinant of what counts as moral or good communication and helping us think through what a ‘good’ communicative relationship is. There is another motivation for turning to relational ethics. Relational ethics is also often termed feminist ethics, and paying closer attention to gender is 9 WHAT ARE THE GUIDING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES … 87 a move much needed in science communication. While scientific spokespeople remain predominantly male (and white and heterosexual), professional science communicators, such as those involved in institutional communication, PR and science journalism (other than those in managerial positions), are predominantly women (Beurer-Zuellig, Fieseler, & Meckel, 2009). With this in mind, relational ethics also offers insights and ways forward that elude universalised, rational, algorithmic ethical approaches. Relational ethics, ‘a contemporary approach to ethics that situates ethical action explicitly in relationship’ (Austin, Bergum, & Dossetor, 2008)dif- fers from other ethical approaches by acknowledging that we are always and unavoidably engaged in and shaped by dependent social relations. As Held claims, ‘Every person starts out as a child dependent on those providing us care, and we remain interdependent with others in thoroughly fundamental ways throughout our lives. That we can think and act as if we were independent depends on a network of social relations making it possible forustodoso’(Held,2006). Very fundamentally, relational ethics starts with the view that such relations are core to ethical reasoning. The best- known version of feminist ethics, ethics of care, argues that ‘care’ ought to be the quality we strive for in our relations. But whether ‘care’ or some other virtue is sought, the point of relational ethics is that how we engage with others, and the relations that we hold with one another, is morally important and relevant. The ethical reasoning process ‘is not based in a disengaged process of moral reasoning conceived as objective and existing outside the situated reality of human existence’ (Austin et al., 2008). In this, relational ethics speaks the same language as principlism, as, indeed,theydoinmanyways(Edwards,2011). Relational ethics doesn’t dictate or prescribe what should be done. It also doesn’t offer a new algorithmic process for finding out or deciding what we ought to do. Instead, it invites us to look at the relations in which we find ourselves making decisions and reflect on how these relations matter. Relational ethics also shares similarity to principlism in that it has been widely used in practice, and like principlism, predominantly in the medical setting. Principlism and relational ethics diverge from standard ‘ethical codes’ found in much professional ethics in that they are not a universalised, rational, algorithmic approaches; they are what we might term ‘reflexive ethics’—they invite reflection about acting-in-context. Principlism and relational ethics also speak to the fields many peculiarities; they have both been used in very real and applied contexts as well as in research and academic 88 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH settings, and both can speak usefully and intelligently to a wide variety of issues. What they offer that a standard ethical code of practice doesn’t is a toolkit for thinking through issue so as to act well. While some might find it a weakness that no clear code is prescribed, for a field as varied as science communication that faces a range of contextually diverse issues, the focus on ethical reasoning rather than ethical acts is a welcomed and necessary virtue. What we would need now is to determine what core principles and values would be appropriate for science communication. Clearly, the principles of bioethics were conceived with medical and research concerns in mind. We could mount a solid argument for why some of those principles could be considered relevant to science communication, say beneficence. But other principles of bioethics seem far less relevant, such as autonomy. We want to draw on the cases and discussion we’ve covered in the volume as a basis for principles for science communication. Specifically, we want to propose an ethics of science communication base on four principles: Utility, Accuracy, Kairos and Generosity.

Utility

This book opened with a discussion on the prima facie view that science communication is morally good because being informed is morally good. In that discussion, the inherent ‘good’ of information was shown to be overly simplistic. Information can be, but is not always, good. A key determinant of whether or not communicating information turns out to be a good thing is the interaction between the usability of the information and the latter’s capacity to harm, cause distress or mislead; what Bostrom terms ‘Information hazards’ (Bostrom, 2011). Whether something is ‘useful’ is inherently subjective and view point dependant. While some communication is clearly useful (informing local populations of disease outbreaks, for example), other seemingly useless or trivial communication might be useful in creating enjoyment for those involved in the communication. And creating enjoyment should not be dismissed. The classic term for subjective value in ethics is Utility, and this is the ﬁrst principle.

The principle of Utility, or subjective value, requires that the science communication activity be carried out with a consideration of the value of the communication, such as the capacity of the communication to empower all involved, to enrich the lives of all involved, to lead to better social or individual outcomes and so on. This includes weighing up the potential beneﬁts and 9 WHAT ARE THE GUIDING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES … 89

the potential harms of the communication, including the possible beneﬁts of not communicating. While value, in this context, is subjective and dependant on the stakeholders, particular attention ought to be given in cases where the communication is aimed at providing decision-making information. In such cases, the possibility of action based on the information needs to be considered.

Accuracy

One of the defining aspects of science is its commitment to accuracy; scientific knowledge is as reliable and rigorous a knowledge as one could hope for. Ideally, it’s as close to truth as possible. And this commitment to epistemic reliability and honesty holds throughout science communication, and this forms part of the normative foundations of the field, whether we refer to it as accuracy, truth, honesty or some other term. But science communication is more than simply factual reporting. It also includes entertaining, engaging, exciting and challenging stakeholders, through stories, imageries, fictions and more. So while science communication has a commitment to epistemic reliability, especially with regard to the empirical world, it’s not committed to truth per se. Still, unhelpful fictions, intentional misinformation and false representations break the ethical norms of science communication. Balancing a commitment to truthiness (truth, even if possible, would not necessarily be within the remit of science communication) and permissible fiction can be encapsulated by the term accuracy and is our second principle.

The principle of Accuracy requires that any deviation from veracity and accuracy be carefully considered. This includes the use of ﬁction, the practice of storifying and such like. The principle of accuracy also makes explicit the point that while we might strive for factual communication, access to absolute truth is never achievable. Science communication activities, then, are both committed to contextualised epistemic reliability and aware of the human limits of knowledge. 90 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Kairos

In Chapter 5, we highlighted some of the ethical issues around ‘when’ science communication occurs. Drawing on the classical Greek distinction between Chronos and Kairos, between time as quantitative and measurable and time as qualitative and opportune, we argue that the latter is essential to (morally) good science communication. No one can ‘say the right thing’ unless it’s ‘said at the right time’. Considerations of timing in topics, such as emerging technologies, for example, or natural disasters, are as important as considerations of content. Indeed, timing is fundamental to morally good communication, including good science communication. Timing, like all ethical issues, is a balancing act. It’s about balancing off the time it takes to ensure reliability of the information communicated, with the time those involved need to have the capacity to act on the communication, with the time when those involved are able to engage in the communication. Hence, the third principle we’ll propose is Kairos.

The principle of Kairos, or opportune time, requires that the timing of science communication activities, whether practice or research, ought to be given special consideration. Speciﬁcally, consideration ought to be given to the potential for harms, beneﬁts and utility that communicating at a given time entails. Science communication activities ought to be carried out at a time such that the communication is maximally empowering for all stakeholders.

Generosity

Drawing on feminist ethics and placing relationships at the core of ethical reasoning, we want to draw attention to how each stakeholder relate in communicative acts and how they stand towards the others. What should be the defining quality of the relationships when engaged in a communicative act? In many ways, this speaks to the tensions in science communication about who counts as a science communicator, who do science communicators have a commitment to and what roles are science communication roles. Sometimes the drive for communication is pedagogic (and the relationship is teacher-learner), other times it is democratic (and the relationship is 9 WHAT ARE THE GUIDING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES … 91 citizen to citizen), and yet other times it is promotional (and the relationship is business to client). And there are many more relationships besides these. So what brings them together and, more importantly, what virtue or what overarching principle should guide these relationships. As mentioned above, care is the most common answer to this question in ethics (hence ethics of care), and while care is relevant and can apply to science communication, we’d like to propose a more context-specific virtue: generosity. By generosity, we mean first and foremost epistemic generosity; this means undertaking communication activities with an assumption that the other parties involved (the audience, the stakeholders, the counterpublics, etc.) have their own worthwhile knowledge, experiences and aspirations and that these can contribute to better knowledge and understanding of the world. Put simply, the starting position isn’t ‘I know best’. And secondly, by generosity, we mean distributive generosity; this means communicating with a wide variety of actors. Who gets access to knowledge and who gets to participate in the communication matter.

The principle of Generosity requires that communication activities be approached in a spirit of generosity, both in regard to other actor’s epistemic content and position and in regard to the breadth of participation and engagement. The relationships underpinning science communication should be motivated by a spirit of generosity towards others and by a genuine desire to better understanding of the world around us, of other perspective and of others’ knowledge.

Bibliography

Austin, W., Bergum, V., & Dossetor, J. (2008). Relational ethics. In Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 748–749). Los Angeles: Sage. Beurer-Zuellig, B., Fieseler, C., & Meckel, M. (2009). A descriptive inquiry into the corporate communication profession in Europe. Public Relations Review, 35(3), 270–279. Bostrom, N. (2011). Information hazards: A typology of potential harms from knowledge. Review of Contemporary Philosophy, 10,44–79. Edwards, S. D. (2011). Is there a distinctive care ethics? Nursing Ethics, 18(2), 184–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733010389431. Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand. 92 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Keohane, R. O., Lane, M., & Oppenheimer, M. (2014). The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty. Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 13(4), 343–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594x14538570. Priest, S., Goodwin, J., & Dahlstrom, M. F. (2018). Ethics and practice in science communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Seethaler, S., Evans, J. H., Gere, C., & Rajagopalan, R. M. (2019). Science, values, and science communication: Competencies for pushing beyond the deficit model. Science Communication, 41(3), 378–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1075547019847484. Spitzer, S. (2017). Five principles of holistic science communication. https://blogs. lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/04/12/five-principles-of-holistic- science-communication. CHAPTER 10

Ethical Science Communication in Practice

Abstract Principlism might seem a lofty ideal, so this chapter takes an applied turn to ground the abstract discussion in real-world settings. This is done through three case studies of how the principles proposed in the previous chapters can be applied; the proposes principles being Utility (of the information communicated), Accuracy, Kairos and Generosity. The ﬁrst case considered is a case the book opened with involving genetic testing. The second case we consider is the well-known L’Aquila earthquake case, and lastly, we consider the bias that arises because unsuccessful science communication fails to get mentioned. Each of these cases shows not only what is problematic, but also sheds light on how the principles can be used to be more ethical.

Keywords Ethics principles for science communication · Applied ethics · L’Aquila earthquake · Negative ﬁndings

Remember Jennifer, from the introduction? Jennifer, the 39 years old who was tested for genetic mutations linked to breast cancer, the condition that led to her grandmother’s death. Jennifer, who was offered additional tests on another 20 mutations, and, as it turns out, had one such mutation. One that, for those with a family history of stomach cancer, was very very bad news indeed, but for Jennifer who’s family has no such history, well…well no one can say much about what the mutation means. It could be terrible or

© The Author(s) 2019 93 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_10 94 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH it could be immaterial. But either way, just knowing about it was surreal and less than helpful. So how should we communicate in such circumstances? Do the principles we’ve proposed help, and if so, how? In the previous chapter, we made an argument for a principlist approach to the ethics of science communication based on four principles, namely Utility, Accuracy, Kairos and Generosity. While the principles themselves were described, their application, and how a principlist approach is practised was left very theoretical. This chapter aims to go some way to providing a sense of the applicability of our proposed ethics of science communication. Drawing on medical and bioethics, we will use case studies to show how principlism can shed light and guide our thinking on ethical issues in science communication. Before turning to these cases, we will present an overview of what ‘principlism in practice’ might look like, including its scope and limitations, as well as revisiting the proposed principles.

How Can We Apply the Principles to Be Ethical Science Communicators?

Before considering applied examples of principlism, one point about ‘how’ they get applied to cases is important to note. The principles are non- hierarchical. What this means is that no single one of the principles overrides the others by default. No single one principle dominates our thinking or acts as the ethical compass. In a sense, they all need to be taken equally seriously. The challenge is that in some cases, two or more of the principles may be in conflict and may pull in different directions. This is where the hard work begins, and in many ways, this is the space where ethics really needs to be considered. For example, when communicating a finding about health or diet, the principle of Utility suggests we should communicate aspects that are meaningful and relevant to the audience. But this might well lead to misrepresenting the potential negative effects of dairy found in a single study into ‘Give up dairy products to beat cancer’ claims (Hicks, 2014). The principle of Accuracy, on the other, suggests that we should communicate information that is rigorous, accurate, and reliable, for example that dairy offers both protective and harmful effects (Cancer Society, 2012). But sometimes, reliable information, especially in complex areas like health, is un-actionable. In such cases, we need to consider the conflicting principles, weigh them up, and see how the other principles affect our reasoning. 10 ETHICAL SCIENCE COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE 95

When applying the principles, in cases where the principles are in accord, we ought to uphold each of them. That is, we ought to ensure that our communication provides utility, is truthful and accurate, is well timed, and we ought to this in a spirit of generosity towards our public. However, this is a somewhat idealised duty. When thinking through ‘real-world’, actual situations, we need to balance off the demands of each of the principles by assessing which is more relevant and which holds more weight in that particular circumstance. This may seem to suggest that the principles are unlikely to ever lead to a clear solution or to ever explicit identify which action we should choose as ‘the right action’. But that’s not right on both theoretical and practical grounds. Firstly, from a theoretical point, this is missing the mark of what ethics is about. As has been well discussed with regard to the use of principlism in bioethics, ‘the four principles approach does not provide a method for choosing’ (Gillon, 1994). As moral agents, we all have a duty to come to our own answers, but to do so by drawing on a common set of underlying moral commitments (Macklin, 2003). This common moral ground is what the principles offer. Secondly, from a practical point, the principles can (and often do) act as a very efficient moral compass, sometimes because only one of the principles seems to really matter, and sometimes because all the principles point in similar direction. As long as there is more than one principle, there is likely to sometimes be tension, but this is neither a theoretical nor a practical hindrance. If anything, it’s a virtue; it helps making the ethical explicit. In the previous chapter, we presented four principles. We could have suggested three, or five, or some other number of principles. But we settled on four, not because we were committed to find four, but because these principles seemed to speak especially strongly and pertinently to science communication. And these principles happened to number four. So here we are, with the principles of Utility, Accuracy, Kairos and Generosity. To briefly summarise them: The principle of Utility places a moral duty on science communicators to consider the usefulness of the information or communication; to consider the value the information or communication brings to those engaged in the communication, be it practical value, intellectual value, emotional value or some other value. But fundamentally, the principle of Utility makes it explicit that a given piece of communication is not to be assumed as valuable or good a priori. The principle of Accuracy places a moral duty on science communicators to consider the reliability and rigour of the information or communication; 96 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH to consider when such rigour or reliability can be sacrifice or reduced, for expediency, for explanatory power, for narrative flow or for some other reason. Fundamentally, the principle of Accuracy makes it explicit that in any piece of communication, the reliability and rigour of the information communicated is always less than perfect and is always a choice. The principle of Kairos places a moral duty on science communicators to consider the timing of the communication; to consider when is a good time to communicate, and when is the right time to communicate, including the effect of timing on expected impact, on the capacity of those involved to act and react, on the urgency of the situation and so on. Fundamentally, the principle of Kairos makes it explicit that in any piece of communication, the when is as important as the how and the what. Lastly, the principle of Generosity places a moral duty on science communicators to approach others with a spirit of generosity, both in terms of epistemic agency and in terms of breadth of engagement. Fundamentally, the principle of Generosity makes it explicit that in any piece of science communication, the stance we take towards who is included, how they are included and how the knowledge they bring with them is always a choice. Armed with these principles, let us now see how they might be employed in some very practical cases, starting with Jennifer.

Jennifer Jennifer is a paradigm case of very accurate but un-actionable knowledge that has the potential to be deeply distressing. The information (that she has that specific mutation) is accurate and rigorous. But what concerns the communicator (the geneticist in this case) is whether and how to communicate this information. Two principles seem especially pertinent here: the principle of Utility and the principle of Kairos, though the other two principles will also come into play as we think our way through. The principle of Kairos suggests being considerate about the timing of our communication. In fact, thinking about timing, the principle of Kairos makes it clear that in an ideal world, we should have engaged in some preliminary communication before carrying out the tests (and then only carried out the tests if Jennifer had expressed an informed desire for them to take place). But this is not always the case, and it wasn’t here. In this case, the tests have been carried out, and (unless we find a working time-machine) we are 10 ETHICAL SCIENCE COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE 97 left with the ethical dilemma of having to decide if we should communicate, and how. Given where we find ourselves, it’s worth thinking about utility of communicating the findings to her (but we’ll return to timing later). The principle of Utility suggests that we might not necessarily want to communicate the information given it is un-actionable, or at least, we should reserve judgement on the merit of communicating it. In fact, the principle of Utility highlights that anyone other than Jennifer is ill-placed to assess the value of knowing about the gene mutation. If Jennifer is the only one able to assess the utility of the information, then thinking about her knowledge and her state seem essential. The principle of Generosity means we should take into consideration Jennifer’s epistemic base and be generous towards her a person. This means we ought to consider her prior knowledge and understanding of genetic mutations and be thoughtful of where she is at personally. Based on the latter, we might think about the principle of Accuracy and about how much (if any) of the information we ought to say. If Jennifer is deeply knowledgeable about genetics and has expressed prior understanding that such mutations might occur and not be relevant, then a fairly frank discussion might be broached. If Jennifer is less knowledge, but emotionally stable, Kairos might come into play again. Per- haps a preliminary discussion about the fact that some people have genetic mutations that are only relevant in other’s contexts, and gauging Jennifer’s interest or receptiveness to finding if she had some such mutations (and then, if receptive, a more open disclosure). Other factors might affect our decisions, and exactly what the right course of action will depend on the circumstance, but the principles offer a way to guide our thinking and help us navigate the complexities of ethical communication.

The Earthquake Prediction The second case to think about is something like the L’Aquila case. In 2009, an earthquake swarm led to a meeting of the leading scientists to assess the risk of L’Aquila, a city in central Italy, experiencing a severe earthquake. After the meeting, the public ofﬁcial and head of Italy’s Civil Protection Department (DPC) made a number of reassuring statements1 with the aim of calming social concerns, despite the fact that there is no

1For example, claiming that ‘the scientific community continues to assure me that, to the contrary, it’s a favourable situation because of the continuous discharge of energy’. 98 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH way of scientifically being able to predict in anything like a precise way if an earthquake is forthcoming (or not forthcoming). There are many unique social, political and historical factors at play in this specific case which played out over the following year. The reassuring public statements led to criminal convictions against both the public officials and the scientists involved in forecasting, to legal appeals, to much debate about the role of science, uncertainty and public communication and much more. Much has been written about these and their implications for communication strategies (Alexander, 2014; Benessia & De Marchi, 2017; Marincioni et al., 2012; Sellnow, Iverson, & Sellnow, 2017). But what concerns us here is the more general case of the ethics of communicating science in such circumstances. Unlike the Jennifer case, which is a paradigm case of very accurate but un-actionable knowledge, this is a paradigm case of communicating about very actionable, albeit uncertain knowledge. And while the Jennifer case had the possibility of very profound personal costs (through anguish, etc.), cases such as L’Aquila come with a significant social cost. As with Jennifer’s case, the question is whether and how to communicate the information. Turning to the principles, the principle of Accuracy suggests we should be as accurate, rigorous and reliable in the knowledge we communicate. But getting accurate knowledge may not be available immediately. In fact, it may not be available until it’s too late. This links with the principle of Kairos, which says we should communicate at the right time. The right time, in a case like this, is clear. It’s before an earthquake strikes. In order to do that, we likely need to revise what we seek in terms of accuracy. Given the time constraints, there are a couple of ways to revise accuracy. On the one hand, we can sacrifice accuracy by communicating more forceful about our claims than we are certain (we may say ‘you really need to go’ despite not being sure, or ‘no need to worry at all’, again, despite not being so sure). Alternatively, we can sacrifice some of the epistemic authority by being accurate over the uncertainty of the science. The principle of Utility suggests we should communicate useable information and depending on who we are communicating with, what counts as useful in such a context can change. Here, the principle of Generosity matters, especially epistemic generosity. A consideration of what the public is likely to know, and to treat their knowledge and their capacity to know and understand with respect matters. In the case of a public that has no or little understanding, history or context of earthquakes, the communication might be more practical and forthright. In the case of a public that does have an understanding, a history or experiences of earthquakes, then 10 ETHICAL SCIENCE COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE 99 being more open and more accurate about the uncertainty allows them to make more self-directed, decisions. As Vincenzo Vittorini, a surgeon who has lived in L’Aquila his whole life, explains, the science communication ‘may have in some way deprived us of the fear of earthquakes. The science, on this occasion, was dramatically superficial, and it betrayed the culture of prudence and good sense that our parents taught us on the basis of experience and of the wisdom of the previous generations’ (Hall, 2011).

Stop Doing Bad Science Communication Science communication evaluation is a hot topic in both the research and practice community in science communication (Illingworth, 2017;Jensen, 2014). To round out our cases, we wanted to point to an episode of practice where a science communicator evaluated their work, found out it wasn’t working and made the argument that others probably shouldn’t pursue it either. In this way, this case would have shown that the goodness or badness of science communication engagement has a moral component. Somewhat astonishingly, the literature is not awash in negative examples. Now, there are probably at least a few good reasons for this. First, as science communication has become an academic field of study, it has borrowed an academic tradition—not to publish negative findings. Second, to understand a ‘bad’ example, one needs a theory of what science communication is. Much like Popper was able to say that Marx and Freud were ‘unscientific’ when he had a developed theory of falsification, science communication would need its leading theorists to point to some communication examples that were un-science communication. Third, and maybe even most interestingly for the practice of science communication, calling out bad examples could be humiliating. These reasons suggest their own solutions—publish some negative findings and make it a feature of our field that we can readily identify the bad with the good. Second, spend some time with the science communication literature to identify how a theory of the field is progressing—and there are some high points. We could, for example, point to Brian Wyn- ne’s canonical study of the Cumbrian sheep farmers around Sellafield as a case that nudged the field towards some of its founding principles (Wynne, 1994). The problem of humiliation is probably more pressing in some ways. Who hasn’t attempted some science communication that has bombed? For some episodes, the reasons are banal and predictable—communicators were not prepared, little attention was given to appropriateness of the science. 100 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

But what of those other episodes of science communication, where everything *should* have worked? What about those programmes of science engagement that may have just run their course and yet continue past their sell-by date? A culture of generosity in science communication might go some way towards encouraging the discussion of such issues within the field. In the light of a discouraging lack of cases that probe science communication success on normative grounds, we did find one in the literature that calls for ethical exploration. Emily Dawson’s book-length study of equity and exclusion in everyday science learning points to the numerous ways that science communication and engagement can go wrong. Dawson worked with 5 different community groups excluded by science engagement activities, most in the museum/science centre context (Dawson, 2019). What she found was that science engagement in some cases reproduces patterns of exclusion that have been set in place by colonialism, racism and misogyny. While she points to examples in citizen science and in grass-roots community science development that break this mould, her research demands a high level of ethical reasoning for the contemporary science communicator. What is the utility of the contemporary science centre if it excludes audiences? Given that we currently live in a time of extraordinary migration, shouldn’t these issues take higher priority? Dawson’s work also points out the inaccuracy of representing the scientific tradition as predominantly white and Western—how do science communicators accurately portray the global heritage of science (Harding, 1998)? And finally, there is the principle of generosity. The UNHCR points out the real value that migration has brought to host countries, both in economic and in cultural terms (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2019). The principle of generosity suggests that science communicators might return some of that value by not just welcoming everyone, not just inviting, but tending to the communication that encourages all people to engage with science.

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Cancer Society. (2012). Dairy foods and cancer risk. Dawson, E. (2019). Equity, exclusion and everyday science learning: The experiences of minoritised groups. London: Routledge. Gillon, R. (1994). Medical ethics: Four principles plus attention to scope. British Medical Journal, 309(6948), 184. Hall, S. S. (2011). Scientists on trial: At fault? Nature News, 477 (7364), 264–269. Harding, S. G. (1998). Is science multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, feminisms, and epistemologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hicks, C. (2014). Give up dairy products to beat cancer. The Telegraph. Illingworth, S. (2017). Delivering effective science communication: Advice from a professional science communicator. Paper Presented at the Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology. Jensen, E. (2014). The problems with science communication evaluation. Journal of Science Communication, 13(1), C04. Macklin, R. (2003). Applying the four principles. Journal of Medical Ethics, 29(5), 275–280. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.29.5.275. Marincioni, F., Appiotti, F., Ferretti, M., Antinori, C., Melonaro, P., Pusceddu, A., & Oreﬁcini-Rosi, R. (2012). Perception and communication of seismic risk: The 6 April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake case study. Earthquake Spectra, 28(1), 159–183. Sellnow, D. D., Iverson, J., & Sellnow, T. L. (2017). The evolution of the opera- tional earthquake forecasting community of practice: The L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 45(2), 121–139. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2019). Contribution to the expert symposium on international migration and development (UN/POP/MIG-1ES/2019/5). New York: United Nations. From https:// www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/events/other/ symposium/201902/documents/papers/5.UNHCR.pdf. Wynne, B. (1994). May the sheep safely graze? A reﬂexive view of the expert-lay knowledge divide. In B. Szerszynski, S. Lash, & B. Wynne (Eds.), Risk environment and modernity: Towards an new ecology (pp. 44–83). London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage. CHAPTER 11

Is Science Communication Ethical? A Question of Justice

Abstract So far this book has focused on the ethics of science communication practice, culminating in a set of proposed principles for the field. This chapter takes a different tack and looks at the ethics of the field of science communication as a whole; is there something specifically moral about science communication as a field. The chapter considers oft-repeated claims that there is an anti-science crisis and a science communication crisis and argues there is no such crisis. There maybe an epistemic crisis, or an expert- trust crisis, but these stretch far beyond science. The chapter then looks at the effect of presenting these crises as being specifically about science on other fields of knowledge and to the social imagining of what good knowledge is.

Keywords Science communication · Epistemic justice · Anti-science · Crisis discipline

One of the rewarding aspects of working in science communication (and given this book is primarily aimed at those in science communication, hopefully you’ll agree) is that we can generally feel good about the work that we do and how it contributes to society. Communicating knowledge is a good, useful and valuable pursuit, with bonus points going to those who specialise in communicating technically complex knowledge such as science and technology. Indeed, the value often placed on making knowledge accessible

© The Author(s) 2019 103 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_11 104 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH and understandable, and the importance of having well-articulated scientific knowledge in the public sphere is why many enter the field in the first place. For others, the drive might be the importance of ensuring science and the scientific community hears and interacts with society more broadly and in better ways. Either way, the motivations are to make the world a better place. While there are well-rehearsed ideas of mad and evil scientists, usually pictured as somewhat rogue agents, it’s much harder (and somewhat comical) to imagine a mad and evil science communicator driven to their activity by some nefarious aims. Science communication, then, seems a morally good thing to do. But if science communication is morally good, in what sense is it good. No doubt. Science communication can be morally good—science communication acts carried out thoughtfully, with good outcomes, in the right circumstances. Indeed, the previous chapters looked at exactly this; how do we do morally good science communication. But there is another sense in which science communication could be good. In this latter sense, it’s not just that some acts or events of science communication are good, but that science communication per se is morally good; that there is something about science communication that makes it an especially virtuous or praiseworthy pursuit. Put simply, should science communication activities be morally praised in specific instances (when they are especially moral), or should science communication simpliciter be morally praised. Science communication’s hybrid background feeds into this dilemma. Science fields are usually viewed as inherently neutral. Communication practice has closer and more complicated ethical alignments (think: journalism as a public good). As discussed earlier, science has a funny relationship to values, and part of this relationship is a long-lasting commitment to what might be thought of as ethical neutrality. Physics is a prime example of this ethical neutrality; physics helps us understand the physical world, and this can be used for enormous good, and for enormous harm. But physics itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just physics. It’s neutral. The moral praise or blame is not attached to the discipline, but to specific acts or events stemming from physics, the classic example being nuclear weapons. In other words, the field of physics is morally praiseworthy (or blameworthy) in specific instances; it is not praised for being inherently morally good. The view of physics as removed from ethics, as being inherently neutral, is a view also held of most scientific fields. Chemistry can lead to good in its application, but is, in and of itself, neutral. And this is also commonly thought of biology, astronomy, geology, etc. 11 IS SCIENCE COMMUNICATION ETHICAL? A QUESTION OF JUSTICE 105

But some scientific fields have value-laden missions. Fields like medical research, conservation biology and military research don’t simply generate new knowledge that can be equally applied for good or evil; these fields generate new knowledge with a specific purpose in mind (to heal in the case of the first, to help preserve nature in the second, to create more accurate and lethal weapons in the third), aims that are seen as inherently value laden. Such mission-driven disciplines, as they are sometimes called (Meine, Soule, & Noss, 2006; Sandbrook, Adams, Büscher, & Vira, 2013), take on a moral mantel by virtue of their inherent aims. Unlike chemistry and physics, which are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy in specific instances, mission-driven disciplines are themselves viewed as inherently morally endowed. When the mission is viewed as praiseworthy, the discipline is itself viewed as inherently praiseworthy, and conversely when the mission is viewed as morally blameworthy. Focusing on praiseworthy mission-driven disciplines, there is a further distinction between those that are in it for the long game and those that come with a sense of urgency where inaction is likely to lead to ‘a pending societal crisis’ (Lafferty, 2009). The impacts of climate change, and especially its effect on the spread and incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria, for example, makes climate change health-related research a crisis discipline. Crisis disciplines are mission-driven disciplines where urgent action is required in order to prevent or minimise likely harms, making crisis disciplines inherently praiseworthy mission-driven disciplines. The idea of crisis discipline has mostly been applied to fields in health, such as cancer research, and in environmental science such as conservation biology in an age of ever-increasing biodiversity loss (Chan, 2008). More relevantly for us, environmental communication has been suggested as a crisis discipline, calling on ‘environmental communication scholars and practitioners to provide the recommendations and/or “tools” for many of the communication challenges that [the] field is called upon to address’ (Cox, 2007). Given the significant overlap between science communication and environmental communication (indeed, is climate change communication an ‘environmental communication’ topic or a ‘science communication’ topic?), it seems appropriate to ask: is science communication a crisis discipline? No doubt science communication seems like mission-driven discipline, but is the mission dealing with a ‘pending societal crisis’ and/or is the mission inherently praiseworthy? 2018 was ‘a banner year in the war on science’, starts an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (Schulman, 2019). Leading public voices 106 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH about science, such as physicist Brian Cox, increasingly express a concern about the imminent rise of anti-science (Morton, 2018). And the threat posed by the scientifically (intentionally or unintentionally) uninformed on democracy is recurrent theme in western discourse. Indeed, if these claims are true, then we have, as Scientific American puts it, a ‘science communication crisis’ (Morton, 2018). As is suggested in the article, the solution is to do rigorous research so as to gain ‘a deeper understanding of both the process of effective science communication and the outcomes of communication in terms of public understanding and sentiment’. We also need to ‘learn to engage without sensationalizing, enchant without deceiving, compel while staying true to the underlying science’. We need graduates (and possibly undergraduates too) in the sciences to learn how to communicate as an intrinsic part of their studies. Put simply, we urgently need science communication. According to this picture, the world is facing an epistemic crisis, one where science is not valued as the reliable knowledge it actually is, where anti-science is gaining ground, and where our democratic aspirations are being hijacked by scientific falsehoods and misinformation (Smol, 2018). There is a ‘pending societal crisis’ over reliable knowledge and trust in science, and communication is key, making science communication a crisis discipline. The framing of science communication as a crisis discipline confounds two quite distinct ideas. On one hand, there is a thought that facts and information are being short-changed; that unjustified opinions are given the same epistemic worth as well-founded, reliable, factual claims. We can think of this as the ‘epistemic crisis’. And then there is the thought that science is under attack. That science, as an institution more broadly is dis- trusted, disliked and opposed. We can think of the latter as the ‘anti-science crisis’. While these might be related, the relationship is messy. While there is no doubt many people, in various context, deny or ignore scientifically well-established facts (from anti-vaccines to climate denial), these same people don’t necessarily (or even usually) reject science per se. Many who reject the scientific consensus on vaccines are very concerned about climate change because of the scientific consensus. Likewise, consider creationist, often presented as one of the anti-science group par excellence. Between 20 and 30% of American adults hold creationists beliefs (Funk, Smith, & Masci, 2019). Yet 87% of Americans think science and technology will have a positive impact in solving future problems; more so than schools, universities, the military, religious groups, government or any other social contributor (Parker, Morin, & Menasce Horowitz, 2019). Importantly, given only 13% 11 IS SCIENCE COMMUNICATION ETHICAL? A QUESTION OF JUSTICE 107 of the population didn’t express high praise for science, but over 20% of the population are creationists, it implies that at the very least some (and more probably most) creationists think of science as a positive force. Put simply, while creationists might dispute or deny specific aspects of science— namely evolutionary theory—they are not anti-science. In fact, support for science has not really changed for decades (Funk & Kenned, 2019). If we want to be scientific about public attitudes to science, there really isn’t an ‘anti-science crisis’. There might be, though, an ‘epistemic crisis’. Indeed, claims that facts are being increasingly dismissed when advantageous to do so may well have some grounds. Certainly, the fact that ‘post-truth’ was named word of the year in 2016 speaks to this concern. But here is where the mess really takes hold. The dismissal or denying of facts is not, in any way, specifically about science. Ignoring or denying the inherent violent racisms of the rising alt-right is well documented and evidenced, yet as often ignored, denied and dismissed as facts about vaccines. Facts about the (not abnormal) rates of criminality from illegal immigrants are likewise well established (Hagan & Palloni, 2014; Spenkuch, 2013), yet extravagant claims that dismiss, deny or ignore this fact are as common as claims that dismiss, deny or ignore facts about climate change. The point is, while claims to an ‘epistemic crisis’ might well be accurate, there is nothing specific about science in this crisis. And if this is not specifically about science—what we mean by ‘science’ does some work here, and we’ll return to it below—claims that science communication should be viewed as a crisis discipline seem to over- reach (especially when taking into consideration that science actually enjoys high levels of public support), possibly stemming from confounding the unfounded ‘anti-science crisis’ with the messily related ‘epistemic crisis’. So science communication is not a crisis discipline. That doesn’t, on its own, resolve our starting question as to whether science communication should be viewed inherently morally good, or as morally good in specific instances. There have been many benefits attributed to science communication as a way to highlight its inherent moral goodness (Stocklmayer, Gore, & Bryant, 2001). Classic reasons why science communication is a force for good include democratic reasons, on the grounds that in order to be good democratic citizens, the voting population needs to be knowledgeable about (or at least have access to) scientific information related to policy. Economic reasons, because science has been linked to economic growth, so having a scientifically literate society leads (or might lead) to great national economic prosperity. Utilitarian reasons based on the grounds that being scientifically literate allows for better choices, for example, by empowering 108 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH one to understand the value of vaccines. And there are cultural reasons, because science is a defining trait of modern culture, and being knowledgeable about ones’ culture is often viewed as good in itself. More reasons could be spelled out, but the fundamental point is that science communication might be inherently good (from a moral point of view) irrespective of whether it is a crisis discipline, based on what and how it contributes to and interacts with society. We opened the book by presenting science communication as being inherently linked to knowledge. Indeed, if science communication is not (at least to a large extent) about communicating good reliable knowledge, about making knowledge public, about sharing knowledge, then it’s hard to know what the ‘science’ in ‘science communication’ brings to the party. The standard reasons for praising and valuing science communication (such as the ones presented just now) are about knowledge and what knowledge contributes to society. So if science communication is to be viewed as an inherently morally good field, then that virtue comes from science communication’s relationship to knowledge, from science communication’s effect on our epistemic status. But there are a number of reasons to also be concerned about the ethical implications of science communication as a field (not just individual practices). Especially relevant are the implications of the science communication enterprise on our social epistemic status: on what counts, socially, as good knowledge. Underlying these concerns is the long- lasting confusion over what ‘science’ means. Specifically, over whether the ‘science’ in science communication refers to all knowledge or to empirical knowledge of the biophysical world only; is ‘science’ the kind of thing you study when you do a science degree, or is it more like ‘scientia’, its base term, meaning knowledge generally. The first concern is that science communication may, in fact, lead to some skewed public perception of science’s role in society, and this can lead to epistemic injustice. The institutional support that exists to promote science as a form of knowledge, to support and encourage support and acceptance for scientific knowledge as true and reliable can become problematic when science is only applied to the biophysical sciences (and indeed, this is how ‘science’ is most usually understood in science communication). The problem is that this institutional support (through government poli- cies and strategies, through academic pursuits, etc.) is only afforded to science, thereby positioning science as a uniquely important and relevant epistemic domain. There are many non-biophysical scientific facts that also matter, from historical facts to legal facts to social facts to facts about how 11 IS SCIENCE COMMUNICATION ETHICAL? A QUESTION OF JUSTICE 109 the market functions; yet no other domain receives such significant institutional support. This privileging science as the only domain receiving special support for communication can lead to a public perception of science and of scientists as epistemically dominant in a very general science, even in cases where scientific knowledge may not be as large or as relevant a fac- tor. As a consequence, other (non-scientific) facts and knowledge struggle to gather the same level of epistemic legitimacy which can be viewed as a form of epistemic injustice (Medvecky, 2018). For example, there are countless natural history museums worldwide (reinforcing the paradigm that scientific knowledge is fundamentally important), and these have long been a tradition in epistemic sharing. By contrast, the first and only ded- icated economic museum opened in Mexico City in 2006 (some central banks also have displays or small attached museums, but these latter are a subsidiary to the main activity of the banks, not their core function). This example might be dismissed on the grounds that economics is simply not to be compared with the rigorous of biophysical sciences, but that’s exactly the point! It’s near impossible to know if we view the biophysical sciences as more deserving of communication because they really are, or if we hold this view of the biophysical sciences because that’s the view that has been reinforced again and again through countless museums, documentaries, etc. (note that being rigorous doesn’t necessarily relate to being deserving of communication). The effect of such discrepancy on the public imagination of nature as an object and science as a branch of knowledge that helps us understand it compared to (in this case) the economy as an object and economics as a branch of knowledge that helps us understand it affects our social epistemic structure: what we, socially, take to be good, important, reliable and valuable knowledge. The second concern is related to the former and is that the biophysical sciences have a long history of expressing particularly strong social biases. Put simply, there is a massive over-representation of white males in the sciences. The concern here is that because science communication often aims to promote science as the epistemic domain par excellence, it inadver- tently reinforces stereotypes and entrenches the view of socially dominant groups as epistemically dominant. Since the biophysical sciences are primarily populated by the socially dominant groups, and science communication promotes science as the good knowledge, this reinforces the view that the dominant social group is also the epistemically dominant group; those in the socially dominant group know better while those in other groups become epistemically inferior. 110 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

Lastly, while science communication might be praised for its epistemic contributions—that it leads to better knowledge—much of what counts as science communication has little to no epistemic content. Indeed, much of science communication is, often explicitly, about promoting science simpliciter. Science outreach often states its aim as getting kids excited about science, without necessarily providing much, if any, knowledge content. In this sense, a large swathe of science communication is more akin to advertising for ‘brand science’ (Burns & Medvecky, 2018) than to pursuing any significant or meaningful epistemic outcome. Note that none of these make science communication a bad field, nor do each (or any) of these concerns necessarily present themselves in all science communication activities. But these concerns are exactly that: concerns over the epistemic impact science communication might have, and as such they force us to reconsider the prima facie moral virtues of science communication as a field. If science communication is primarily about knowledge (sharing knowledge across actors, making knowledge explicit, etc.) then the potential of science communication to cause epistemic harms—to create a false picture of what the knowledge-creating world is like—means we ought to be very careful before assuming that science communication is an inherently ethical field. If science communication is not about knowledge, then what is it about? And why would we think of it as inherently morally good in the first place? This is not to say that science communication is unethical, rather, it’s to say that science communication per se is ethically neutral and holds no inherent moral virtue. Science communication, then, is a mission-driven discipline, but not a crisis discipline. Done well, done ethically, and in the right circumstance, science communication is morally good. But done badly, thoughtlessly, or in the wrong circumstances, science communication can equally be morally bad. At its core, there’s a humbling take home here: that science communication is more like chemistry than medical research, and this comes with potential for wonder and greatness and as well as for harms and limitation.

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Cox, R. (2007). Nature’s “crisis disciplines”: Does environmental communication have an ethical duty? Environmental Communication, 1(1), 5–20. Funk, C., & Kenned, B. (2019). Public confidence in scientists has remained stable for decades. PEW Research Center. From https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2019/03/22/public-confidence-in-scientists-has-remained-stable-for- decades/. Funk, C., Smith, G., & Masci, D. (2019). How many creationists are there in America? Scientific American.Fromhttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ observations/how-many-creationists-are-there-in-america/. Hagan, J., & Palloni, A. (2014). Sociological criminology and the mythology of Hispanic immigration and crime. Social Problems, 46(4), 617–632. https://doi. org/10.2307/3097078. Lafferty, K. D. (2009). The ecology of climate change and infectious diseases. Ecology, 90(4), 888–900. https://doi.org/10.1890/08-0079.1. Medvecky, F. (2018). Fairness in knowing: Science communication and epistemic justice. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(5), 1393–1408. Meine, C., Soule, M., & Noss, R. F. (2006). “A mission-driven discipline”: The growth of conservation biology. Conservation Biology, 20(3), 631–651. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00449.x. Morton, J. (2018). Brian Cox: Why anti-science is a threat to our democracy. NZ Herald.Fromhttps://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_ id=1&objectid=12052496. Parker, K., Morin, R., & Menasce Horowitz, J. (2019). 2. Worries, priorities and potential problem-solvers: Looking to the future, public sees an America in decline on many fronts. PEW Research Center. From https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/ 2019/03/21/worries-priorities-and-potential-problem-solvers/. Sandbrook, C., Adams, W. M., Büscher, B., & Vira, B. (2013). Social research and biodiversity conservation. Conservation Biology, 27 (6), 1487–1490. https:// doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12141. Schulman, J. (2019). The 2018 list of the worst in anti-science. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. From https://thebulletin.org/2019/01/the-2018-list- of-the-worst-in-anti-science/. Smol, J. P. (2018). A crisis in science literacy and communication: Does reluctance to engage the public make academic scientists complicit?. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Science Publishing. Spenkuch, J. L. (2013). Understanding the impact of immigration on crime. Amer- ican Law and Economics Review, 16(1), 177–219. https://doi.org/10.1093/ aler/aht017. Stocklmayer, S., Gore, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Science communication in theory and practice (Vol. 14). Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. CHAPTER 12

Conclusion

Abstract Much of science communication has focused on doing effective communication. In closing the book, we bring it back to the idea that being effective without being moral is not, in itself, good. We acknowledge that doing morally good (as well as effective) science communication, whether as a practice or as research, takes resources, effort and know-how. This chapter aims to bring all of the previous chapters in a summary and provide some tools to help practitioners and researchers, teachers and students of science communication think about the ethics of what they do as they learn to do so effectively.

Keywords Ethics of science communication · Ethics of knowledge · Conclusion

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain—Note to the Young People’s Society, Greenpoint Presbyte- rian Church, 1901

Doing right, as Twain phrases it, is indeed astonishing. While most of us (usually) want to do right, and we think or feel we do so most the time, it turns out that we usual just do. And then, if need be, we reason why it was right (Haidt, 2001; Reynolds, Leavitt, & DeCelles, 2010). While

© The Author(s) 2019 113 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1_12 114 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH moral judgement comes quickly, moral reasoning, if it happens at all, most commonly happens post hoc, and predominantly in overtly morally challenging cases; we operate under an assumption that we are just doing right and spend little time actually reasoning about whether or why what we’re doing is the right thing to do. If we do spend time reasoning on the ethics of what we do, it’s usually after the fact, either as justification for what we did do or for the morally more courageous, as a critical reflection on what we did. The latter is particularly powerful in creating new moral norms, but happens less frequently than the former. To enable meaningful critical moral reflection and for moral reasoning to occur prior to action, tools are needed to guide and enable such reasoning. Science communication is no different. Knowledge, and the oft-assumed inherent value of knowledge, plays a significant role in bolstering science communicators’ assumption that they are doing the right thing. And maybe they are (and we too, since we are also science communicators). The assumed value of knowledge also acts to diminish the apparent need for critical moral reasoning. However, as has now been well-rehearsed, not all knowledge is morally worthwhile. Not all science communication is morally good. Examples such as He Jiankui public announcement of the ‘CRISP-R babies’, The TV programme Catalyst’s 2-part series on statins, or the head of the Civil Protection Department telling the L’Aquila residents that ‘it’s a favourable situation’ makes the moral challenges of communicating science explicit. It is important to pause and consider the ethics of knowledge and the ethics of making knowledge public—who’s knowledge? For whom? For what reason? At what (social and economic) cost? And so on—because failing to think through this can lead to dangerously self-righteous, unques- tioning behaviour. It’s also important because most people working in science communication actually do want to do right. Without taking time to critically reflect, without pausing to consider the moral standing of our actions, there is no way of assessing how right what we do is. Working out what makes for ethical science communication does take a slowing down in reasoning, and it also requires tools to help guide this reasoning. Some of these tools are case studies to draw on, to reflect on. Some are theoretical foundations to guide our reasoning, to build on, starting with the moral standing of science communication per se. While science communication can be good and bad in certain circumstances, there is no ground to view it as inherently good (or bad). There have been calls to consider science communication a crisis discipline, and 12 CONCLUSION 115 certainly its close cousin, environmental communication, has been framed as a crisis discipline, but if there is a crisis related to science, it is an epistemically concerned crisis, not just a scientifically concerned one. This gives a solid first foundation to build on; science communication is not inherently good or bad, it is morally good when it is done right, for the right reasons, at the right time, etc. Now we need tools to work out the what, the how, the when and the who of ethical science communication. Being ethical when communicating science requires we revisit our relationship to knowledge, to the what of science communication and to the value we place on this knowledge, its Utility. This starts with an acknowl- edgment that knowledge and knowing are quite separate things, and that information, arguably one of science communication’s core resources, sits at times awkwardly between the two. More, knowing is not always beneficial and, at times, ignoring (not ignorance) can be valuable. The (un)importance, (un)usability and (ir)relevance of information need to be thoughtfully considered in light of what it might bring to those involved in the communication. The value of knowledge and information starts of our journey towards an ethics of science communication. It speaks to the core content, the what of science communication. But content can be presented in many ways, with many purposes. The how we are communicating, whether we are storytelling the content, selling it, or thinking about framing it, isn’t a value-neutral choice. And each of these approaches to communicating speak to the multiple (and sometimes conflicting) aspirations of science communication, from persuasion to engagement to inclusion. The how of science communication also affects the Accuracy of what we are saying, of the image of science we present and imagine and of the image of scientists we present and imagine. The what and how of science communication happens, like everything else in time; in a moment in history, both macro and micro, in the grand sense of history, and in the history of individuals. The when of science communication might well have received less attention than the what or how, but the importance of time and timing in communication is central to ethical communication. The insights brought about by thinking about Kairos means going beyond ‘knowing your audience’ to ‘knowing your audience’s sense of needs and urgency’. It means understanding the history of those we communicate with and making time to hear their plans for their future, their concerns and their aspiration. Acknowledging the importance of time in ethical practice leads us to act more ethically, to allow time 116 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH for ethical reflection, and to make time for the relationships we must necessarily have if we are to communicate. It also invites us to make time to ethically reflect on the who of science communication. Science communication, like any communication, is inherently relational. And it involves a multiplicity of relationships, from the funders-practitioner relationship to the communicator-public relationship and to the state-citizen relationship. Thinking of the who of science communication is more than thinking about solely about who should be involved. It’s also thinking about the qualities these relationships ought to exhibit. Science communicators have long been advised to think of the what, how and who of their communication (and also, though less often, the when). What is your message? How will you frame it/tell it? Who is your audience? These are key questions to address in order to have effective science communication. But concentrating on the effective without addressing the ethical has a dangerous history. The Tuskegee study was scientifically effective (at least it was perceived as such for much of its time), but is widely, and rightly, regarded as an abomination of science (Shmaefsky, 2010). Effec- tiveness, while absolutely a worthwhile pursuit, is not, in itself, the same as ethical. Yet when science communication engages with questions of ethics and fairness, it often falls back into focusing on effectiveness (Besley & McComas, 2013; Spitzer, 2017). It’s not enough to be an effective science communicator; this effectiveness needs to be tempered by meaningful and independent ethical reasoning. The principles of Utility, Kairos, Accuracy and Generosity act an ethical counterpoint to the what, when, how and who of effective science communication. As with the practice of science communication, much of the focus of teaching and training in science communication has been on effectiveness, from compelling storytelling, to engaging exhibits. The principles put forward in this book provide a starting place for any ethical training in science communication, a foundation that allows and invites both reasoning from theoretical concepts and the resources to work through cases studies and the issues they raise. Much more can and should be said about the ethics of science communication, but while there have been some discussions about moral issues in specific aspects of science communication, the principles presented in this book offer something more. They offer a first foray into an ethics of science communication as a whole. A feature of ethical issues in science communication is its ‘ethical hybridity’, and this hybridity requires a unique ethical 12 CONCLUSION 117 awareness on the part of science communicators. Many, but not all, ethical issues in science communication emerge from ethical issues in science. Communicating well about unethical science, then, needs some additional reasoning—how, why, when to do it and with attention to the principles we mention above. A science communicator bears the burden of being able to reason about science and science communication. Some ethical issues in science communication emerge from breaches of communication ethics. A science communicator bears the burden of being able to reason about these issues too. Indeed, while the principle of Accuracy speaks to the epistemic rigour of the science side of ‘science communication’, the principle of Generosity speaks to the relational inescapability of the communication side of ‘science communication’. By putting forward an ethics of science communication based on principles that respond to the field’s hybrid foundations, this volume presents an opportunity for science communication researchers and practitioners to engage with, define, and set their norms while embracing the field’s unique characteristics. Throughout this book, in addition to arguing for the principles that we put forward above as a start to thinking ethically in science communication, we noticed along the way some guides for helping us to think ethically about science communication. They are certainly contestable and we hope that one impact of this volume is to encourage such contestation as well as suggestions for other ways forward.

1. Thinking deeply and thoroughly through issues, and being able to come to a reasoned decision about how one ought to act is essential to ethical practice. And having theoretical and conceptual tools to help us to so is equally important in enabling us to proceed with such reasoning. This is the ‘middle’ that we introduced at the beginning of this book and it holds for ethical issues in science; in communication; and in science communication. 2. We are not without stars to guide our path—the norms of science, principles of bioethics, and of course, ethical codes of professional and applied communication contexts can help us. Discussions about Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) raise the questions in fresh ways. 3. Science communicators have obligations. Whether it is curation, or making information accurate and accessible, or understanding their place in history, communicators have special burdens. Many of these 118 F. MEDVECKY AND J. LEACH

obligations mean that science communicators need to know more, to understand a wider set of histories or welcome other perspectives. 4. Communication is about information; knowledge is an individual or collective achievement. Science communicators, while demonstrating generosity with information, should have humility in relation to knowledge. 5. Accidental ignorance is unjustifiable; intentional ignoring (Negative Knowing) can be valuable. There needs to be consideration of how the information communicated might harm or hinder the individual or society and of the potential benefits of Negative Knowing. There needs to be consideration of the (un)importance and (ir)relevance of information communicated. 6. Science communication occurs in a variety of financially embedded settings. Ignoring this reality constrains what counts as science communication; letting this dictate science communication diminishes the value of the practice. There needs to be consideration of the integrity of the information communicated (its accuracy) and of the communicator.

The principles and guides that we present here are gratefully acknowledged to come from the growing science communication ﬁeld of research literature (as well as from those we learn from in other disciplines) and from conversations and discussions with keen students, theorists and practitioners of science communication. This book is not complete; it is merely ﬁnished for now. We hope it opens the possibility for better practice, better ethical discussion, and an opportunity for continuing ethical revision in science communication.

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Shmaefsky, B. (2010). Syphilis: Deadly diseases and epidemics. New York: Chelsea House. Spitzer, S. (2017). Five principles of holistic science communication.From https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/04/12/ﬁve-principles- of-holistic-science-communication. Index

A Curation, 44, 46, 117 Accuracy, 10, 35, 36, 38, 64, 69, 79, Curriculum, 50, 51 88, 89, 94–98, 115–117 Applied ethics, 18, 20 Asilomar conference on recombinant D DNA, 4 Deontology, 20, 28 Autonomy, 19, 26, 78 Dystopia, 50

E B Engagement, 5, 29, 30, 33, 36, 38, 54, Beneﬁcence, 26–28, 86, 88 67, 91, 96, 99, 100, 115 Blogs, 43 Ethical competencies, 84 Ethical hybridity, 10, 64, 65, 67, 71, C 116 CERN, 19 Clearwashing, 45 F Codes of ethics, 10–12, 17, 23, 33, 35, Fabula, 8 84, 87, 117 Frames, framing, 8, 64, 65, 68, 71, Cold Fusion 106, 115 Pons and Fleishman, 45 Consequentialism, 20, 28 Crisis disciplines, 9, 105–108, 114, G 115 Generosity, 88, 90, 91, 94–98, 100, CRISPR, 45, 70 116, 117

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 121 license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 F. Medvecky and J. Leach, An Ethics of Science Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32116-1 122 INDEX

H National Association of Science Writers, Health communication, 2, 56 75 Hero, 8, 68 National Communication Association High-speed communication, 43 (NCA), 36 Human research ethics, 28 Native content, 8 Hype, 5, 26, 50 Negative knowledge, 59, 60, 118 Nelkin, Dorothy, 65 Neuroscience, 46, 65–68 I Non-maleﬁcence, 26, 27 Ignorance, 2, 5–7, 12, 54, 57–60, 107, Normative ethics, 20 115, 118 Nudge, 42, 43 Indigenous, 25, 49 Intellectual property (IP), 24 International Communication O Association (ICA), 36 Objectivity, 17, 18, 24, 76, 77, 87 Ionnidis, John, 25

P J Principlism, 12, 28, 86, 87, 94, 95 JD Bernal, 24 Public Engagement with Science, 2, Journalism ethics, 10 29, 37, 75 Public health, 64, 67, 68, 75 Public Relations (PR), 10–12, 35, 78 K Public Understanding of Science, 2, 37 Kahn, Shabaz, 48 Kairos, Kairotic, 4, 12, 38, 41–46, 48, 50–52, 88, 90, 94–98, 115, 116 R Knowing, 54, 56 Reasoned decision, 21, 117 Knowledge, 2, 56, 114 Reﬂective equilibrium, 84 Relational ethics, 86, 87 Relevance, 55, 58 L Responsible Research and Innovation Lacks, Henrietta, 50 (RRI), 5, 29, 37 Risk communication, 84

M Media, 43 S Merton, Robert, 24, 25 Science communication, deﬁnition, 2 Meta-ethics, 19 Science journalism, 8–11, 34, 75, 87 Science policy, 46 Scientiﬁc practice, 11, 18, 24, 38, 45, N 51, 66, 99, 116 Narrative, 8, 66 Skloo, Rebecca, 50 INDEX 123

Society of Professional Journalists, 35 U Solar power, 6 Usability, 56 Stakeholder, 46, 47 Utility, 54, 88, 93–98, 116 STEM, 36, 70 Syphilis, 15, 16 V Values, 18 T sociocultural values, 18, 19 Truthiness, 79 Vampire project, 49 Tuskegee, 15, 17, 50, 116 Virtual witness, 46