Grappling with Designing Science Communication

0:05 so the topic of this discussion forum is 0:08 grappling with designing science 0:10 communications the main question we want 0:12 to talk about what do we think about the 0:14 practice of designing messages about 0:16 science for example to tell science 0:18 stories or should scientists just stick 0:22 to the facts to help get the discussion 0:25 going I'd like to share my perspective I 0:27 offend I've spent the last 15 years 0:30 thinking about and researching how best 0:33 to communicate health numbers to the 0:34 public and when I say health numbers I 0:37 mean things like risk statistics or test 0:39 results or other data that is important 0:42 for us to understand in order to make 0:43 good decisions about our health so think 0:47 about this every time someone takes an 0:50 airplane flight they get exposed to 0:52 additional radiation our atmosphere 0:55 filters out a lot of background 0:57 radiation from space but the higher you 1:01 fly in a plane less atmosphere there is 1:03 above you to act as a filter so let's 1:06 assume for the moment that you take a 1:08 flight from New York to Los Angeles by 1:11 one estimate you might be exposed to 40 1:13 micro sieverts of radiation quick is 1:17 that a lot should you be concerned about 1:19 it my guess is most of you have no idea 1:24 if I wanted to help however I could give 1:27 you a reference point for example I 1:30 could tell you about the fact that a 1:32 dental x-ray something many of us have 1:34 had many times might involve 5 micro 1:37 sieverts of radiation that means the 1:39 plane flight is exposing you to eight 1:41 times as much radiation as the dental 1:43 x-ray now does the four do you feel like 1:46 a lot but what if instead I give you a 1:50 different reference point say the yearly 1:54 dose of radiation you get every year 1:56 from the potassium that naturally exists 1:58 in your body that might be something 1:59 like 390 microsieverts so the plane 2:03 flight is only about one-tenth or ten 2:06 percent of that amount makes it feel 2:09 different right or i could give you both 2:13 reference points 2:14 see all of these numbers are at least 2:16 approximately true but if I give you all 2:20 of that that help would it make you more 2:23 confused I might be creating information 2:26 overload the point here is this how 2:30 you're going to feel about that 40 micro 2:32 sievert dose from the plane flight can 2:34 change a lot based upon how I choose to 2:37 communicate it to you science 2:41 communication is always like this there 2:43 are always choices in how we present it 2:45 what reference points we provide for the 2:48 data what formats we use to show our 2:50 results what analyses are focused on 2:54 notice that not providing information is 2:57 a choice to write I could have said no I 2:59 can't tell them about either x-rays or 3:01 potassium radiation if I do that I don't 3:05 provide you those facts that would leave 3:08 you where we started with a number that 3:10 probably didn't mean anything to you the 3:15 simple truth that I believe is this data 3:18 and facts do not ever speak for 3:21 themselves we speak through our data and 3:25 so science communicators must be willing 3:28 and able to make informed intentional 3:31 choices about how we present science in 3:34 order to help people understand and use 3:36 it is there danger here sure data facts 3:41 the process of science even can all be 3:44 manipulated by people with an agenda 3:46 Daryl Huff's 1954 book how to lie with 3:50 statistics is as relevant today as it 3:52 was them but the more that scientists 3:57 understand how people's understanding is 3:59 shaped by their communications the more 4:03 that they can make helpful rather than 4:04 harmful choices and the more that 4:08 science audiences understand the 4:09 different ways that science 4:11 communications can be designed the more 4:14 they can be intelligent in careful 4:15 consumers of science as a result 4:20 therefore I believe that science 4:22 communication has to be designed we 4:24 can't just throw information at people 4:26 we have to discuss it with them in a 4:28 two-way conversation now maybe you agree 4:32 maybe you don't that's what we'd like to 4:36 discuss here so the question is this 4:39 what do we think about the idea of 4:41 designing science communications how 4:44 when and why do we think it's 4:48 appropriate