As promised, in this post I consider the treatment of the science-religion culture wars in Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. If you’re just tuning in, you may want to pause to read my review of the book, or to peruse my thoughts on issues the book raised about what the American public wants and about whether old or new media give the American public what it needs.
In the interests of truth in advertising, let me state at the outset that this post will not involve anything like a detailed rehash of “Crackergate”, nor a line-by-line reading of the contentious Chapter 8 of the book. You can find that kind of thing around the blogosphere without looking too hard. Rather, I want to deal with the more substantial question raised by this chapter: Are scientists all on the same team?
To answer this question, I think we need to return to a question I raised in my review of the book, namely, what does the hoped-for Scientific America look like? What, exactly, are Mooney and Kirshenbaum hoping will be accomplished in the event that scientists become better communicators and enter into regular communication with the public?
We might imagine any number of goals here, including:
- More people who have a good recall of important scientific facts (or even of the details of central scientific theories).
- More people who recognize the expertise of scientists and take what they have to say about scientific findings, theories, and methodologies as credible.
- More people who have the critical thinking skills to sort sound science from snake oil.
- More people who are happy to allocate public money to fund the very research projects that scientists themselves are most interested in conducting.
- More people who agree with scientists as far as what ought to be done in the light of scientific findings and theories.
It’s not clear that we know how to accomplish each (maybe any) of these goals with the American public we have now. Put a pin in this worry. At least as big a problem (and one of the reasons I wish Mooney and Kirshenbaum had articulated their goals more clearly) is that the goals I’ve listed here are separable — and you don’t necessarily get the lot of them as a package deal. Indeed, it’s possible that in the process of making good progress toward one of these goals, we could end up losing ground relative to another. (The second and third goals in the list, for example, might be in tension.)
Moreover, it may take more to achieve some of these goals than really well-tuned communication. Communication can succeed without bringing about agreement. So, we might imagine an American public where people understand science really well and still disagree about what to do in response to it, or about whether we ought to be funding more such research projects.
If the Unscientific America (the problem the book is meant to address) is understood in terms of our failure to achieve one or more of these specific goals (or some other goals not enumerated here), then identifying which ones are crucial for a Scientific America must be an important part of the solution.
Which factors stand in the way of meeting the crucial goals? (Are they different for different segments of the American public?) Which of these factors can scientists (and others on Team Science) do something about by means of targeted communication of various sorts?
Here, there’s a related question that is hard to ask (because it feels like giving up) but is important to ask: Are there some factors that scientists (and others on Team Science) probably can’t do anything about? If we’re going to invest the effort to try to move the American public to a new state of engagement with science, we may have to do some triage, devoting our energies to things with a reasonably high likelihood of actually working.
If Team Science is to succeed with the American public, Team Science needs well-defined goals and reasonable strategies for coordinating its efforts to achieve those goals. But this way of looking at things imagines that scientists see themselves as being on the same team, and as always working toward the same goals.
Are scientists all on the same team? As far as what they most want to accomplish in their interactions with the public, the answer is pretty clearly No.
To imagine otherwise is to ignore the fact that scientists are actual human beings, with a variety of interests and goals. Not all scientists are working toward the same goals. And even scientists who agree about goals are going to disagree about how to prioritize them.
Among other things, this means that not everything a scientist does in the public sphere will have advancing science, or increasing scientific literacy, as its primary goal.
I’m inclined to say that this is how it should be. In a society where even scientific employment does not have a legitimate claim to 24 hours of the employee’s day, scientists, like everyone else, expect to have the freedom to pursue their individual interests and goals on their own time.
To the extent that scientists might share some common interests as scientists that make it useful to coordinate those efforts, they will need to be fairly precise about what those common interests are. As well, they will need to be honest about where their interests diverge.
This shouldn’t be hard. In the course of their scientific work, scientists regularly have occasion to disagree with each other. Everyday disagreements include such subjects as how to interpret a set of data, or what the best strategy for achieving a particular outcome is given what we know about the system we want to control.
Indeed, Unscientific America suggests this sort of disagreement among scientists is not the only sort the public is likely to see on display:
Is the goal to have a public that can dig into complicated scientific disputes and determine who is right or wrong? If so, then let’s remember that many anti-evolutionists and global warming deniers are scientists themselves, couching their claims in sophisticated scientific language and regularly citing published articles in the peer-reviewed literature. (14)
I would have loved to see more analysis of this situation. Explaining how this could be so — that scientists can be found on both sides of putatively scientific controversies — might shed a lot of light on the challenge, especially for non-scientists, of understanding scientific processes and drawing conclusions that are well-grounded in scientific knowledge. One would hope the committed scientists on either side of an issue would not willfully misrepresent data, or be led to conclusions primarily on account of their fit with their political and economic commitments (and one might reasonably guess that Mooney and Kirshenbaum see at least some of the scientists who are anti-evolutionists and global warming deniers as departing from these basic standards of intellectual honesty).
But this, as much as anything, seems to indicate that scientists as a group do not speak with one voice. Even honest scientists can disagree about many things — including, but not limited to, their personal commitments about politics, about religion, and about the role they feel religion ought to play in public life, to name just three. Arguably, these three kinds of commitments are distinct from what’s involved in doing good scientific work and drawing reasonable scientific conclusions.
Scientists have diverse goals. If all those scientists become more committed communicators, what then? Is the public better off? Are the goals Mooney and Kirshenbaum identify as crucial to the establishment of a Scientific America more likely to be achieved?
That will depend on what it is these scientists are trying to accomplish when they communicate with the public.
It is, I think, reasonable to be concerned about whether scientists speaking as individuals (in the course of pursuing individual interests and goals) will be mistaken for scientists speaking on behalf of science, or on behalf of the scientific community as a whole. Sometimes the confusion is on the receiving end of the communication. Sometimes it’s on the transmission end.
When a scientist publicly advocates for a goal, is she necessarily speaking as a scientist? Surely not. Is she necessarily perceived as speaking as a scientist? I doubt that this perception is necessary, but I suspect it’s not uncommon.
It’s very important, on the scientist’s end of the communication, to be clear about what is part of the official framework of science and about what comes from personal, political, or philosophical commitments that other scientists might not share. It is also very important , on the audience’s end, to recognize that the tribe of science is a microcosm of the broader world, made up of lots of individuals with different interests, goals, and temperaments. Judging the whole tribe by a single member would be like judging an entire political party, nationality, or gender by a single member.
And this brings us to the concern that Mooney and Kirshenbaum express in Chapter 8 of Unscientific America, that some of the most visible and most prolific communicating scientists are focused on the goal of advancing atheism (including the public acceptance of atheists as fellow citizens, the idea that atheism itself is a legitimate exercise of religious freedom, the idea that religious ideas voiced in the public sphere are no more deserving of deference than any other kind of idea, etc.) — and that the public on the receiving end may be getting the message that advancing atheism is an official goal of science. Mooney and Kirshenbaum note that advancing atheism is not an official goal of science, and that the perception that atheism is an inevitable consequence of science or of scientific practice could be a serious impediment to getting a significant segment of the American public to embrace science or scientific literacy.
Of course, it’s no secret that a goodly number of scientists are atheists — or, for that matter, that a goodly number of scientists are religious. There are some who argue that there is a forced choice between being an intellectually honest science and being a person of faith, while there are others who argue that there is no such forced choice. (I’ve weighed in on this question myself.) The individual commitments scientists have about whether religious belief is or is not compatible with sound scientific practice (and what “compatibility” amounts to) are frequently bolstered by some armchair philosophy, but it’s worth noting that those of us who do philosophy for a living (and thus might be recognized as having actual philosophical expertise) would not be uniform in our endorsement of many of these arguments.
And, in any case, questions of theism and atheism are philosophical, rather than scientific, questions.
This is to say that scientific theories do not make claims about the existence or non-existence of a deity. Science coursework does not require students to attend, or refrain from attending, religious worship. Peer reviews of scientific reports make no assessment of what the authors of those reports may believe about the nature of the divine on their own time. And anyone who would try to persuade the public otherwise is engaging in deception.
But since being a scientist does not mean one has to opt out of pursuing personal goals, even goals with which other scientists might disagree.
Here are three goals various scientists (and others) work to promote in their communication with non-scientists:
- Improving scientific literacy and the public’s engagement with science.
- Preserving the separation of church and state in the U.S.
- Advancing public acceptance of atheists as fellow citizens and atheism as a legitimate exercise of religious freedom.
While a number of scientists might recognize all three as worthy goals, and might devote their efforts to working to advance all three goals in various ways, they are not the same goal. And even people who accept all three goals will differ about how they prioritize the three.
Consequently, someone who is primarily concerned with achieving goal #3 is not necessarily doing anything counterproductive when his or her advocacy results in a worse situation with respect to goal #1 — unless he or she prioritizes goal #1 higher than goal #3. Sometimes a scientist making a blog post is more concerned to advance atheism than to increase the public’s scientific literacy. And Team Science just doesn’t have the authority to demand that its members only pursue the goals with which all of its members agree.
To the extent that Mooney and Kirshenbaum seem to be claiming that scientists who are visible advocates for atheism are undermining the efforts of other scientists to increase scientific literacy and the public’s engagement with science, they are on the hook to provide evidence that those working toward one goal are making the job harder for those working toward the other goal. Unscientific America does cite public opinion polls, but these data may not convey the granularity and heterogeneity of the American public advocates are trying to reach.
This gets us back to the question of whether there are some segments of the public who are going to be especially resistant to attempts to increase their scientific literacy and their engagement with science — so resistant, perhaps, that the returns on efforts to reach them are low enough that maybe we ought to be more focused on reaching other segments of society. Back when PZ Myers was prevented from attending a Minneapolis screening of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled!, I considered this very issue:
The real question is what effect media attention to the Minneapolis incident will have on the filmmakers’ ability to sell their message — that academia is filled with dogmatic meanies who won’t give Intelligent Design or its proponents a fair break — to the American public.
Arguably, there is a segment of the public who already buys this message. They did so before Expelled! was even shot, and they would do so even if Expelled! never came to their local cineplex or church basement. To the extent that these folks have formed an opinion with which they’re comfortable (regardless, in some cases, of additional data that might argue against that opinion), they are not “in play”. Whether PZ kept the Minneapolis incident on the down low or purchased full-page ads in every newspaper in the nation, these hearts and minds were already committed to the other side.
As well, there’s a segment of the public that defaults to suspicion of the Intelligent Design advocates — that would be wary of intellectual dishonesty and dirty tricks even if none were immediately evident in a particular case. These folks aren’t really “in play” either, and they’d likely only pay to see Expelled! for the fun of mocking it ruthlessly. Whether PZ piped up about the Minneapolis incident or not, these people would not be won over to the filmmakers’ way of seeing things.
What’s left are the “undecideds” — the folks who have no firm preexisting opinions about Intelligent Design or academia.
If the argumentative strategy of Expelled! is to win over some undecideds by demonstrating that Intelligent Design has been banished from academia unfairly — because the academics with the power to exclude it are afraid of an open debate — then publicizing the Minneapolis incident in which PZ Myers was barred from the screening because those promoting the film were afraid of an open debate undercuts that argumentative strategy pretty well. Known hypocrites have a hard time selling charges of hypocrisy.
If, instead, the strategy of Expelled! were to argue for the inclusion of Intelligent Design in the academy on its own merits, the Minneapolis incident probably wouldn’t do much to counter that strategy. But that’s not the strategy the filmmakers employed here.
[T]he producers of a movie whose primary argument was based on academic freedom and open debate denied PZ entry and closed that debate….
[S]cientific credibility is also based on the idea that we don’t lie. We tell it straight, and we aren’t hypocrites. On this ground, I have considerable sympathy with Dawkins and Myers. The producers of Expelled are hypocrites and liars, and Dawkins and Myers are right to point that out as loudly as they see fit.
Of the hearts and minds still in play, Team Science has an advantage with the ones that care about intellectual honesty. This means that pointing out the intellectual dishonesty of Team Expelled! is a winning strategy.
As far as the hearts and minds that are still in play that feel no special attachment to intellectual honesty? I’m not sure they were ever ours to win.
I think it’s fair to say that scientists and other members of Team Science are not in total agreement about which segments of the public can be reconciled to science. This, plus the fact that individual scientists have many interests and goals that are their own, agendas not necessarily set by Team Science, means that in their various communicative activities, whether in person, in print, or on the blogosphere, scientists will not display the “message discipline” you might expect from a political campaign.
I’m OK with that.
Personally, I’d like the public to understand science as a human activity, and scientists as bona fide human beings. And, if scientists are engaging in real dialogues with non-scientists — listening as well as holding forth — then they ought to be open to learning from the people with whom they’re in dialogue, to changing their minds — and thus, to changing their message.
We’re not all on the same page about everything. Pretending that we are misrepresents the nature of the tribe of science and of scientific activity. But given that there are some shared commitments that guide scientific methodology, some conditions without which scientific activity in the U.S. cannot flourish, these provide some common ground on which scientists ought to be more or less united. Given that there are certain conditions without which the public cannot access and benefit from the knowledge scientific activity has built (frequently with public funding), these provide common ground on which scientists and the public ought to be more or less united. Such common ground opens the possibility of building coalitions, of finding ways to work together toward the goals we share even if we may not agree about what other goals are worth pursuing.
We probably can’t form workable coalitions, though, by showing open contempt for each other’s other commitments or interests. We cannot be allies by behaving like enemies. Human nature sucks like that sometimes.
But without coalitions, we have to be ready to go it alone, to work to achieve our goals with much less help. Without coalitions, we may find ourselves working against the effects of those who have chosen to pursue other goals instead. If you can’t work with me toward goal A, I may not be inclined to help you work toward goal B. If we made common cause with each other, we might be able to tailor strategies that would get us closer to both goals rather than sacrificing one for the other. But if we decide we’re not working on the same team, why on earth should we care about each other’s recommendations with respect to strategies?
Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s treatment of the “new atheists” in Unscientific America seems to assume that they (mistakenly) link methodological and philosophical naturalism as a way to advance the goal of scientific literacy and engagement with science. Whether or not the “new atheists” argue that methodological natural leads naturally to philosophical naturalism (many would deny this), the more salient point is that sometimes they are concerned to advance atheism, not scientific literacy and engagement with science per se. The audience to whom they are targeting their message may be quite distinct from the audience Mooney and Kirshenbaum imagine as the target of efforts to increase public engagement with science and scientific literacy. It may even be that the “new atheists” are targeting their message to an audience that will resist engagement with science unless it abandons particular religious commitments.
To me, it sounds like there needs to be a serious dialogue within the tribe of science to work out what common interests all of Team Science can get behind. Not only might such a dialogue (or series of ongoing dialogues) lay the groundwork for the coordinated efforts of scientists to protect their shared interests and pursue their common goals, but it might also help scientists figure out strategies for these coordinated efforts that don’t undercut the other interests which individual scientists hold dear.
Increased scientific literacy and public engagement with science strike me as worthy goals, but they are not the only worthy goals. Even if they were, the diversity of the American public would make these very hard goals to achieve with any single strategy.
The diversity of the scientific community could be a significant strength, allowing Team Science to mobilize members who can communicate with many different segments of society in a variety of ways about what science is up to and why it matters, even by the lights of the non-scientists. But exhorting some segments of the scientific community to keep their non-scientific interests and goals on the down-low is bound to fragment Team Science and make concerted efforts to reach the public untenable. So too will philosophically motivated efforts to portray other members of Team Science as intellectually dishonest or bewilderingly compartmentalized (and thus, as suspect spokespeople for science) undercut to ability of Team Science to engage the broader public in science.
I hold out hope that Team Science can actually work better as a team to get the American public more engaged in science. However, if that’s going to happen, the members of Team Science will have to figure out how to coexist better off the court.
* * * * *
Finally, since I know it will come up in the comments:
My own view is that the treatments of PZ Myers and “Crackergate” in Unscientific America didn’t help to explain or support the argument I took Mooney and Kirshenbaum to be advancing. Regardless of where one comes down on “Crackergate” (here’s where I came down), much context was lost in the necessarily brief summary of events offered in the book. Moreover, I think the focus on the details of the incident distract attention from the larger questions I discuss above: How can members of a diverse community of science come together behind common goals and interests while still pursuing individual goals and interests? How can scientists help members of the public to recognize when scientists are speaking on behalf of the scientific community and when they are speaking as individuals following their own goals and interests?
These would have been outstanding questions to examine at depth in Unscientific America, and I suspect that if Chapter 8 had been framed around these questions, more of Team Science would be engaging with the book positively.