As I have written in various articles, when it comes to science debates, the public is far more likely to be miserly in reaching a judgment than fully informed. Most citizens are cognitive misers relying heavily on information short cuts and heuristics to make up their minds about a science controversy, often in the absence of knowledge.
As a result, in order to effectively engage the public, scientists and their organizations need to adapt their communication efforts to the realities of human nature and the media system. This means recasting, or "framing," their communication efforts in a way that remain consistent with the science, but that connects a complex science issue to something that the intended audience already understands or values. (For more, see this recently completed book chapter, The Scientist cover article, the essay at Science, and this journal study.)
I didn't invent these principles, I adapted them from more than sixty years of research in political communication and public opinion, applying them to science debates. In this context, when it comes to understanding what makes for effective communication strategy, there is nothing essentially unique about science from election campaigns or other political skirmishes.
A few weeks back, the Washington Post spotlighted this previous research in a lengthy feature. Today the newspaper revisits the topic in a shorter article titled "Five Myths About Those Civic Minded, Deeply Informed Voters."
Of note to science enthusiasts is the myth: "If you just give Americans the facts, they'll be able to draw the right conclusions." Also probably of interest to Science Blog readers is the finding that Daily Show viewers are no likely to be more informed than regular viewers of Fox News' OReilly Factor.
2. Bill O'Reilly's viewers are dumber than Jon Stewart's.
Liberals wish. Democrats like to think that voters who sympathize with their views are smarter than those who vote Republican. But a 2007 Pew survey found that the knowledge level of viewers of the right-wing, blustery "The O'Reilly Factor" and the left-wing, snarky "The Daily Show" is comparable, with about 54 percent of the shows' politicized viewers scoring in the "high knowledge" category.
So what about conservative talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh's audience? Surely the ditto-heads are dumb, right? Actually, according to a survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Rush's listeners are better educated and "more knowledgeable about politics and social issues" than the average voter.
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I saw this in spades at a recent luncheon -- several well-educated engineers there (some of whom were astronomy buffs) were discussing global-warming. I was surprised (and disappointed) to hear several of them insist that the Sun, not human activity, was responsible for recent climate-change.
And in another discussion with a very smart friend, the "temperature leads CO2 in the Vostok ice core data, therefore global-warming is bogus" argument came up. I was flabbergasted to hear this person buy into that argument. When I asked him where he heard it, he told he heard it from several physicist/engineer colleagues of his, colleagues who he greatly respects.
Now, these are all people who should know better, people who have sufficient mathematical/technical chops to dig into the primary literature well enough to understand at least the basics of climate-science.
But in spite of that, all these really smart folks still ended up reciting easily discredited claims when the topic of global-warming came up.
I'm really coming to appreciate how the most difficult aspect of educating people about controversial topics isn't so much giving them the facts -- it's figuring out how to get those facts past their ideological filters.
"Most citizens are cognitive misers relying heavily on information short cuts and heuristics to make up their minds about a science controversy, often in the absence of knowledge."
Game theorists are often amazed that ordinary people often beat the theoretical best approach by just such tactics. They seem to know better than the theorists what is really to their advantage. It's time to stop blaming their decisions on lack of knowledge or science's lack of effecitive communication, and start asking if the risks and benefits of science being fairly shared.