Relationship between society and science Flashcards
What is the social context of science communication?
- Science needs to go public
- Digital society (‘filter bubbles’)
- Post-truth society
- Complexity of modern sciencec
What is the post-truth society and its impact?
Objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief
- Influence on authority of science in society leading to skepticism where there is scientific consensus
- Leading to ‘fact checking’ initiatives to distinguish between reliable knowledge and false statements
What are the views on how science/technology and society should interact?
1) Neutral vision: they are neutral toos that allow us to realize goals and ideal (generating objective knowledge)
2) Technological determinism: technology shapes society (not in control, technology development determines cultural and societal changes)
3) Social constructionism: society shapes technology (can control the direction of developments, tech and science are results of social processes)
4) Interactive vision: science, tech and society are interwoven (science and tech influence, and are influenced by our values and social norms)
Why are people not always listening to scientists?
1) Science can go against intuition and it is complex, need to put effort into understanding
2) People question whether it is relevant for them and not the facts themselves
3) People want certainty and science can be challenged
What makes communicating science complex in social settings?
1) People are not all prepared for processing scientific information
2) Deterioration of traditional media infrastructures
3) Post-normal science = increasingly complex tech that have high influence on society
Assumptions on the social-level mechanisms of SC
1) Knowledge deficits are responsible for lack of public support of science (evidence says otherwise)
2) Declining levels of trust threaten public support (remained fairly stable)
3) Media’s function is to inform the public about science (small percentage pays attention + journalists use frames)
4) Science should be debated in isolation from personal values (same fact will mean different things to different people)
What is the deficit model?
A model of SC that assumes that deficits in public knowledge about science is the central problem driving societal conflict over science, and therefore the goal of SC is to fill these gaps in knowledge
What is pseudo-science?
Something that is presented as science but that lacks the rigor essential to the scientific method (e.g. a flawed experimental design, research based on faulty premises, bad data)
What is the demarcation problem?
How to distinguish science from pseudo-science
What are the philosophical views on what science/how facts are produced?
1) Positivism (discovering reality through observation)
2) Falsificationism (science makes progress by testing and falsifying hypothesis)
3) Social constructivism (science as a social process, scientific knowledge is a social product)
4) Instrumentalism (science as creating reality, not understanding or describing it, tool for solving problems not to produce knowledge)
Why do people neglect scientific consensus?
1) Post-truth society shapes public opinion
2) People get information from many online sources/lack of layman language in articles
3) Inability or lack of motivation to recognize misinformation
4) Social dynamics
What are solutions to the neglect of scientific consensus?
1) Incentives for scientists to put more emphasis on public communication
2) Scientists themselves should communicate
3) Make their research accessible, clear and honest
What is epistemic knowldge?
Knowledge among nonexpert publics about the scientific process and how this process shapes the findings produced by science
