Science can be hard to explain.  It’s complicated, often kind of boring in its details and takes years of training to really master (like a lot of other things in life).  So, when it comes to the results that really matter, how can scientists tell non-scientists what’s going in their field?

I’m thinking about this question a lot right now as the standing, stature and capacities of American science are being purposefully eroded.  I’ve been doing “popular science communications” for more than 40 years.   Though my day job is astrophysics, I take on the writing because I am so in love with science and the bright, wide perspective it brings us. 

I want everyone to experience that perspective.

Around the beginning of the 2010’s, however, I noticed something changing for those of us trying to bring science and its results to the public.  Especially around issues like climate, there seemed to an organized effort to discredit well-established science using a variety of techniques.  As a scientist who had been talking to the public for a while, I recognized these methods coming from older fights like “debates” over evolution or even attempts by the tobacco industry to push back against regulations.  This time, however, the attempts to discredit the science were morphing. 

Echoed by prominent figures in politics and using the newly created echo chamber of social media, we began to see claims like “the science is a hoax” or “the scientists are just in it for the money”.  When it came to climate change, the efforts to discredit the science were, for obvious reasons, easily linked to oil companies as has been well documented (see The Merchants of Doubt )

Soon I started to see people who literally knew nothing about science or how it works making proud public pronouncements of the most profound ignorance.  It started with climate and then spread to just about everything else.  Every branch of science from archeology to biomedicine was suddenly full of hoaxes or scientists who were “unwilling to face the truth”.   Discussions of faked moon landings started showing up on Joe Rogan as just another mainstream topic for us all to consider.  The deep social erosion of the idea that science can yield public truths ended up having real world consequences.  This can be seen in the current administration’s dismantling of greatest atmospheric science laboratory in the world or the all-too-easy-to-expect rise in measles cases as vaccination rates drop.

So recently I’ve decided that, maybe, I need to stop being polite with those proud public pronouncements of profound ignorance. Maybe it’s time for scientists to start pushing back harder against the “forces of dumb” (what else am I to call it?). 

This is what happened this weekend during some exchanges on X.com about the role of consensus in science.  I will probably do a separate piece on that topic but today I am raising this question: how do we deal with people who have such a loud, explicit unwillingness to engage in good faith with public scientific questions?How should scientists, who desperately want people to see how science works, respond to such willful ignorance?

To be clear, there are lots of open questions about science, technology and society that require real debate like the influence of Big Pharma, the deployment of AI etc.  Our job is not to just be cheerleaders for science, but to carefully debate science’s impact on us all.  That, however, requires some understanding of science itself.

I am excited to talk to anyone who actually cares about the science.  I will take all the time needed and do my best to explain what we scientists know, what we don’t know and why exactly we think we know it.  I think that task should be done with kindness, grace and the willingness to really listen to others.  There are too few of those kinds of exchanges these days. What’s happening now is the loudest voices are often the ones who know the least and don’t care that they don’t know.  This is the dilemma.  It’s not about the science anymore even when it’s about the science.

So, what’s the right response?  What’s the response that matters, the one that works, the one that embodies compassion while being true to the challenge staring down at us?

=========================================================

 PS If you have specific questions or issues you want me to address leave a comment on the website or email me at [email protected]

— Adam Frank 🚀