The National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) are conducting a study entitled Understanding and Addressing Misinformation and Science. I attended their fourth committee meeting on July 12, 2023.

Part of Science is Elemental’s (SIE) mission is to foster understanding of and respect for scientists and the scientific process. Therefore, I have been following the work of this committee. I found this meeting to be particularly informative and helpful. I’ll tell you why, but first an introduction.

The National Academies for Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM)

The following statement is from their website:

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and world. Our work helps shape sound policies, inform public opinion, and advance the pursuit of science, engineering, and medicine.

NASEM works directly in matters relating to science education. They were involved in the development of a framework for science education, and the subsequent Next Generation Science Standards. Recent work that I have found interesting includes:

• Taking Stock of Science Standards Implementation: Proceedings of a Virtual Summit (2022)
• Science and Engineering in Preschool Through Elementary Grades: The Brilliance of Children and the Strengths of Educators (2022)
• Call to Action for Science Education: Building Opportunity for the Future (2021)

Why SIE cares about misinformation in science

I started SIE in part because of my dismay at the many voices spreading climate denying and vaccine hesitant views. A lot of the volume of those voices is generated for political reasons. I won’t discuss those aspects here. However, I truly believe that these voices are more easily believed than they should be due to a lack of science education for those students who do not, early on, show interest or aptitude in the sciences.

In our society, science is viewed as something done by the most academically-oriented, and yes, nerdy, individuals. People commonly think that everyone else does not have to concern themselves with it. That notion, of course, fell apart when a pandemic came roaring through. Then, millions of non-scientists, who did not had to think about science since their last required class in high school were faced with a barrage of information. Too much of that barrage was false. Without the grounding of a solid science education, many people believed too much of that false information.

SIE’s mission is to change science education to encourage more understanding of and trust in the scientific process by all high school graduates, through starting or improving science education in the early grades. Therefore, NASEM’s work on understanding and addressing misinformation in science should help SIE achieve its mission.

What did I learn about understanding and addressing misinformation in science?

Communicating Uncertainty

A disclaimer: what follows is what I pulled from the committee meeting and should not be construed as journalistic reporting of what transpired at that meeting. Information about the meeting can be found at this website.

I think the key point is one of managing uncertainty. Science isn’t about knowing facts and stating them, forever to remain as they are. Instead, science is about testing theories to see what makes sense. One learns a little bit about how something works. The next experiment builds on the earlier ones, refining what is known or understood.

Scientists sometimes make public statements that do not acknowledge that our understanding may change once we know more. For a general public that by and large hasn’t thought about science since high school, those statements sound just like the statements made by organizations that may tout certain “facts” for political reasons. Without the necessary grounding, people don’t have a basis for determining the information from expert scientists from anyone else.

Why expressing uncertainty matters

Indeed, nor should people assume expert scientists always have it right. That’s just the point. Scientists, when speaking publicly, need to acknowledge that they may not know all that is important to know, and that further experimentation may change what they think is true based on current knowledge. Especially in a pandemic situation, when the science to be understood is relatively novel, it can take time to get a clear picture. Painting a picture of certainty, when there is very little, creates a situation in which scientists that seemed sure can lose the public trust.

Once that trust is lost, organizations and people that wish to bend the public discourse can do so, pointing to the distrust in the scientists as reasons why the public should believe them instead.

Scientists need to address the uncertainty in the current state of knowledge so that people can better understand why that knowledge seems to change over time. It’s not that the scientists were untruthful—they just needed to know more, and sometimes that takes time. Communicating this uncertainty is not easy, but it is very important.

How does understanding misinformation about science relate to SIE’s mission?

The public at large should appreciate scientists and what they mean when they speak about uncertainty in what they have learned from research. To do that, the public needs to have a solid understanding of what science research is, and why it can lead to uncertainty. Without a stronger grounding in the sciences through K-12 education, many people might not have that understanding.