Recent polls indicate that 2% of Americans believe the earth is flat.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter is an aerospace engineer, and part of her job is to dock the Dragon vehicle with the International Space Station. So that means six million people believe her job doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d moderator Holly Fitch, UConn professor of behavioral neuroscience, told the 60-some researchers, scientists, communicators, and community members at Konover Auditorium.<\/p>\n
The audience were kicking off their Memorial Day weekend with a panel discussion titled \u201cPresenting Science to the Public in a Post-Truth Era,\u201d grappling with the challenge of how, in this time of sweeping science denial, scientists can craft messages about their research that not only inform but also persuade.<\/p>\n
One key is to establish commonality, agreed the panelists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are communicating science to the public, it\u2019s a good idea to highlight your similarities to those in the room,\u201d said Tali Sharot, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, UK, whose TED talk on \u201coptimism bias\u201d<\/a> has 2.3 million views and counting.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are always similarities, and then they are more likely to listen to what we have to say,\u201d she noted. \u201cIf we want people to believe what we say, we must relate it to what they believe.\u201d<\/p>\n When talking to anti-vaxxers for instance, Sharot said, better inroads are made by stressing the facts that these vaccines protect children from measles, mumps, rubella \u2013 a point of agreement with your audience \u2013 than by stressing the fact that there is no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines, which is a point of significant disagreement.<\/p>\n \u201cReframe the message to fit with the biases people already have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sharot\u2019s research indicates that we humans tend to seek out and believe information from sources we identify with ideologically and politically to a far greater extent than we might guess \u2013 even when those sources are not \u201cthe experts in the room.\u201d We tend to gravitate to sources who share our political beliefs, even in entirely apolitical situations.<\/p>\n She described a study confirming just that in a 2018 New York Times<\/em> column titled, \u201cWould You Go to a Republican Doctor?<\/a>\u201d The 1,000-plus comments further underscore the findings.<\/p>\n Sharot\u2019s research shows, too, the extent to which we humans are susceptible to confirmation bias, that no matter the source, we are indeed more likely to seek and believe information that supports what we already believe or that we want<\/em> to believe.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you perceive the scientist as not sharing your interest, you won\u2019t pay attention,\u201d agreed \u00c5sa Wikforss, professor of theoretical philosophy at Stockholm University, Sweden, whose best-selling book Alternativa fakta. Om kunskapen och dess fiender<\/em> (Alternative Facts. On Knowledge and its Enemies, Fri Tanke f\u00f6rlag, 2017) is being translated into English.<\/p>\n In this era of post-truth, \u201cobjective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion,\u201d said Wikforss, who is an expert on, among other things, \u201cknowledge resistance\u201d \u2013 researching why humans are so likely to resist scientific evidence.<\/p>\n \u201cBelief drives action, so knowledge resistance matters,\u201d she said, noting that Europe saw a 300% increase in measles in 2018 and 75 people died.<\/p>\n Trust can be exploited, make us believe what\u2019s false and not believe what is true, sowing doubt in sources, she said: \u201cI often say that post-truth is post-trust.\u201d<\/p>\n Wikforss spoke of climate change and the misunderstanding of language.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you do science communication,\u201d she said, \u201cyou should do this: Explain what consensus is \u2013 the convergence of data \u2013 and its evidential value; that it\u2019s not just \u2018everyone agrees.\u2019 And explain how scientific institutions work \u2013 the internal mechanisms that counter bias and error.\u201d<\/p>\n Human nature works against us, all the panelists agreed. \u201cWe are suckers for fake news,\u201d said Wikforss.<\/p>\n UConn speaker Michael Lynch, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and director of the UConn Humanities Institute, delved into why fake news is so prevalent and why we are such suckers for it.<\/p>\n Lynch, who researches the role of new media, said it is important to understand what we are doing and what we are not doing when we post and re-post on social media.<\/p>\n The author of The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data <\/em>(W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 2017), he said the data suggests we are not<\/em> reading what we re-post and we are<\/em> sharing the content that \u201cgets us riled up.\u201d<\/p>\n Social media and its platforms operate on emotion. We think we are sharing information. But, said Lynch, \u201cit\u2019s doubtful the primary function of the communicative act of sharing a post is to convey factual information if a: we don\u2019t really know what it is and b: what predicts our sharing of it is emotional effect.\u201d<\/p>\n This, he suggested, is what makes information polluters so effective. They know and understand the game that\u2019s being played. Scientists need to as well.<\/p>\n As the presentations ended, a cartoon showed on the screen. One panel read \u201cTruth: I think therefore I am.\u201d The other panel read \u201cPost-Truth: I believe therefore I\u2019m right.\u201d<\/p>\n The event was sponsored jointly by UConn\u2019s Science of Learning & Art of Communication<\/a> (SLAC) program and the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute<\/a> (UCHI). <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A panel discussion Friday grappled with the challenge of how, in this time of sweeping science denial, scientists can craft messages about their research that not only inform but also persuade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":150429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2027],"class_list":["post-150428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 06:40:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150428"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150434,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150428\/revisions\/150434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/150429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150428"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=150428"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=150428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}