Three challenges of being a scientist in an age of misinformation.

Abstract

Policy and life choices rely on accurate and credible information (Scheufele andKrause, 2019), yet there is a growing concern about the spread and consumption of information that is either patently false or misleading. Once planted, misinformation is difficult to debunk as exemplified by the falsely proposed link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism (Kotwal and Ansari, 2012) – misinformation that is now considered one of the world’s most pressing public health issues by the World Health Organization. In many ways, we are in a perfect storm of rapidly changing social media news environments, political polarization, and societal debates in which scientific facts have a hard time competing with misinformation and misleading claims. And to put the punch line first: science alone cannot navigate us out of this storm. But we can avoid making things worse. Toward that end, this editorial considers three challenges of being a scientist in an age of misinformation and what we can do about it. But why do we, as scientists, engage in public communication in the first place, especially during global pandemics like COVID-19? One goal, of course, is to inform the public. Science cannot determine public policy, but at the very least it should inform the choices of citizens and policymakers. A second goal of scientists connecting directly with the public is to maintain or build public trust, especially as it is under assault by populist leaders, as has been the case recently in some countries where policymaking is not informed by the best available science. A third and somewhat unique challenge is when scientists try to battle public reluctance to wearmasks or vaccinate, i.e. to influence behaviours that are often separate from the need for people to understand the science behind their choices. None of these challenges are ones that the scientific community can solve by itself. Solutions will require collaborations across policy, (social) science, public health and many practitioner communities, ranging from museums to science filmmakers. At the same time, science has made avoidable missteps. In other words, we as scientists might inadvertently contribute to misinformation due to three major challenges facing scientists in the communication of our results.