Scientists: Post-truth is the opportunity we’ve been looking for..
When trust collapses, people turn to science to source the facts
Being a scientist puts us on the frontier of human knowledge. But on that frontier all ideas are debatable — there are no facts established. They only became established knowledge during a long and arduous process of attrition occurs amongst many other scientists. But to get to that frontier of knowledge requires laying the foundation of established facts that everyone can work off. Or as Isaac newton famously put it “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”.
The post-truth world is not a problem with the frontiers of knowledge. It’s not something that a breakthrough discovery or Nature or Science publication can solve for. Post-truth is a failure in science communication — where the rest of the world does not have easy and quick access to what is established knowledge and what is not. This gives us as scientists a unique opportunity to correct this current failure and drive huge impact in our fields. Let me explain..
Post-Truth Opportunity
From Facebook to mainstream media, trust in information on the internet has reached a low point. Facts don’t seem to matter anymore, misinformation is the norm and lies move 6-times quicker than the truth on social media. The exponential growth in information in our digital lives means people have lost the ability to judge fact from fiction, leading to really bad outcomes for lives and society.
Meanwhile, science engagement and impact are the ‘buzz’ words amongst governments and research funders across the world. There is a momentous shift occurring over the coming decades moving away from just quanta of specialist publications that a few peers read. Although it’s an inevitable and necessary evolution within academia, most researchers and universities I talk to are pretty lost on what to do.
In a post-truth world, I see a simple impact metric for researchers: help the most amount of people learn new knowledge, so they can make better evidence-based decisions for their lives, businesses or societies. There a other ways to define impact (eg industry linking, collaboration etc)- but focusing on knowledge impact empowers ALL researchers, including fundamental research and the humanities(not just applied researchers).
Scientists and doctors are among the most trusted professions on the planet to speak the truth. Unfortunately, 3rd parties often sensationalise the message, whether university or government media departments, reporters looking to cherry-pick for click-bait or businesses and activists looking to promote their agendas. Unfiltered communication direct from scientists is the key to building trusted impact and engagement in the 21st century.
So what are some of the current methods that empower researchers to directly engage with the public?
Twitter is good — for a few
Social media is the obvious tool to help reach audiences beyond your own peers. I would encourage all to setup accounts in social media to help you become a trusted thought-leader in your expert domain.
Tweet, post and discuss everything related to your field. Posting a photo of your latest pizza topping is fun, but doesn’t help your impact agenda. Posting a rant about Trump doesn’t help either. People want to learn from your unique expertise — not social opinions that is everywhere today. Also, don’t focus on the number of followers or likes you get. Your goal is to reach the people around the world who are interested, fascinated, curious or working your area that’s always gonna be less than someone posting cat videos..
Using social media however has some big drawbacks — making it something only a few can master…It requires experts to a) think of something meaningful to post, b) spend time composing it, c) cultivate an audience that can connect with you and d) try and work out if you’ve actually made any impact. But to make an impact, there is something else which is a real killer in my experience: the volume of content you need to post to make a difference is beyond most experts time constraints.
Since social media has billions of users and posts daily, the velocity of content is so fast your posts easily get lost into the ether without any impact. This means you need to invest alot of time every day tweeting thousands of times a year to really make a difference. This is just too much for most to invest.
The Conversation — great to showcase your new research
The Conversation is an awesome Australian idea that has gone global. Andrew Jasper (co-founder) has created an enduring platform that allows journalists to work with experts to write authentic fact-based articles for the wider public. I’ve written a couple of conversation articles (example) and think every researcher should write a conversation article summarising their research to give it wider impact (example from one of my students).
Why haven’t I written many more? The challenge I found with the conversation was some similar to other forms of outreach in that I needed to a) think of something you want to write and b) research and write a full article with catchy title took alot of time for me at least (2–3days). So although each article worked to drive ongoing impact, these factors were big barriers to scale my public engagement using just The Conversation. It should always be part of the mix though.
Metafact.io - the public asks experts to verify facts
When we write an article or tweet something in science, we are deciding what is important for the world to know about. I call this the traditional ‘supply-side’ model of science engagement. We try and push it out there, but it mostly fails to have real impact in competition with all the other click-bait in the world. Non-experts simply don’t have the context or knowledge to understand a tweet or jargon-filled pdf. So is it a surprise that most research is still only read by a few people?
But as a scientist, when you actually interact with the public in person, I have found they are generally fully engaged, asking many questions. I have noticed however, an inverse relationship with what I want to write about versus what the public want to know. At dinner conversations and social settings, you tend to get asked questions in your field that are relatable and important to their lives — not the academic arguments we tend to want to write about.
As scientists, what we think the world wants to know about is probably wrong! I get asked the same ~10 questions ALL THE TIME whenever I meet someone new. They also say to me, ‘Did you read that news article about xx, is that true?” As any good business would know, we need to listen to the customers and the public is our ultimate ‘customer’ that benefits from scientific research..
Instead of continuously coming up with something to write about via the exhausting supply-side model of science engagement while hoping the public will engage, wouldn’t it be easier if the public could directly ask us to verify facts/questions in our fields for them to learn from? This is what I call the ‘demand-side’ model of science engagement — and it could help many scientists take the first steps towards driving engagement and impact.
We have recently launched Metafact, a new tool to help drive this direct demand-side engagement model between scientists and the world. Here is Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson’s profile as an example with all the answers he has contributed to in one place. He answers questions only when relevant questions come up in his field and when he has time. This allows scientists the latitude to speak to the facts without 3rd parties while preserving the amount of time spent.
Each answer is viewable and shareable on other social media platforms to help leverage and build greater engagement. Even if you’re working in fundamental biology, there are an immense number of fascinating questions the public want to learn about from trusted experts like you. Like “Are humans still evolving?” or “ Has a complex organism, like a god, ever evolved into a single cell organism?” The list is never-ending..
Ipsa scientia potestas est — especially in the Post-Truth World
A Pew poll showed that just 26% of Americans could tell the difference between fact and opinion, while Australians listed the dissemination of mis-information as a top-6 national threat.
As scientists, you have invested decades into building your own specialist knowledge bank. In a world where misinformation prevails, access to trusted knowledge and expertise is critical. The jargon filled pdf that only a handful of people can understand doesn’t help, but verifying facts and answering questions posed by the public will do alot.
Since you know your specialist domain better than anyone, answering questions is an easier way to mobilize your knowledge impact. It’s also scalable and efficient since a) there a thousands of potential questions/debates in your field that the public wants to know, b) digital platforms and SEO allow for perpetual engagement over time and c) you can now share common answers/facts in your field quickly.
Most importantly, instead of relying solely on the supply-side model of science engagement and hoping for the best, answering questions immediately has direct impact by helping and connecting you with the outside world to help them make better evidence-based decisions.
Dr Timo Vuorimaa, an exercise physiologist from Finland, answered a question on Metafact posed from a member of the public on whether it is possible for humans to ever run a sub 2-hour marathon? He then leveraged his Twitter following to share his answer, along with the 7 other researchers who answered the question here. This allowed greater reach and impact while allowing his followers to ask him questions and for his answers to be accessible to everyone.
Sir Francis Bacon famously wrote ‘Ipsa scientia potestas est’ which translates into ‘Knowledge itself is power’. Researchers have trusted specialist knowledge that the world is craving for in this Post Truth world. Lets not waste this opportunity to drive real impact to help people make better evidence-based decisions while demonstrating how your knowledge impacts the world.
Register as an expert here and starting verify facts in your field. Once registered we will send you relevant questions when they come up. Test it out and let us know! NB: Those experts already verified via Thinkable.org don’t need to register — you can just login here to start. You can also watch a 2-minute video by me here on how it works.
Thanks everyone..
Ben McNeil
