An interesting article in Nature last year, by scientist and journalist Anita Makri, described
how science communicated in the popular media sometimes leaves the public confused,
and that in the ‘post-truth’ world, scientists are increasingly being ignored[1].
Makri criticised what’s known as the ‘deficit model’ of the public
understanding of science concluding that it’s partly scientists’ fault that
they are being ignored. The message is clear. Scientists need to be less
technical and perhaps even a bit more humble when putting over their messages. Over
the last year at the BGS, we’ve been putting this theory into practice
communicating our major UK Geoenergy Observatories investment to the public –
with some success.
Anita’s Makri’s article makes an interesting distinction
between the blue-sky, ‘sense-of-wonder’ science of Brian Cox and David
Attenborough, and applied socially-relevant, ‘incremental’ science, suggesting
that the latter is the more difficult to communicate. BGS science sits firmly
in the socially-relevant category. Though we have grown out of a science rich
in wonder (fossils, ancient climate change and mass extinctions), BGS
concentrates on ‘lives and livelihoods’. Our strategy of sensing the Earth is about understanding
the subsurface at timescales that matter to people, rather than over millions
of years. This is exactly the science of UK Geoenergy Observatories –
infrastructure designed to look at the possibilities of using the subsurface
for decarbonisation technology.
One of the problems of the ‘deficit model’ of science
communication is its assumptions. The model was first promoted by the Royal
Society in 1985 in a report called the ‘Public Understanding of Science’[2].
The story is that the public doesn’t believe or care much about science because
the science isn’t being explained clearly enough. There are clear doubts now that
this is the right model. Social scientists who study communication, for example
Jane Gregory[3] and
Ruth Dixon[4],
believe that scientists worry far too much about the words they use and the
diagrams they show, and too little about finding out about how people feel. Ruth
Dixon says that academics need ‘…to question, with some humility, their own
‘deficit model’ of the public understanding of politics’, and try to empathise
a bit with our audiences. She praises the artist Grayson Perry who recently
said that what was missing when communicating with the public was ‘emotional
literacy’, the ability to understand and express feelings. A recent academic article
by Iain Stewart and Deidre Lewis has also suggested a more empathic approach is
needed, in that ‘…factual information’ should be ‘…subordinate to values and
beliefs in shaping public perspectives on contested geoscientific issues…’[5]
I have to admit that as a scientist with a role in
communicating geoscience issues, I have sometimes got it wrong. A few years ago,
a YouTube cartoon was made of a talk on shale gas that I gave at a London
debate[6].
The filmmaker shortened and simplified my argument (that science needs to take
a greater role in the debate). I liked the cartoon, and so was surprised by some
of the online reaction, which described the delivery as a bit arrogant and
stuffy. So when the UK Geoenergy Observatories project came along – with all
its challenges for communication – it presented an opportunity for a new
approach. This is part of a sustained BGS communications campaign, planned and led
brilliantly by UK Geoenergy Observatories communications manager Cristina Chapman.
The UK Geoenergy Observatories are BGS and NERC’s new geoscience
test sites being set up in Glasgow and Cheshire. The sites will watch and
analyse the underground, and develop technologies that might help the UK to decarbonise.
Our new observatories will look down into the Earth just as Jodrell Bank and
Herstmonceux look up into the sky.
Developing the science, designing the arrays of boreholes
and specifying the sensing devices has been an absolute focus of our activity
to take the idea from concept to reality. So too has been the importance of meeting
local people in Glasgow and Cheshire to explain what our observatories will do
and why we are so excited about the science.
Reaching out to local people meant meeting them on their
terms. We made sure that the approach was neither didactic nor pedagogic and
that we were in listening mode at all times. We turned up in church halls and
community centres right at the heart of the communities that would be closest
to our boreholes. We turned up at times that allowed for different working
patterns and daily routines.
The communications team stripped away the usual academic
props (orating experts, lecterns, projectors, rows of chairs and jam-packed
agendas), replacing them with open space drop-in sessions, free-flowing
dialogue with BGS scientists ready to listen – and lots of pictures, maps and
physical props. We fielded representatives from all areas of the organisation:
generalists, specialists, delivery staff - and from the very top of the
organisation. Everyone pitched in and everyone played a part – which helped to
break down ‘them and us’ barriers.
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| BGS public engagement UK Geoenergy Observatories Chester Town Hall |
The ‘drop-in and meet the scientist’ events I attended were
among the most interesting experiences of my 17 years at BGS. It was
intellectually taxing and physically demanding work, and probably some of the
most rewarding work I’ve done in years. Others found it similarly rewarding. For
a government scientist, there can be no better test of your ‘function’ - to be
able to say convincingly what your science is for, how it benefits the country
and whether it represents taxpayers’ money well spent.
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| BGS public engagement UK Geoenergy Observatories Helsby Community Centre |
BGS has gone some way to understanding the challenges of communicating
science but there is much more we can do. One thing is certain: when we make
the time to listen, people return the respect by taking time to engage with us.
It is this two-way dialogue that makes our science more relevant and our communication
more efficient.
[1] http://www.nature.com/news/give-the-public-the-tools-to-trust-scientists-1.21307
[2] https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/1985/10700.pdf
[3] http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/feature/public-understanding-of-science-lessons-from-the.html
[4] http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/12/20/the-focus-on-better-communicating-certain-truths-is-misplaced-academics-must-improve-their-emotional-literacy/
[5]
Iain S. Stewart & Deirdre Lewis 2017 Communicating contested geoscience to
the public: moving from ‘matters of fact’ to ‘matters of concern’. Earth-Science
Reviews 174, 122–133
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKW4_UGVGBw
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