How do we promote confidence in science in a polarized world? How to eliminate the difference between scientific skills and understanding of scientists, journalists, policy makers and more in MIT on March 10 in MIT.
The conference, titled the “Building Trust in Science for the More Future,” was organized by the MIT Press and the Science and Society of the Non -Manifati Espen Institute. It discusses the power of storytelling, the role of social media and our information about artificial intelligence, and why some of the topics of science can be emotionally heated.
A common topic was the importance of sympathy between science communications and the public.
“The idea that dissent is often viewed as dishonesty,” said Lily Sai, a Ford professor at MIT’s political science. “One way to communicate with respect is that there is a real curiosity in addition to the willingness to change one’s mind. We often focus on facts and evidence and says, ‘Do you not understand the facts?’ But the ideal talk is, ‘Your value is’ X’.
Many participants discussed the risk of misinformation, one problem has exceeded the appearance of social media and Generative AI. But this is not all bad news for the scientific community. MIT Provost Cindy Barnart launched the event by referring to the survey, referring to the surveys, expressing widespread confidence among scientists all over the world. Nevertheless, he also pointed to an American survey that shows that communication was seen as a area of relatively weakness for scientists.
Bernard mentioned the long commitment to MIT’s science communication and praised MIT -related communication efforts, including the MIT Press, MIT Technology ReviewAnd MIT News.
“We are working hard to bring the value of science to the society because we fight to create public support for scientific research, discovery, and the need for evidence in our society,” said Bern Heart. “In MIT, an essential way we do is shed bright light on the basic work of our faculty, research, scientists, staff, post documents, and students.”
Another topic was the importance of telling stories in science communication, and participants, including two important speakers, presented their own stories in large quantities. Francis Collins, who directed the National Institute of Health between 2009 and 2021, and Sudanese climate journalist Lena Yasin addressed a joint address through MIT Vice President for Communications Alfred Ironside.
Recalling its time, guiding NIH through Covid-19 pandemic diseases, Collins said that the development of the Kovide 19 vaccine is a great success, but the scientific community failed to explain to the public that science is ready on the basis of new evidence.
Collins said, “We are losing the opportunity to use pandemic diseases as a teaching moment.” In March 2020, we were just starting to know about the virus and how it spreads, but we have to make recommendations to the public, which often changes after a month or two. So the information that the people received began to doubt that it was reliable because it was changing. If you are in a situation where you are talking to scientific evidence, start saying, ‘It’s going on.’
Collins said that when pandemic disease started, the government should have made better plans to convey information to the public.
Collins said, “At that time, our health system was badly broken because it was reduced for a long time, so community -based education was not really possible,” Collins said, “Collins said, his agency should have done more to empower the physicians who had the voice of confidence in rural communities. “There was a lot of our conversation down.”
In his important address, Yasin tried to make his experience evacuate people in his country before natural disasters. He said that many people initially ignored their suggestions, citing their confidence in God’s plan for them. But when he refused his messaging to include the teachings of Islam, most of the religion of a country, he said, that people are very acceptable.
These are another repeated lessons participants jointly: Science debates are not in space. Any conversation that ignores a person’s current values and experiences will be less effective.
“Along with personal experience, there are very important filters in personal beliefs and beliefs that we talk to people about science every time,” said Iroonside.
