In scientists we trust

In the Australian Reader’s digest annual trust survey, ambulance officers have once again topped the list of the most trusted professions.

Other professions we consider trustworthy include firefighters, nurses, pilots and doctors. Not surprisingly, politicians, car salesmen and telemarketers were the least trusted of 40 professions in the list.

But how much do people trust my profession – the scientist?

Scientists are used to intense scrutiny about the validity of their work. Attention to detail, testing and retesting, and criticizing research of our peers is what we do, so I think the job description alone means scientists are, by definition, honest and accountable. Scientists came in a respectable 10th on the list, less trustworthy than farmers (9th) but more honest (and hopefully less scary) than dentists (11th).

But why then are people so skeptical of scientists and their findings in many of the topical science issues currently under debate?

Recently climate scientists have been publicly accused of having vested financial interests in the outcomes of their research or stretching the truth in search of the media spotlight. Stephan Lewandowsky, an Australian Professorial Fellow at the University of Western Australia, has brought some sense to this argument by clarifying that Australian research grants cannot be used to top up a scientist’s salary.

A stringent peer review process must occur before a scientist’s work can be published. This is a process that quickly, and I think effectively, identifies and weeds out unsubstantiated conclusions and speculation in science. Under such scrutiny from their peers, the foundation of a scientist’s reputation is built on their ability to faithfully report results and interpret them accurately. Scientists who somehow alter or extrapolate data to support any “vested interest” simply cannot survive in a system in which a successful career depends on respect from fellow scientists.

So is this skepticism of science really because people doubt the credibility of scientists? If scientists really are the 10th most trusted profession, the answer to this question is no. But if we trust our scientists, why do we so often question the science they produce? Perhaps it has less to do with the scientists and more to do with the profession that scored a lowly 35th on the list of trustworthy professions, just below lawyers and tow-truck drivers – journalists.

While scientists are experts in their own field, they often find it difficult to communicate the message of their research to a general audience and become bogged down in technical jargon. It is the journalist’s job to translate, breaking down the complex language into something that is understandable to non-scientists.

But journalists and scientists have very different motivations when reporting science. Scientists take pride in reporting information accurately and in detail, while journalists will often look for a “sexy” angle of the research that they can exploit to attract the attention of their target audience. Journalists may decide that the true message of a scientist’s research just isn’t interesting enough and turn the story into something far from the truth.

A good example of this is a story that seems to have been first reported in October 2009 in Science News. This initial report told of how John Warner, an organic chemist at the University of Massachusetts tested some shopping receipts to see if they contained bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-mimicking chemical that can feminizing effects in foetuses and predispose them to developing cancer later in life. Just recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged the effect of BPA on human development and said it was working to remove the chemical from plastic baby bottles.

Warner’s preliminary results indicated that the carbonless copy paper used in the receipts contained high levels of BPA, much higher than the amounts that leached out of plastic baby bottles. This research was never published and this fact was made very clear in the initial report in Science News.

Today this story made big news in most newspapers and blogs worldwide. I personally saw in first in The Daily Mail, where these preliminary results were being shamelessly toted as just another reason why men shouldn’t do the shopping – because the chemicals on the receipts might make them impotent. A powerful example of how the game of Chinese whispers among journalists can completely distort the message of scientific research, or in this case, the message of just a few preliminary results.

My faith in humanity was partially restored when I saw that scientists were the 10th most trusted profession. I’d like to think that this demonstrates that people don’t appreciate being fed simplistic, misrepresented science in the media. For the most part, I hope that people are able to sort the fact from the hype in science journalism, and according to what they think of journalists in the annual trust survey, it appears that they do.

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/content/printContent.do?contentId=182809

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2842091.htm


http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48084/title/Science_%2B_the_Public__Concerned_about_BPA_Check_your_receipts

http://www.physorg.com/news182959051.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1290753/Shopping-makes-men-impotent.html