The Perception Puzzle

In our last blog, we talked about how public perceptions on science, scientists, and scientific research are hugely varied and a lot depends on the personal, cultural, organizational, or societal context within which each individual lives and views the world. As on every aspect of scientific research, public perceptions on animal experimentation vary according to individual contexts.

In a forthcoming piece in Public Understanding of Science, Fabienne Crettaz von Roten, shares some interesting findings on a multi-country research on ‘Public perceptions of animal experimentation across Europe’. Perhaps, not surprisingly, there is greater acceptance of research on mice but opinions on research on dogs and monkeys are a lot more divided. The research shows that “men, older people, and tertiary educated people are more likely to accept animal experimentation” than others. But then, the research also shows that general acceptance of animal experimentation in at least nine European countries had “significantly dropped” between 2005 and 2010.

Clearly, the issue of perception is a complex one. For one, perceptions are not necessarily stable and then they vary according to external inputs, including cultural, political, economic, and medical imperatives. Public engagement with science is, therefore, an increasingly complex and challenging process.

In line with the objectives of forums such PUS, the National Academy of Sciences in the US is organizing a two-day colloquium on The Science of Science Communication in Washington, DC, on 21 and 22 May, 2012. The colloquium will, as its organizers say, provide an opportunity to “scientists to improve their understanding of the public” and “for communication practitioners to enhance their knowledge of the state of the science”.

A greater and more fluid interaction between scientists and communication practitioners, as well as with what is called the “lay public”, would go a long way in closing the perception gap. One pathway to a collaborative approach, according to physicist-turned-writer and a protagonist for collaborative science, Michael Nielsen, is “Open Science”. See also a Q&A session with him on the TED Blog.

Mind the Gap

That there is still a huge communication gap between “scientists” and the “public” is well-known. Quite a few scientists continue to lean on the knowledge-deficit model to view people of non-scientific backgrounds, especially activists, as ignorant and unable to grapple with the intricacies of science. Many members of the public, on the other hand, tend to see scientists as people living in cocoons with limited understanding of social, economic, or political contexts. Yet neither scientists nor the public are homogenous groups. Perceptions, often misplaced, have a lot to do with the gap.

This then might be a good time to refer to John Besley and Matthew Nisbet’s forthcoming piece in PUS on ‘How scientists view the public, the media and the political process’. These two scholars analyse two large surveys of scientists in the US and in the UK to see how and why scientists tend to, or are perceived to, look at the public and the media with hostility and contempt. The homogenization of categories is an issue, the authors of the analysis point out. There could, perhaps, be better engagement if future research could “carefully examine how factors such as personal experience, gender, ideology, worldview, selective information sources and other communication processes shape how scientists perceive the public and the media”. This holds true for public perceptions of science and scientists too.

Indeed, the significance of perceptions on how scientists understand the public was clearly evident in the very first article of the inaugural issue of PUS in 1992 by Walter Bodmer and Janice Wilkins. While bemoaning the lack of trust the British public placed in scientists, the authors then said that “it is going to be very difficult to bring science into the lives of unskilled working women”. The authors were, of course, trying to see how science could be made part of the lives of ordinary people. But then ordinary people are not all the same. First of all, “unskilled working women” may well be skilled in areas that are not formally recognised and may not necessarily be ignorant of all things scientific. And second, are they really representative of the entire spectrum of the "non-scientific" public? Indeed, each of us makes sense of science in line with the context within which we live.

As always, we invite comment and discussion.