Scientist/layperson relations

There's a new feature article by Liza Gross [1] up at PLoS Biology. Titled "A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars," the article does a nice job illuminating how the themes of trust and accountability play out in interactions between researchers, physicians, patients, parents, journalists, and others in the public discourse about autism and vaccines. Ultimately, the events Gross examines -- and the ways the various participants react to those events -- underline the questions: Who can we trust for good information? and To whom are we accountable for our actions and our…
Following up on an excellent post she wrote earlier this month, Jessica Palmer at Bioephemera brings us an update on the lawsuit against Jared Diamond and The New Yorker. You may recall that this lawsuit alleges that a story written by Diamond and published in The New Yorker defamed its subject (and Diamond's source) New Guinean driver Daniel Wemp, as well as Henep Isum, another man featured in the story but never interviewed by Diamond nor contacted by fact-checkers from The New Yorker. As described in the earlier post at Bioephemera: Diamond's main source, a New Guinean driver named…
You may have heard that the Obama administration has proposed new rules for federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. (The proposed rules are available in draft form through the end of the public comment period; the NIH expects to finalize the rules in July). While researchers are enthusiastic at the prospect under this administration of more funding for ESC research, not everyone is happy about the details of the proposed rules. Indeed, in a recent article in Cell Stem Cell [1], Patrick L. Taylor argues that there is something fundamentally misguided about the way the new…
In the wake of some recent deaths in Edmonton of teenagers who took Ecstasy, DrugMonkey gets irritated with a doctor who made some proclamation to the press: I'm particularly exercised over an article which quotes Charles Grob, M.D. (UCLA page): Charles Grob believes there is a strong chance that a deadly batch of adulterated pills is making the rounds in and around Edmonton, though health officials and law-enforcement groups have issued no such public warning. Dr. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, was the first U. S. researcher to conduct human tests of methylenedioxymethamphetamine…
It occurs to me that there might be an interesting parallel to the conundrum we discussed about whether it's better to engage with a scientist giving off a shady vibe or to back away with all due haste. It's not a perfect parallel, but there are some similar issues at work. Should scientists and physicians engage with the Huffington Post? If you follow the ScienceBlogs frontpage, you will have gathered by now that the view in these parts is that HuffPo's science-fu is not strong. Folks like PalMD and Mike the Mad Biologist and Orac have detailed some of the ways the "health and wellness"…
After considering the many different roadblocks that seems to appear when people try to discuss research with animals (as we did in parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series), it might be tempting to throw up your hands and say, "Well, I guess there's no point in doing that, then!" Resist this temptation! As we noted in part 7, there are good reasons that we (by which I mean scientists and the public) ought to be engaging in dialogue about issues like research with animals. Avoiding dialogue altogether would mean cutting off the flow of information about what actually happens in animal…
Remember earlier this week when we were discussing some of the positions people might hold with respect to the use of animals in research? These included animal rights positions, which held that animals have inherent rights not to have their bodies transgressed (or that, by virtue of their capacity to suffer, they have rights not to be used in ways that might lead to their suffering), and animal welfare positions, which hold that animal suffering matters -- that it is something to be avoided or minimized -- but do not ground the ethical importance of animal suffering in animals' status as…
In this post, it's time to pull back from the specific kinds of dialogue blockers we've been examining (here, here, here, here, here, and here) to start to consider other ways we might get around them. Here, I want to start with some insightful remarks from a friend of mine, philosopher Vance Ricks: When you describe "dialogue" in that post, it sounds as though you're mostly focusing on communication between A and B. One wrinkle in the animal research case (and many ethical cases generally) is that A and B aren't just (not) talking to each other; they're talking to each other AND to an…
So far in this series, we've talked about ways that attempts to have a dialogue about animal research can be frustrated by inability to agree on a shared set of facts as a staring point or by unclarity about the positions people are trying to put forward. Today's featured impediment to dialogue has less to do with the mechanics of laying out and engaging with a clear argument and more to do with reasons people might be fearful even to voice their positions: Ignoring the impact of the tactics used to advance a position. The philosopher Kant made a famous statement that he who wills an end…
Today we discuss an impediment to dialogue about animals in research that seems to have a special power to get people talking past each other rather than actually engaging with each other: Imprecision about the positions being staked out. Specifically, here, the issue is whether the people trying to have a dialogue are being precise in laying out the relevant philosophical positions about animals -- the position they hold, the position they're arguing against, the other positions that might be viable options. Why is imprecision about your philosophical position a dialogue blocker? It tends…
As we continue our look at ways that attempted dialogues about the use of animals in research run off the rails, let's take up one more kind of substantial disagreement about the facts. Today's featured impediment: Disagreement about whether animals used in research experience discomfort, distress, pain, or torture. This disagreement at least points to a patch of common ground shared by the people disagreeing: that it would be a bad thing for animals to suffer. If one party to the discussion accepts the premise that animal suffering is of no consequence, that party won't waste time haggling…
As with yesterday's dialogue blocker (the question of whether animal research is necessary for scientific and medical advancement), today's impediment is another substantial disagreement about the facts. A productive dialogue requires some kind of common ground between its participants, including some shared premises about the current state of affairs. One feature of the current state of affairs is the set of laws and regulations that cover animal use -- but these laws and regulations are a regular source of disagreement: Current animal welfare regulations are not restrictive enough/are too…
Today we continue our look at the reasons that attempts to have a dialogue about the use of animals in scientific research routinely run aground. Dialogue, you'll remember, involves the participants in the dialogue offering not just their views but also something like their reasons for holding those views. In addition, in a real dialogue, participants engage seriously with each other's positions. Serious engagement doesn't necessitate that one of the positions on offer ends up persuading everyone in the dialogue, but everyone is supposed to be open to considering each view -- and open to…
In a post last month about an animal rights group targeting a researcher's car with an incendiary device, I closed by expressing my profound pessimism at the prospects of having a serious dialogue about animal rights: As a philosophical position, the case for animal rights is not completely empty or indefensible. However, as it's being propagated "in the wild", as it were, the case for animal rights is being made with lies and intimidation. Among rational people, this is a bad way to make a case for your position. Thus, it seems to me, people arguing in good faith for the animal rights…
In a pair of earlier posts, I looked at the ethical principles Matthew C. Nisbet says should be guiding the framing of science and at examples Nisbet discusses of ethical and unethical framing. Here, consider some lessons we might learn from the framing wars. I'm hopeful that we can gain insight about the folks interested in communicating science, about the various people with whom they're trying to communicate, and perhaps even about the approaches that might be useful (or counterproductive) in trying to sell scientists on the utility of the framing strategy. This post is not so much a…
In my last post, I looked at a set of ethical principles Matt Nisbet asserts should be guiding the framing of science. In this post, I consider the examples Matt provides as the "DO" and "DON'T" pictures for the application of these guiding ethical principles. First, Matt examines an example of framing done well: In January 2008, the National Academies issued a revised edition of Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a report intentionally framed in a manner that would more effectively engage audiences who remain uncertain about evolution and its place in the public school curriculum. To…
If it's spring, it must be time for another round of posts trying to get clear on the framing strategies advocated by Matthew C. Nisbet, and on why these communications seem to be so controversial among scientists and science bloggers. My past attempts to figure out what's up with framing can be found here: Movie screening expulsion: whose hearts and minds are up for grabs? Trying to understand framing. Trying to understand framing (II): draw me a picture. Trying to understand framing (III): the example of stem cell research. Minor epiphany about framing. The present post has been prompted by…
DrugMonkey responds to the outgoing Drug Czar's deep concerns about research with illegal drugs conducted with subjects who are addicted to those drugs, those concerns reported in an article in the Washington Examiner. From that article: The federal government is giving crack and powder cocaine, morphine, and other hard-core drugs to taxpayer-funded researchers for testing on addicts, The Examiner has learned. For decades, the government has authorized, funded and lobbied for studies in which otherwise illegal drugs were given to addicts in cities such as Washington, Bethesda, Baltimore,…
Some commenters on my last post seem to be of the view that it is perfectly fine for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air to bolster their claims, at least under some circumstances. I think it's a fair question to ask: In which circumstances are you comfortable giving scientists the go-ahead to make up their numbers? One suggestion was that scientists ought to be "permitted to use ordinary language meanings of words and colloquialisms in their non-peer reviewed discourse" -- or at least, to do so in discussions on blogs. I take it this assumes that "ordinary language meanings of words…
This week at Bloggingheads.tv, PalMD and I have a chat about science, ethics, and alternative medicine. Plus, we have a little disagreement about what constitutes paternalism. Go watch!