The ever-funny Andy Borowitz has written in The New Yorker about a previously unreported challenge in the fight against Ebola: It might make Americans believe in science. He writes:
In interviews conducted across the nation, leading anti-science activists expressed their concern that the American people, wracked with anxiety over the possible spread of the virus, might desperately look to science to save the day.
"It's a very human reaction," said Harland Dorrinson, a prominent anti-science activist from Springfield, Missouri. "If you put them under enough stress, perfectly rational people will panic and start believing in science."
For someone who left science to become a writer specifically to help explain science to the public, this piece is both funny and also so very not funny at the same time. Almost 20 years after I put down my pipette, Americans are, if anything, less willing to let science guide their health, energy, or environmental decisions than they were back when I started - thus the humor in Borowitz' piece.
All of this makes me wonder if I could have spared myself several decades of worrying about clever analogies, agonizing about transitions, and racing the clock to make deadlines and done something less stressful with my life. Something fulfilling. Something where at the end of the day, my work would help people live happier, healthier lives rather than producing something people will ignore if it doesn't fit their ideology.
Matthew Nisbet and Dietram Scheufele have written a number of articles about science communication and its effects on public perception of science. In the American Journal of Botony they write, "Often when the relationship between science and society breaks down, science illiteracy is typically blamed, the absence of quality science coverage is bemoaned, and there is a call put out for 'more Carl Sagans.'"
In a nutshell, that sums up my career switch. I bemoaned the absence of quality science coverage and fully intended to fill that gap.
Then, they go on to shatter my reasons for writing by pointing out that at a period of time when the public's regard for science was at it's highest - soon after the Sputnik launch - science literacy was abysmal. In one survey at the time, just 12 percent of people understood the scientific method, yet 90 percent of people believed that science was making their lives better.
What that survey suggests is that even a scientific challenge like Ebola is unlikely to push Americans to be better educated about science. But perhaps with the perfect transition, or really outstanding analogy, those same scientifically illiterate Americans can be convinced that science is making life better and - I'm really dreaming here -should be funded?
If yes, maybe Borowitz' fictional anti-science advocate will be proved right, and we will head down that slippery slope "in which a belief in science leads to a belief in math, which in turn fosters a dangerous dependence on facts." One can hope!
Previously: Scientist: Just because someone's on TV doesn't mean they're an expert
