Why We Need to Stop Calling People “Anti-Science”
This past week, I was invited to help facilitate a workshop for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology’s annual meeting. We talked about theory and strategies for communicating across the ideological spectrum, and I was really grateful for all of the experiences that our audience brought. It reminded me of why it’s so easy to (and why we shouldn’t) label people “anti-science,” and you can read more about that below.
I help scientists be seen with complexity without losing sight of their values. Book a workshop with me.
Shout Out
Street Forum ATX is a mutual aid community for unhoused Austinites. It sprang out of 2019 movements to push against legislation that criminalized and punished our unhoused neighbors. They provide breakfast, hygiene materials, and resources in their pop-up cafe in Republic Square Park every Sunday. Check out their Instagram @streetforumatx for more information on how to get involved with this community.
What I’m reading/watching/listening to
- grumpywarriorcool what makes our movements white?
- Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
- A Note on Call-Out Culture
- Adulthood Rites
- Wednesday
- Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day
- Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies
Why We Need to Stop Calling People “Anti-Science”
When someone dissents or disagrees with a public health mandate like masking during COVID, we–as science communicators==often say “Just believe the science” or “Science knows best.” And we tend to label people “anti-science” and collapse them down to that one aspect. It’s as easy to do as stereotyping, to just put someone into a category. As humans, we love doing it. But let’s talk about the problems with labeling someone “anti-science.”
The truth is, very few people would actually label themselves “anti-science.” They don’t necessarily wake up in the morning and plan their day around going against all of the latest peer-reviewed results they can get their hands on. Often decisions we make about health- or environment-related behaviors come from all of our complex values and experiences.
There’s also a lot of historical context that goes into decisions like this. An especially important one for you as a science communicator–especially in the United States–is to think about the ways in which our medical system has been racist both in the past and currently. I highly recommend you check out the work of Dorothy Roberts or Harriet Washington. They are both amazing scholars who lay out this historical and ongoing context. A great place to start is Dorothy Robert’s TED Talk.
So when a person makes a decision, like whether to get vaccinated or wear a mask, all sorts of values and historical contexts that have nothing to do with the facts go into that. People make decisions based on economics, their ideology, and so on.
Often what is at the center of these decisions is the question of “Who gets to make decisions for me?” And this is where science and medical institutions act as big authority figures. And when a decision appears to someone like the choice between the government telling them what to do or making that decision for themselves, that activates particular value systems.
All, that is to say, is that it’s more complicated than someone being pro- or anti-science. Labeling people anti-science will often just make people even more distrustful of scientists and medical professionals (who often wield power over them). This just makes the problem worse. So, let’s find ways to see people in their full humanity.
I help scientists communicate their science without sacrificing their humanity. Book a workshop with me.
