S3 #42 What does the research say about Science Communication? Brain-to-brain with Prof. Rainer Bromme.

0:00Hi and welcome to Kaleidoscience, here you find answers about cognition that you may or may not have asked yourself. This episode is hosted by Imogen Huesing and Sophie Kuhne. So sit back, relax and enjoy this week's episode. Before the episode starts, a short disclaimer. Due to technical difficulties, the audio quality might be slightly lower than what you are used to and some of the sections have background noises. We try to minimize him as much as possible and we hope that you will enjoy this episode

0:30anyway. Have fun! Welcome to this episode, which is part of our winter special. In this episode, after talking to a lot of science communicators, we will go a little deeper into the science of science communication. And to do that, we would like to welcome Professor Rainer Brombe, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Münster in the areas of psychology, where he focuses on educational

1:03psychology, science education, and science communication. And next to his own research, he is a member of several committees and advisory boards for science communication. Welcome and thank you for making the time for talking to us. Thank you for the invitation. So, before we start into the topic of today's episode, we want to play our welcome game as always. And, yeah, I will start five sentences that you then spontaneously complete.

1:36The first sentence is, as a kid, I always wanted to be.

1:42I wanted to be a kind of sailor. I wanted to travel around the world, you know, large ship, as large as possible. Very different from what you do now.

2:01And were you ever able to travel on a ship? No, but my most favorite sport I'm doing is kayaking. Oh, yeah. Very nice. It fits quite well. The next sentence is, if I was an emoji, I would be. Oh, actually, this is a question for self-hate, because I don't like and I don't use emojis.

2:28So, let me take the emoji who laughs but simultaneously cries.

2:37A favorite of mine, I have to say. The third sentence is, my favorite thing to do on a day off is? Kayaking. Nice. And the fourth sentence is, right now I'm most fascinated by? Oh, I'm still very fascinated by science and by the successes and also sometimes the failures of research, I'm always interested in reading about new findings.

3:16Of course, I mean, reading in popular magazines in all finds. I'm still very fascinated by that. Nice. That's so cool to see that even after quite a long academic career, there's still the curiosity, that there's still the curiosity to learn new things. Yeah, I think curiosity is the basic, or it's one of the basic characteristics or features

3:49or attitudes you need to have to do this, to work in this field. I think otherwise, I mean, I came across people who gave me the feeling that they have lost their curiosity, but this often results in kind of sterile way they do the research. So I think it's necessary as a kind of motivator as well as a kind of guideline, so to say. Yeah. And the last sentence is, I know it's time to call it a day when...

4:26When I've finished, especially when I've managed to finish a paper, that's happy. Nice. Thanks. Before we start into the main topic, we want to talk a bit more about your scientific journey, your academic journey, so your main field is psychology, and if I read it correctly, you started out more in the realm of teaching and the classroom for your research focus.

5:06Yes. Since I... Actually, as it often is the case, more accidentally, after when I finished my diploma in psychology, I was offering a German research institute for mathematics education, and by there I had the possibility to still to work as a psychologist, and therefore I always had the challenge of finding themes, subjects, research topics which allowed me to keep up

5:41a psychological perspective in the context of mathematics education, and that's what I did for nearly 20 years, but simultaneously I graduated Ph.D. and habilitación in psychology.

5:58And this, in a sense, motivated me to be quite interested in interdisciplinary research on the one hand, but also it sharpened my understanding of what it means to be a psychologist.

6:17It's a little bit like if you're a Catholic in a Protestant environment, you learn very much about what it means to be a Catholic. So, I think it's similar.

6:28So, you learn more about basically what distincts your research field from other research fields? Yes. When you come here. Since then, I'm very interested in also in other disciplines, in the structures and concepts of other disciplines and in which ways they differ or are similar to psychology. And when did you start to get involved in research about science communication?

7:01Like, when did you kind of shift from science about education to science about science communication? Well, it was, I started for a long time, I was researching teachers. Mathematics and science teachers' cognitions and their professional knowledge. And from that, it is not too far to go to the question, well, what does the general public

7:34think about knowledge and science? And in a sense, I could even call an exact date. So, to say, when I started with that, I suggested to the German Science Foundation a kind of research program of understanding of science and dealing with the public's dealing with conflicting scientific evidence. And this program offered a lot of colleagues and myself to do research in the public understanding

8:14of scientific evidence. That's really funny. Before, I have to say, I spent some years with a research focus on so-called epistemic beliefs, which is, in a sense, a kind of metacognitive understanding of you, of what people think about knowledge. And from there, the next step is then to ask, well, what are people thinking about knowledge

8:45in general, but more special about scientific knowledge? Yeah, maybe we can go a bit into epistemic beliefs. I mean, could you give a bit more of an explanation of what epistemic beliefs are and maybe where they come from, how they develop?

9:08Yes, there are, in the literature, there are, so to say, two possible answers. One is an answer which, where the epistemic beliefs are more or less a kind of metacognitive awareness about one's own, one's own knowledge. And there's another counter approach which says no epistemic beliefs are beliefs or should

9:39be conceived as ideas people have about the knowledge of others. And of others means, especially of those who are, who have another kind of expertise than you have yourself. And I would say that when it comes to science education, as well as to citizens' capabilities to cope with the everyday, with science in the everyday world, both kinds of epistemic

10:10beliefs matter. It's obvious that a kind of understanding of one's own understanding, and also, by the way, the limits of one's own understanding matter, but also the ideas people have about, for example, researchers, scientists, but also science journalists' ideas about science. Okay, can I try and give, like, two examples for this? Because this idea is currently a little bit abstract for me.

10:42So, the first thing you talked about is my knowledge about what I think I know. So, for example, I don't know, when I'm in the kitchen and I look at the pasta and I know it needs to boil for about 10 minutes. That's me kind of knowing that, and I am aware that I know that. Do I understand that correctly? Yes, yes. But this is, of course, this is a nice example of what in psychology typically is called metacognition.

11:17I know that I know that. I would, and there are colleagues who would argue that simultaneously this is kind of science knowledge because they, the science of, I mean, it is obviously the cooking of pasta is an element which, or is a process which could be understood from a scientific point of view. So, but I would say, no, this is not, if I, as a, standing in the kitchen and have an idea about that, I would not call that as a kind of science which I have, because I would argue

11:54that science is not only content, but it is also a kind of social process and a kind of social institution, meaning it's only if I start to think about concepts where I have the idea, well, this is what scientists might think about cooking, then I would argue this is a kind of epistemic beliefs which are really science-related epistemic beliefs. Okay, and the second way of epistemic beliefs you talked about is that, for example, I believe

12:31that even though I don't understand mathematics particularly well, I believe that the scientists who do the research on that do. Yeah, yes, yes. And just, for example, people often think that it's a very widely widespread assumption that in mathematics, for example, all concepts are always very precisely defined, that there is no variance of the understanding of concepts.

13:04And so when I, as a psychologist, for example, started to work in this math education project, I was really, it was quite astonishing for me to learn, for example, that there are huge books in mathematics and in the philosophy of mathematics where it is argued what is a variable, for example. Every concept of what is a variable is only in school textbooks. It's quite obvious when it comes to philosophy of mathematics and real mathematics, it is

13:40clear there are different approaches, schools, ideas. Of course, there are more prevalent than other ideas, but still there's at least a kind of history of the understanding of what a variable, what a number and so on is. And in terms of that, I think it is helpful if people have a kind of realistic idea also about the very nature of the sciences and mathematics and so on.

14:14This applies even more for, I think, in everyday context. It's more relevant in the context of, for example, chemistry or biology. There is, it's important to teach and to talk as much as possible about the very nature of scientific concepts.

14:36But that's what I just did when I talk about the historical changes of the concept of a variable. Yeah, that makes sense. And epistemic beliefs tie into science communication and research in the way that I believe scientists in general and I know that my knowledge is limited. Yes, and also the ideas I have about what I can expect from scientists.

15:08For example, to have a very concrete example, when the COVID pandemic emerged, it suddenly became obvious that scientific evidence is evidence which is constituted by a kind of agreement within the scientific community. And this is, aligns not with what students learn in school when they are confronted with parts of Newtonian physics or so.

15:42There it is said, well, it is, these are very well-established concepts. And the very fact that establishing these concepts is a kind of social agreement that is very, in a sense, it's very hard to grasp because it is inherently true that these concepts are neither arbitrary nor pure invention and that they reflect a kind of reality, the concepts of physics and the concepts of chemistry and concepts of biology.

16:15And on the other hand, simultaneously, they are kind of social agreements among researchers. And it's very difficult to, but also important to emphasize these dual characteristics of concepts because if these both sides are emphasized simultaneously, this is a kind of gateway of science denialists. This is what I just had started with mentioning it. I would like to come back to the COVID pandemic because there, suddenly, it was used by science denialists

16:53and all kinds of conspiracy theorists, so to say, they said, well, all these guys, they are not very clear about the COVID virus and everything. And so we cannot believe them, meaning that only if there is a kind of clarity and final agreement on what a scientific concept is,

17:30that only if that is achieved, then it would be possible to work with a scientific concept. But in reality, that is not the case, especially when it doesn't come to something new like it has been the COVID virus. I think that is also something I notice a lot, that also the updating of scientific knowledge is always kind of publicly perceived as the researchers have been wrong.

18:04But it's not necessarily that there has been things that were wrong, but more like we need to update. So we gain more knowledge, and with that more knowledge, we can improve the theory. Yes. Fortunately, the surveys, as they've done, for example, in the context of the German Science Barometer, this large representative survey about German's perspectives on science,

18:36they show that typically this incremental nature of production of scientific knowledge is not conceived in the public as being problematic. It is only when it is put into a politically or ideologically contested context, then it suddenly could become a kind of counter-argument against the truth or validity of scientific evidence.

19:08But in general, it can be, fortunately, very fortunately, we can assume that at least Germans, it might be different, by the way, in the US, that's much more separated ideologically, but at least in Germany, you can say that the majority, if they have ideas at all about what science is, and so on, are not totally confused, so to say, when they learn that these concepts are incrementally refined and changed.

19:43That's very good. So you said that people are aware of these incremental updates, and generally, obviously, it would be good if the general public believes in science and the science that is communicated to them. How does that work? So how do you communicate science in a way that people can understand and believe it?

20:20Well, let me jump to your first sentence. It's not that I would argue that someone from science or science communication should wish for a kind of gullible faith and public belief in science. Obviously, it would be necessary to have what I like to call a kind of informed trust, and this means that, of course, people are critical and they are vigilant against all kinds of deceiving

21:00and preliminarity, so to say, of scientific findings, of course. But the problem, what I mean is that such very concrete, informed trust, meaning there's such a critical attitude, is then against what comes up as a new finding, which is then said by someone to be relevant for the everyday life of a citizen,

21:32that should be at least perceived and processed based on the general attitude, the general idea that science is an important voice, so to say, to tell us something about the real world. Because typically in everyday life, I mean, you are in a student and study context, and I'm working in a study and university context, just as you,

22:02but typically people live not in these contexts, but they live in contexts where they get information about issues, for example, of health or climate and so from a lot of different sources. And science is only one of these different sources, and that's fine so far. So, it is just, I think it is important for trust in science that people at least have a general positive appreciation and expectation

22:37about this kind of source of knowledge.

22:42And this general expectation could be then the kind of background, which of course is then concretely enacted, it could be for very good reasons that people are very critical. I mean, it's also obvious that not all what scientists say turns out to be true. Often it happens then that later it turns out things are now seen in a different way than they used to be seen.

23:14But this does not mean, or it is helpful to deal with that if one starts with a kind of background mindset, so to say, which is rather appreciative of science. We call that, or one notion for that is, it would be, or it is typically positive if people have a kind of belief in the potency of science.

23:52This is a concept suggested by a U.S. colleague, I think, by the name Monroe. He has suggested this notion of potency of science, meaning, well, it means what the word says, that people have basic belief that at least in principle, science is an important kind of mechanism, but also an important kind of social enterprise which produces reliable, or which could produce reliable knowledge,

24:24which might, or which sometimes, not always, but sometimes matter for real-life decisions people have to make. In school, often the focus on the science subjects is more on communicating basically the facts or what the science community sees as the current state of knowledge. Do you think it would be beneficial to also teach more of this social aspect of science, of the scientific method?

24:54Because I think if you don't study, you don't really learn about the social aspect of science after school. Yes, I think it would be very, very important and helpful to do that. And it is also, yes, I totally agree with it. And it is also necessary to add, so to say, that what I mean with this. Because nowadays, at least in the gymnasium,

25:25the syllabus already has a kind of emphasis, not only on the facts, but also on the methods, how they are established, explaining what an experiment is and so on. But this is not the whole story, so to say, about this social nature of science. And that means when it comes, for example, let me get back to the COVID example. It is more important to learn

25:55why, in which way you can establish that Christian Drosten is more reliable than one of these esoteric guys who run these science denialists podcasts, which are existing, then explaining why the structure of the virus itself.

26:27And this has a strong implication. If I'm starting to talk about why Christian Drosten is reliable, I have to talk about the social system of science, why, what does it mean to become a professor and a director in that field where he works, and also to help that sometimes there are people who are professors and scientists in such institutions, but they are nevertheless talking nonsense.

26:58But overall, this is less probable, and things like that. Talking about that, you are suddenly talking not about germs, about the structures of virus. You are talking about a kind of social phenomenon. And I think it is necessary, or it should be, that in chemistry and in biology and in science teaching, such topics also should be covered. Let me add that it's also clear, I think,

27:31I would clearly argue that the kind of basic understanding of the basic concepts in chemistry, biology, physics, and so on, that they are still necessary. It's not that I would argue, well, you should, it is possible to talk only about this social structure of science, but I would like to emphasize that talking about the methods, and now I'm repeating what I already said, it's not enough, as it is said nowadays in the syllabus,

28:02at least in Germany, and more exactly, I recently looked up in North Rhine-Westphalia, in the state where I live in, that clearly says, yes, we have to talk about this concept in science, but then also about the methods. But it's not said, also about the social structure of the real existing institutions in Germany. And that is what I think is necessary, because when people, when they are out of school, and they are confronted with all these different voices telling them something,

28:33they have to decide who to trust, it is not very helpful to have a grasp of understanding of what a virus is. So, in order for people to increase their trust in science in general, they not only need the information the scientists find out about, but also the concept where the scientists exist and do their research.

29:04Yes. Okay. Yes, and in that very general sense, there's a kind of agreement nowadays in all kinds of science educators, but I would like to radicalize that a little bit when I point to that this requires to teach about the real concrete society which scientists are available there. Or to put it even more practically,

29:35I think it would be very helpful if in chemistry education, just to take an example, the teacher would not only talk about acid and about patients and bases, but also would take about which chemists nowadays are present on some kind of social media and what are they doing and are there examples of those who are reliable

30:07and are there examples of kind of freaks who are providing very strange theories and to help students to deal with this kind of science in their media environment.

30:26What can we as science communicators take away from this insight? So should we communicate more about the process of how we got to results? Should we make the social dynamics behind research and science more transparent to communicate that more instead of results?

30:52Well, as I said, not in the sense of that results don't matter, but in this two provocative answers would be science communicators should read a lot of newspapers.

31:04I mean, they should be aware about present conflicts and debates in the general public which matter for science. This refers back to what I said earlier when I said, well, the default value or the default attitude people have against science is neither very critical nor very interested. people are not distrustful distrustful of science.

31:36Typically, they have a rather positive, mildly positive expectation. It's only when there is politically motivated or for other reasons motivated kind of science denialism that this problem occurs at all. And that's what I mean why it's necessary to read the newspaper because it is necessary to understand, for example, to take a very concrete example, there is a clear put forward by the AFD when it comes to climate change,

32:07there is a clear they have a clear agenda of science denialism. And in terms of that, it is, of course, important to be aware about that, about the political motives behind it and things like that. That makes sense. Just for the people who might not be German, the AFD is the far right-wing party in Germany.

32:33You also already touched on the fact that teachers shouldn't just communicate the scientific facts, but also maybe talk about science communicators, for example, on social media. So, how do you think the, yeah, let's say the popularization of social media over the last few years has changed and shaped science communication? At least it offered

33:06the possibility of a kind of discourse among citizens about science-related topics. And, of course, it has always been the case also in the past that people are not alone, so to say. They talk with their grandmother and their husband or their wife

33:36about findings or about things they hear about science if it somehow matters for themselves. And nowadays, the room and the number of people who possibly could involve in such discussions has enlarged. and this, of course, is an important, I would say, contextual condition, so to say, for science communication.

34:07When I, preparing my sentence, I realize in my mind that I have not, or at least at present, I'm not aware about studies which really show if there has been an increase on science-related topics as topics discussed in social media. I would assume that, again, this depends on events,

34:39on reasons for public interest in science which typically comes from events and incidents which are being out of science, meaning the COVID epidemic suddenly led to the effect that people got interested in science while typically they are, for very good reasons, they aren't, they haven't been very interested in science and that's fine so far.

35:11I don't think that science should be having a missionary attitude that everyone had a kind of knowledge and understanding of science. I mean, carpenters also make their living, there's a kind of division of labor, it's also for carpenters not necessary that everyone is interested in the business and in the skills of carpenters. So, in terms of that, I think it is fine then when people are interested

35:43in knowledge which has been shown to be valid by science but it is not necessary that people are in a very overarching sense are interested in science. Why? I mean, science communicators often think so but I think why? This has to be legitimate.

36:04Yeah, I feel like for me it's that I'm interested in science myself. I feel like this is also so, I mean, we've talked to some science communicators for a winter special and I think there's a large overlap of people who do research and do science communication.

36:25Yeah. Yeah, I think that it is very helpful and it is very good for society when there are many researchers but also journalists are interested in discussing and talking about science. This is quite clear but I always think it somehow should be related to issues

36:56people really are interested in and are and that there should be good reasons so to say that it is important for citizens to know about that and to be aware about that. but I am a little bit hesitant against the idea that that science as a realm of that all knowledge which is produced by science is this worthwhile and necessary

37:26so to say to sell it to the general public because I mean as I said there's a kind of division of cognitive labour and the division of labour and it is clear there are parts of scientific knowledge which are very important for the production of science scientific knowledge but which is not necessary that all citizens know about that. I feel like a lot of science communicators are scientists

37:57themselves and as we discussed in the beginning if you want to work in that field you need this curiosity and I feel like I guess sometimes science communicators me definitely included forget that this curiosity is not shared by everyone outside of this research realm. I would like to be very clear it is very good to advertise

38:28and to for that curiosity to find to increase it and so on but on the other hand I just want to say just for avoidance of disappointments and for a better and more rational discussion about what should be the aims of science communication what should we achieve within the general public so to say as the attitude as idea about science in terms of

38:59that I'm always emphasizing this other side that the very idea that all scientific findings should be brought among the general public that this is often implicitly I think taken for granted and therefore I like to come up at least with two question marks for three I've now talked a lot about the importance of trust

39:30in science communication and also played a big role in your research on science communication could you maybe go a bit into how you research trust yes I could give you two examples so one example is that we for example we studied which ways people explain for themselves when they

40:00come across contradicting scientific claims so this happens of course people try to find evidence about the for example the impact of sugar for health or something like that and then they come across contradictory evidence or arguments not evidence but arguments put forward they find it easily in the internet

40:31and what we studied empirically was the ideas people have so to say implicit theories people have why that happens why it happens that scientists contradict each other and this is one of the research strands which we developed in our my former group in Münster and which since then several other

41:02colleagues elsewhere but also those who used to be members of my group nowadays still work on trying to establish empirically what people think why researchers contradict each one which is one of the things which we studied another issue which we studied were so to

41:33say the dimensions of trustworthiness people we were able to show that when people make judgments about why is a scientist trustworthy and more trustworthy than another which dimension they refer to one of the interesting in my view interesting findings is that the overall pattern of reasons for

42:03trust and distrust why do people distrust and trust is the same but what really matters for judgments of trust and what really matters for judgment of distrust differs so what we find is that for judgments of trust the main most important dimension is expertise meaning I trust those experts who have the most knowledge who are the most skillful

42:34and I distrust those experts who where I have the strongest indication that they might have that they are not benevolent that they might have additional motives so to say working in their own pockets so to say this is people are very sensitive against that they are very yeah they are very sensitive against smallest

43:06indication of this kind of non-benevolence then the trust in the scientists immediately decreases strongly but when it comes to well this scientist is very trustworthiness but this one is even more trustworthiness than what matters is expertise so we have by the way now I already mentioned these three two of

43:37the three dimensions which we found empirically this is expertise this is benevolence these are the both I mentioned then somehow relate to that integrity meaning do scientists adhere to the rules so to say and then there's a fourth dimension which we had not established but the US colleague John Basley has additionally established the dimension of openness and nowadays we also find that an idea

44:09of is that scientist willing to communicate is he able to communicate and this is a fourth dimension which makes up or which impacts on trustworthiness judgments so we have these four dimensions and this is the other I think relatively important finding which we had and which by the way since then are also somehow in a slight version part of the Wissenschaftsbarometer

44:40the annual Wissenschaftsbarometer not in all years but all very often has items representing these dimensions could you briefly explain for the people who are not from Germany what the science barometer is oh yeah of course the German science barometer is a annual representative surveys about Germans trust in science it's a little bit comparable

45:10to there's a huge there are in other countries comparable surveys but the German science barometer is in a very similar and related way done by the way in Switzerland they use the same more or less the same set of questions and typically the survey questionnaire it's a representative survey as I said it has two parts one is a part

45:40of the items as I just mentioned trust and the dimensions of trustworthiness and then each year there are different in addition they use different items for example last year was about I think freedom academic freedom things like that people's ideas about the role and importance of academic freedom and this is the survey

46:11is done by a kind of agency which is independent from the government but which is funded by more or less a mixture of public money and also money from private founders foundations like the Bosch foundation but both funders don't they have no control so to say about the survey the survey is done by a group of those who are hired for that as I said

46:42as an agency in Berlin running that it is done every year