Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.Address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the World Bank conference âGlobal Knowledge â97â, in Toronto, Canada, on 22 June
Knowledge, it is often argued, is inherently good. Knowledge isnât just good because itâs instrumentally useful, like mathematical objects or a hardware tool.
Knowledge is good in a deeper, moral way, a little like compassion or equality. Indeed, knowledge for knowledge sake is worthwhile, the well-known refrain tells us. And not only is knowledge good, the pursuit of knowledge is likewise good. We should seek knowledge as one of the most valuable things one can have. By contrast, ignorance is bad, and knowledge sets us free of the shackles of ignorance. To be knowledgeable is good, while to be ignorant is bad. To become knowledgeable is the ethical thing to do; to remain ignorant is unethical. Knowledgeâs close cousin, information, is likewise good as the ingredient of knowledge. Gathering and understanding information helps us be better people. Importantly, this allows us to make good decisions. Informed decisions, we often hear, are what we should all strive for. And education, the sharing of information and imparting of knowledge, is the pathway to being informed and more knowledgeable. In all of this, the moral value of knowledge is taken as prima facie, a moral value that sits at the heart of science communication.
Science communication is a broad term and a notoriously hard one to clearly define. It can be defined quite narrowly (public communication about science by scientists or the media) or very broadly (Trench & Bucchi, 2010). In this book, we take a broad-church view or science communication, and following Davis and Horst, weâll understand the term to mean âany organised action aiming to communicate scientific knowledge, methodology, processes of practices in settings where non-[experts] are a recognised part of the audienceâ1 (Davies & Horst, 2016). This means we sometimes take risk communication, health communication or environmental communication to be forms of science communication (when the risks are science based or have significant science content, for example). Fundamentally, we take science communication to be an umbrella term, one that encompasses almost any form of communication where science is an important part of the communicated content.
Morally, science communication, this umbrella term for public understanding of science and public engagement with science, is generally seen as the right thing to do. Indeed, the moral virtues of science communication are widely taken as read, and this moral footing appeals to the moral value of knowledge in a fundamental way. Science is about knowledge (the root word scientia simply means knowledge). So science communication doesnât just communicate any old thing; it communicates something good: knowledge. And science communication is, at least at times, about the sharing of this scientific knowledge. It engages and educates about knowledge, thereby transmitting information and increasing understanding. The claims made about the value and importance of knowledge echo throughout the science communication literature, from the importance of having a public capable of making informed decisions to the value of a scientifically knowledgeable society.
The aim of this book is to make explicit some of the unquestioned assumptions held about science communication, to highlight some ethically problematic aspects and practices and to invite deeper reflection on the ethics of science communication understood broadly. This should matter to practising science communicators, to science communication researchers and to those studying science communication. While much effort is spent on being good at science communication (in terms of being effective), less effort is spent on being good science communicators (in terms of morals). We think this is because the value of knowledge often goes unquestioned.
But why is more knowledge necessarily better than less? Specifically, why is more scientific knowledge always better than less? Why would that be the case? And who for? Consider the following case discussed in the NYT in 2014.
Jennifer was 39 and perfectly healthy, but her grandmother had died young from breast cancer, so she decided to be tested for mutations in two genes known to increase risk for the disease. When a genetic counsellor offered additional tests for 20 other genes linked to various cancers, Jennifer said yes. The more information, the better, she thought. The results, she said, were âsurreal.â She did not have mutations in the breast cancer genes, but did have one linked to a high risk of stomach cancer. In people with a family history of the disease, that mutation is considered so risky that patients who are not even sick are often advised to have their stomachs removed. But no one knows what the finding might mean in someone like Jennifer, whose family has not had the disease. (Grady & Pollack, 2014)
Maybe Jennifer would have been better off with less knowledge rather than more (Hofmann, 2016). And Jennifer is just one case where we might start to question the presumed moral worth of sharing knowledge.
In this book, we take our starting point to be that while knowledge, its pursuit and its communication, is, in many cases, a (morally) good thing, it is not always nor necessarily a good thing. The communication of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, needs to be a considered activity. To communicate science ethically, we need to be consider when it is a good thing to do so, and when it may not be; how it should be done; who we should engage; why it should be done. We need to have a base for the ethics of the field, and this is what this book aims to do: to start the process of establishing the moral foundations of science communication and to define the core ethical principles guiding the field. By investigating the moral foundations for science communication, we want to address the following pertinent problems at the core of the field.
When Should We Engage in Science Communication?
Sometimes the âwhenâ of communication is as important as the âwhatâ of content. A sensitivity to the timing of communication was a central tenant of rhetorical theory from classical times when it was labelled kairos. This attention to the âwhenâ, the kairotic nature of communication, has eluded much discussion in science communication. And yet, ethical issues not only lurk there, but we have the potential to guide science communication practice by paying attention to the âwhenâ. The classic idea of kairos also suggests that there is an opportune or ârightâ moment for communication. And herein lies a discussion to be had.
Around the world, governments tout innovation as a key to prosperity and emerging technologies as important components of global as well as local success. Scientific organisations, too, insist that sharing the riches of technology and the results of science will propel economies and publics into new relations with each other. But when is the ârightâ moment to discuss the details? In a case of âwe know it when we see itâ, the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA safety in 1975 was a kairotic moment of science communication (Fredrickson, 1991). The conference publicised the idea that recombinant DNA technology and research had evolved to the point that guidelines were needed, a public debate needed to be had about the uses of the technology, and scientists needed to be clear about boundaries around the research. This conference is pointed to as âthe end of the beginningâ of recombinant DNA research and a key moment where a need for public discussion was communicated. Paying attention to kairos, then, what other conversations are especially timelyâand conversely, what are discussions that have happened too early or too late? Nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the continued evolution of gene editing are all areas of science and technology (or even âtechnoscienceâ as the science and technology are so inseparable) where there have been continued calls for âpublic debateâ. But when? Recent moves in research policy, most notably Responsible Research and Innovation (to which weâll return in Chapter 3), have been pushing for engagement throughout the research and innovation process, starting at inception. But there are challenges. If communicators and scientists communicate too early, they can be accused of âhypeâ; too late and they risk being accused of âcovering upâ risky or valuable science.
The role of science communicators in specific events also raises questions of âkairosâ and the question of the âright momentâ. After the tragic earthquake and tsunami that crippled Fukushimaâs nuclear plant, science communicators were seen to be âtoo slowâ (as well as not knowledgeable and even giving false information) in talking about the potential effects from nuclear leakage, its relation to the food supply and its implications for human health (Sugiman, 2014). If sociological predictions that technologically driven disasters will become more commonplace due to climate change as well as the ubiquity of technology, do science communicators know when the ârightâ moment to communicate is? What is the definition of the ârightâ moment in these cases of urgency? Shakespeare in the mouth of Brutus from Julius Caesar nails the dilemma:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Is It Ever Ok to Wilfully Remain Ignorant?
As we saw in the above example with Jennifer, there are clearly times when as individuals, we might prefer to remain ignorant of certain facts; knowledge is not always a good thing. But much of science communication and engagement is not just about individual decisions; itâs about societal decisions. Is it ever permissible, or...