{"id":10894,"date":"2017-12-31T02:31:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T02:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=10894"},"modified":"2018-01-01T02:34:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T02:34:17","slug":"with-science-under-siege-in-2017-scientists-regrouped-and-fought-back-5-essential-reads-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/with-science-under-siege-in-2017-scientists-regrouped-and-fought-back-5-essential-reads-2\/","title":{"rendered":"With science under siege in 2017, scientists regrouped and fought back: 5 essential reads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maggie Villiger<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

2017 may well be remembered as the year of alternative facts and fake news. Truth took a hit, and experts seemed to lose the public\u2019s trust. Scientists felt under siege as the Trump administration purged information from government websites<\/a>, appointed inexperienced or adversarial individuals<\/a> to science-related posts<\/a> and left important advisory positions<\/a> empty. Researchers braced for cuts to federally funded science.<\/p>\n

So where did that leave science and its supporters? Here we spotlight five stories from our archive that show how scholars took stock of where scientists stand in this new climate and various ways to consider the value their research holds for society.<\/p>\n

1. A risk to standing up for science<\/h2>\n

In April, the March for Science mobilized more than a million protesters worldwide to push back against what they saw as attacks on science and evidence-based policy. But some people in the research community worried about a downside<\/a> to scientists being perceived as advocates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emily Vraga, assistant professor in political communication at George Mason University, put the conundrum this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u201cOn one hand, scientists have relevant expertise to contribute to conversations about public policy\u2026. On the other hand, scientists who advocate may risk losing the trust of the public.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maintaining that trust is imperative for scientists, both to be able to communicate public risks appropriately and to preserve public funding for research, she wrote.<\/p>\n

Vraga and her colleagues\u2019 research suggests that scientists don\u2019t lose credibility when they advocate for policies based on their expertise. But there\u2019s a distinction to be made between advocacy and mere partisanship \u2013 statements motivated by the science are received differently than if they\u2019re perceived as driven by political beliefs.<\/p>\n

2. Rhetorical tools at the ready<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Protesting is one thing, communicating a message is another.<\/span>
\n Peter Cedric Rock Smith<\/span>, CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the feeling that there\u2019s a \u201cwar on science\u201d afoot, savvy scientists are thinking about how to defend their work. University of Washington professor of communication Leah Ceccarelli says they can look toward the field of rhetoric<\/a> for help in how to get their messages across. She writes:<\/p>\n

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\u201cBefore dismissing this recommendation as a perverse appeal to slink into the mud or take up the corrupted weapons of the enemy, keep in mind that in academia, \u2018rhetoric\u2019 does not mean rank falsehoods, or mere words over substance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s about building persuasive arguments, built on solid foundations, she says. Rhetoricians study effective communication \u2013 and they\u2019re happy to open their toolbox to scientists.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the science of science communication<\/a> is becoming a hot area of inquiry, as practitioners investigate and disseminate<\/a> various techniques<\/a> for effectively spreading accurate scientific information<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. What you miss out on when science gets cut<\/h2>\n

Scientists are always scrambling to secure funding for their research, and during the first year of the Trump administration, it seemed science projects were consistently on the budget chopping block. <\/p>\n

Christopher Keane, the vice president for research at Washington State University, made the case that federal funding for science ultimately revs up regional economies<\/a>, particularly when scholars within academia join forces with entrepreneurs in the private sector:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThousands of companies<\/a> can trace their roots to federally funded university research. And since the majority of federally funded research takes place at America\u2019s research universities<\/a> \u2013 often in concert with federal labs and private research partners \u2013 these spinoff companies are often located in their local communities all across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

4. Slashing science projects hurts workers<\/h2>\n

Ohio State University economist Bruce Weinberg described how a unique data set<\/a> allowed him and his colleagues to actually follow the money<\/a> on federally funded scientific research. Using administrative data, they were able to identify everyone paid to work on a research project, not just the few who appear as authors on any culminating journal articles.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is valuable because we\u2019re able to identify students and staff, who may be less likely to author papers than faculty and postdocs but who turn out to be an important part of the workforce on funded research projects. It\u2019s like taking into account everyone who works in a particular store, not just the manager and owner.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The majority of people employed on research projects turn out to be somewhere in the training pipeline, whether undergraduates, graduate students or postdocs.<\/p>\n