Facts take back seat in science controversy
What role do facts play in helping form opinions? Sod all, it seems.
By Jason Major
A new paper (reference below) about to be published in the Journal of Communication questions the use of facts to add power to an argument, at least in the context of GM foods and carbon nanotubes. Once people did form an opinion they processed any new factual information in a biased manner. That is, they tended to re-interpret the information to fit in with their pre-existing ideas, though this latter finding is not a surprise, nor was it for the researchers. See previous TechNyou commentary on this
The researchers don’t entirely dismiss the use of facts to add weight to an argument. It is circumstance-dependent. But it does raise the issue of how we often rely on the assumption that the “facts will speak for themselves”, especially in the context of scientific debates where facts are often held up as supreme.
James N. Druckman and Toby Bolsen at Northwestern University set out to understand whether including facts added influence to the framing of nanotechnology and genetically modified food. Among a few other things they also wanted to know how, after exposure to a specific framing on a subject (positive or negative), did people interpret scientific information on the topic? Were they objective in their analysis or interpretation of the information or did their pre-conceived ideas influence their interpretation?
Their study involved getting a bunch of students grabbing people leaving the polling booth at a recent US election. The interviewees were randomly assigned separate frames and conditions. The frames were either positive or negative and either were fact free or fact-based. See the paper for full details.
Their overall conclusions are as follows:
“At every stage of the decision-making process, the processing of factual information is fraught with imperfections. First, facts have limited impact on initial opinions—no greater than alternative considerations including values and perceptions about science credibility. Second, we find that when provided with frames that lack factual information and frames that include facts, individuals do not privilege the facts. Facts do not enhance frame strength (although facts do have effects equivalent to that of frames without facts). Third, once they form initial opinions, individuals process new factual information in a biased manner. Specifically, they view information consistent with their prior opinions as relatively stronger and they view neutral facts as consistent with their existing dispositions.”
TechNyou experience
I have two experiences with this, at least in reference to GM food. At our recent public forum run in collaboration with Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, we presented three GM crop examples and got people to rate how acceptable it was to use GM technologies to generate these crops. The framing for the event was food security: that by 2050 we will have an extra 3 billion people to feed and we need to do this using the same amount of land and less water, less fertiliser and other inputs. Can GM crops play a role in helping establish a secure food supply?
The audience voted on each crop and then a discussion was had about the science and issues surrounding that crop. The audience voted again. This was repeated for each crop. In two of the three crop examples the polarization that was present in the initial vote was emphasized. To some degree facts did influence a few people and it tended to drive them further toward their natural biased position at least that is my assumption based on discussions after the event. Most of the movement was from the unsure position to either end of the scale of acceptable or unacceptable. That is, the new information, I suspect, was being processed in a biased way.
The exception was the drought-tolerant wheat where the voting stayed much the same. That is, the facts certainly had no influence.
The complete voting results are available on the event web site
Up close and personal
My second experience is with the workshops I run and which I have talked about previously. In these workshop participants also make an uninformed or “gut reaction” vote to the same or similar examples of GM crops. A discussion also follows the initial “gut reaction” vote. Unlike Adelaide, however, the workshop participants tend to change their positions from crop to crop and sometimes changing their position about a crop as the discussion develops. There are only a tiny minority of people that are entrenched at one end or the other. Compared to Adelaide, polarised views are relatively absent here. Again, discussion and presentation of facts was influencing people, but I am reasonably confident that the changes were strongly influenced by existing biases. It was rare for someone to go from one extreme position to the other. I say reasonably confident because the nature of the discussion in these workshops is intimate and in-depth and people tend to reveal these natural biases.
This behaviour is similar to the workshops I run on all topics: from stem cells to genetic testing, though my scientifically rigorous gut feeling is that on the topics of say stem cells, genetic testing and designer babies, moral opinions about the use of these technologies are more entrenched and facts are often less influential than with GM foods and nanotechnologies, especially nano where people are still getting their heads around what the hell nano is, let alone how it is being used.
The key difference between the workshops and the surveys conducted for this paper, is that the workshop participants are in an intimate and informal environment, they usually know each other and there is in-depth discussion about the scientific facts and the issues. People experience other people’s perspectives and what drives them. They hear and learn things they never thought of before and this makes them think and ask questions. You will witness people question their moral position or personal views and become more accepting of other’s views (sometimes less accepting as well). In this environment, I think the facts can play a role.
Although some of my experiences don’t match exactly the data in this paper (a lot of it does), the paper adds some good academic rigour to what we have suspected for some time. I do think, however, the facts (appropriately framed) are important in any situation – eventually anyway. By that I mean it maybe OK for a person to form an opinion about something based on natural bias – it is human nature after all. But when that opinion has influence on decisions or policy that has important implications for the economy, health or environment then the facts have to come to the fore. Opinions may still differ regarding the ultimate answer to the problem, but it will be an informed opinion. For example, the scientific consensus may point to the fact the technology behind the generation of GM crops can be used safely and be of potential benefit, but depending on the problem you are trying to solve, people can still differ in their opinion about whether that technology or GM crop is the most acceptable way to solve it. The problem with this, of course is that this, I suspect, will require a radical change in human behaviour. It is in our nature to take these cognitive shortcuts. In other words who can be bothered to spend the time and effort needed to get their head around all the essential facts affecting our lives enough to make the “informed decision”. This leaves it to the few who love this stuff and do understand the facts, which raises the other issue of trust. Who do we trust?
And what bearing does this have on TechNyou’s role in public engagement?
Druckman and Bolsen suggest: “Our results suggest that the best route to facilitate reasonable opinion formation may be to provide alternative ways of thinking about new technologies—that is, different frames—and then to encourage individuals to weigh these frames against one another.”
So, I just need to figure out how to frame the discussion, what facts do you introduce and when. For example, too much chocolate bad for you – full of fat, sugar….. Never says, my wife. OK then, 100 grams of dark chocolate a day provides loads of iron and antioxidants, and if you choose Fair Trade it can help farmers in developing countries. Enjoy! I am reasonably confidant that if I squeezed in the science behind these claims that people would take the time between mouthfuls to care – not.
Ah sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Reference
Druckman, J. & Bolsen, T. (in press). Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions about Emergent Technologies. Journal of Communication.
Matthew Nisbet who has done extensive research into how framing affects public perception and opinion also has some good commentary on the paper and topic in general on the Big Think web site