In a new book, chemist Christopher Reddy tackles the problems faced by the scientific community during moments of major crisis
Pew Research. In a reflection of how politicised science, including medicine, has become Democrats are three times as likely as Republicans to trust scientists. Reddy has an explanation some scientists might not like. They are part of the problem., the chemist challenges scientists to learn how to explain what they know to the public, particularly around environmental disasters and medical emergencies, at a time when the spread of misinformation is turbocharged.
Too often, Reddy says, specialists are talking to each other but failing to help ordinary Americans understand the science, whether over oil spills, the climate crisis or a pandemic. “And the media was having a field day, ferreting out petty personal disputes between researchers and cherrypicking the most sensational end-of-world claims made by anyone with a PhD attached to their name. I got into an argument with a reporter during a taping of Good Morning America, which ended with him pulling the plug and storming off.”
“Most people want answers and not a laundry list of the gaps and challenges within a scientific issue,” he said. Reddy offers the example of Carl Sagan, the cosmologist, astrophysicist and much else besides who was denied tenure at Harvard and never admitted to the National Academy of Sciences. Reddy said Sagan was sneered at within parts of the scientific community because of his public popularity through his books and interviews.
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