Science still has Gate Keepers - 239

Traditional journalism, the newspapers and periodicals with trained journalists and keen-eyed editors, generally aspire to codes of conduct upholding the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability. Historically editors and newspaper staff were the information gatekeepers.  But traditional journalism has been under assault as citizens have drifted to social media for news and information.

 Social media platforms, while free, have no aspirations to journalism’s code of conduct. As we say, “You get what you pay for!”. It is a dangerous time since it is proven people love lies more than truth and social media is the superhighway of lies.

Since the American Public is enamored with free news via social media our traditional media Gate Keepers no longer have enough subscribers to keep enough investigative journalists on staff. In the last 15 years one in five newspapers have closed their doors and half of all working journalist jobs have been eliminated.

But there is one area where information is still vetted for accuracy, where Gate Keepers still rule abiding by the traditional journalistic principles I mentioned above. Science journals employ Gatekeepers because truth is the currency of science.

The problem for you and I, at our level of science education, is we do not have the background to understand all of what is in science journals. We should not feel too bad about this as even scientists in one realm of study are often clueless about the work of scientists in other fields of research.

With this conundrum can we vet science information? Is all lost for us who want to know science truth from BS? No it is not. In Science magazine 21October2022, Jonathon Osborne and Daniel Pimentel make the case we can all become, “Competent Outsiders”. Of the over 30 articles I have saved in my library of science magazine addressing education and countering misinformation, this article best describes how we can reasonably assure ourselves we are reading and comprehending healthy science information.

The science community, while not infallible, does have trusted experts. Additionally, these experts when seeking reputable journals to publish their work, must run the gauntlet of keen-eyed science editors who seek out other experts to evaluate submitted work for errors. When submitted studies are found to pass standards, the work is printed.

After printing, the rest of the science world gets to critically analyze the work. Other scientists will vet the work and even perform the same experiments to see if they can replicate the findings. Parts of the work may be contested. Often there are suggested amendments and cautions. Sometimes, fortunately infrequently, the whole work fails to pass global review and the publishing journal will retract the paper.

After scrutinized and amended work passes global inspection,  when the dust settled and most scientists are in agreement, it is called consensus.

This thorough vetting of information by experts gives us a way to create opinions we can be confident in. We, though, must learn to employ a disciplined process.

Here is the three-part process Osborne and Pimentel encourage us to use to become “competent outsiders”:

First, we need to figure out who is the source of the information we are examining. If the source has a conflict of interest, or has not identified their sources, or presents their case in a biased tone, reject the information.

But, if your initial evaluation finds there is no conflict of interest, all sources are identified, and the authors speak to you in unbiased tones, continue to the second step.

In the second step we have to confirm if the authors of the work are experts in the field they are making their claims. Or, like me and my work, do I use the work of relevant experts to make my case? If the author(s) have expertise, or rely on experts to make the claims they do, what is their track record? Amongst their peers is their work respected? Do they have credentials from reputable institutions? Do they have relevant experience in the field they are submitting the information? If the people you are evaluating do not pass muster, reject the work. If you find their expertise persuasive continue to the final exam.

Here we come back to consensus. It is the third and final test. How many other science experts agree?  Consensus can be reduced to numbers. A decade ago when I started to investigate climate change 100% of reputable science organizations were in consensus on climate change with the exception of the American Petroleum Institute. (Conflict of Interest?) Additionally, over 90% of climate scientists were in consensus which quickly rose to 97%. A recent Cornell study analyzed climate studies published in reputable science journals and put the consensus over 99%.

Social media has no gatekeepers.  Traditional media, while still operating under an ethical code, is underfunded. In the science arena science gatekeeping is still alive and well. Our challenge is to make sure we can identify the truth by employing the three-step process.

I suggest writing down this evaluation protocol and practice using it. Pass it on to the family, especially the young. It would be fun to engage with friends and family identifying issues, running down the procedure together and seeing if you can come to your own scientific consensus.

Can we be competent outsiders? Yes, if we want to.