This year’s Sense about Science lecture focuses on the need encourage accountability in the deployment of evidence in public life. Tracey Brown looks at how the truth can be an amorphous concept in science, with scientists more likely to hedge claims with caveats whilst more bombastic statements are made in other disciplines.
[Sense about Science] wants to encourage the research community to trust the public with the uncertainty in their work. To support scrutiny and the asking of searching questions. To create a culture where organisations outside of science feel obliged to explain their reasoning in the light of evidence.
The Guardian: Science Weekly Podcast
The English Chess Federation - DG XXVII: The ECF vs Mrs Sally Williams; DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express - elections will be held this coming Saturday. A good time to stop and have a think about accountability, perhaps.
Here are a few snippets of Tracey Brown’s Sense about Science lecture at the British Library a week or two ago. Have a read. See if you think the podcast might have something to do with chess and decide whether for yourselves whether it’s worth a visit to the Guardian’s website and 40 minutes of your time.
I’m talking about critical scrutiny. Questioning new and old wisdom. Challenging misrepresentations or oversimplification. Not going along with a partial picture.
Sometimes, though, unjustified claims about what is true are not what we would call lies, not when lawyers are around anyway, but an obscuring of the truth with innuendo and misleading statements - which we find no less wrong.
The truth is hard. It can be socially awkward. It can be legally awkward.
There’s another reason that diminishes the appetite for truthfulness and that’s liking the outcome … people often stay silent about facts and figures where their pet projects and their social convictions are concerned.
… it doesn’t matter that people who want to promote evidence have motives. It doesn’t matter until those things - evidence and motives - pull in opposite directions … we’re sucked into the Good Lie. Promoting or just going along with dubious evidence for the sake of a social good. Staying silent because talking about the gaps and flaws would mess up a message you like.
If we want the bodies that influence life to be accountable for the evidence they use - to reckon with reality rather than to make it up to suit themselves - then the only way to achieve that is through public scrutiny not private words.
Politicians, public bodies, companies, NGOs, news organisations will only feel obliged to explain their reasoning and refer to evidence if that’s what they think is expected of them, not just by researchers but by citizens, voters, customers, supporters and readers.
The demand for evidence is part of creating public accountability in those authorities.
Where there’s no scrutiny there’s no accountability.
There are some decisions that have to be taken on the basis of uncertain, unsatisfying and conflicting evidence. This is the ugly truth and we should face it honestly ….
Chess and Dementia Index
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