Hey, y'all, we are finally back. Oh my goodness, it's been too long, man. So much life has happened, So much has happened, so much science has happened. Yes, so much nonscience has happened on somebody. And that's why we had to come back. I felt like when the world needed us the most, we disappeared like the avatar aang. It just was not right. Well, we are finally here to make it right. I'm TT and I'm Zakiah and from Spotify, this is Dope Labs. Welcome back to semester
four of Dope Labs. We have missed you so much, but let's just jump into it. For the uninitiated, Dope Labs is a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship. This week, we're talking all about something that's been heavy on our minds and hearts for the last few months, science denial. But before we get into that, we have some exciting news that
we want to tell y'all about. You thought you couldn't get enough before, Well, we're gonna find out more more, more, more Dumblamore, More Dope Lab, More Dope Lab. Moore, Hey, y'all ask for it. No more of the bi weekly stuff. We're gonna be in your ears every single week. And that's not the only big change that's happening. Semester four is coming exclusively to Spotify for free starting December sixteenth.
So if you already listened to us on Spotify, keep doing what you're doing, and don't forget to follow Dope Labs and tap that little bell icon so you never missed when a new episode drops. Now after December sixteenth be able to hear new episodes of Dope Labs anywhere else. So if you don't listen to us on Spotify yet, be sure that you go ahead and make that change. Spotify is where you can listen to Dope Labs plus all your other favorite shows for free. All right, ze,
I hope you're ready. Let's start the show. We're starting off this new semester with a real banger. This week, we're talking all about science denial. This has been a huge topic, especially when it comes to the pandemic, but we've also seen a lot of science denial reports in recent years with other issues too. Tit you like climate change, absolutely, we're really passionate about scientific information and combating science denial
in general. I mean, it's why we started the podcast. Yes, yes, we want science to be accessible for everybody, and part of that means having good information and the right tools to make decisions, especially when it comes to your health. So we really wanted to understand science denial, its history, and the motivations behind it. And trust us when we say this issue is not as simple as it might seem. So let's get into the rest of tap.
But it's a sham Sam Sam Sam, shams Sam, But it's a sham sham.
If you're new to Dope Labs. We typically structure our episodes into three main parts, the recitation, the dissection, and
the conclusion. The recitations at the beginning of the lab where we get everybody on the same page and define what we know already and what we want to know by the end of the episode, right, And that's followed up by the dissection where we answer those questions in the recitation, where we talk to our guest expert and learn all the information we do our deep dive during this part of the episode, and then we get to the conclusion where we put a nice bow on everything.
We kind of round up everything that we have learned throughout the rest of the lab and talk about any conclusions that we can make. All right, So for this episode about science denial, what do we know? Why are we talking about this? Well? I feel like science denials on the tip of everybody sung right now because of the virus spreading that shall not be named. No, we're in the middle of a pandemic. So this is a new experience, a new shared experience for all of us.
And so there's a lot of people who are very confused, who are trying to get up to speed with the science around viruses, virus transmission, vaccines and everything like that. And there's a lot of fear, absolutely, I think in addition to all those things you just said and fear, there's a lot of information of varying quality and truth being spread. If you're trying to make some decisions, it's hard to know who or what to believe, and you're
just constantly bombarded with information. Yeah, and then we also know that science denial is affecting very specific communities more than others. The other thing I want to know is where do we draw the line from skepticism to denial, Because I feel like a healthy dose of skepticism is good, right. I think that helps you have like really great conversations. Right, But there's like this really thin line where things start to go left. Another question that I have is what
can we do to check in on ourselves. I'm not coming from a place where I'm on a high horist. How do I check in with myself? How do I check myself if I'm falling victim to that? I think all of those are really good questions. Let's jump into the dissection. Our guests for today are doctor Gail Sinatra and doctor Barbara Hoefer.
My name is Gale Sinatra, and I'm a professor at USC University of Southern California in the Rossier School of Education.
And I am Barbara Hoefer. I'm recently retired from Middlebury College, so professor Amrita and that's in Vermont.
Doctors Hofer and Sinatra published a book earlier this summer called Science Denial, Why It Happens and What to Do about It. Their book explores the psychological issues that keep folks from having a broad understanding of science. It also offers solutions for those wondering what they can do to
help curb the spread of misinformation. And when we say we want to know about science denial, what we mean is we want to know why people may flat out deny, or maybe just a little bit doubt or resist scientific fact or general scientific conclusions. What's keeping them from accepting what's already been proven. It can feel really easy to say, not me, I'm not a victim of science denial. But it's not just accepting big issues like climate change or
understanding that vaccine's work. It could also be how you decide to take risks, or if you choose to buckle up in your seat belt even though you know it can protect you in a crash. I think it's also these smaller nuanced things in our day to day lives as well. And everyone is susceptible, all of us, even the people that you know have been highly trained in the science field. We can all be a part of that group. And I think that is something that folks
have to understand. What I still want to know a little bit more about is that difference between skepticism and stepping all the way over to science deny.
We want people to be skeptical if you see one study with a small sample and there's some clickbait headline, be suspicious, be skeptical. That's the time to question it if it has not been substantiated, corroborated, supported with additional studies.
TTU posted something the other day and I was like, spot on, Oh no, what did I say. I've seen a lot of crazy stuff on Twitter. You said it's been a year and a half or a year and nine months. If you're still doing their research, what kind of research is it? Yeah? I just feel like people are still saying I'm doing my research on coronavirus. I'm like, hello, yeah, you doing research. You're kind of just not doing anything and being stuck in your thought process, which I understand.
This is a big topic to turn and swallow. Yes, especially if you have to get all the background skills, if you need to understand virology, immunology, molecular biology, vaccine design, sociology, human behavior, risk management, that's a big mountain to climb. Yes.
And you know, we've talked about skepticism. We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but I think there's a difference between skepticism of information that you know, you don't know where the source is, it's just tumbling down your feed versus the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health telling you that the cases are rising in your area, and you're like, h, I don't believe what they're saying. That's not just skepticism right there. So how do we identify science denial?
Then you don't see people who are very doubting and resisting science, hesitating to use an iPhone or get on a plane. They're not denying physics, they're not denying the technology that goes into Wi Fi. So it is this phenomena of selective denial, which really is driven by your motivations, your emotions. So you're picking and choosing what you like about science and what you don't like, and science doesn't work that way.
That's such a good point. You know, science does not care about your feelings. It's not about our opinions or what we want to be true.
It's about what the evidence suggests is our best understanding of the science at the time.
Yes, it's so important to remember that science is backed up by research and evidence. For example, with masking and vaccine, scientists are doing studies to see how effective those measures are and then creating guidelines accordingly. And yes, these guidelines can change as the evidence changes as we learn more. But we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But I think we should start with the history of science denial. Tt let's rewind a little bit. Have we
seen science denial before in different forms? And how did we get here?
The history of science probably starts with science denial, doubt and resistance.
We try to trace it back to Galileo and you think about how he was under house arrests for the beliefs that he had, how long it took for people to accept his theories. Think about Darwin, It took more than a n undred years for scientists to accept fully what he was proposing in the way of evolution.
So, for real, it feels like science denial has been going on since the beginning of science itself, and in the last fifty years it's become more pervasive as there's been some outside meddling, so corporations realizing that fostering some science denial could help their bottom line. It all goes back to the money.
Beginning with the tobacco industry, for example, were interested in trying to deflect the idea that somehow it was cancer causing, and they hired pr firms to so doubt, and the same companies are being used by Exxon and other corporations to make it look as though climate change isn't a certain fact.
In fact, even as recently as twenty ten, Philip Morris has routinely argued that Marlboro gold cigarettes actually decrease the risk of cancer. That's wild, but that brings us to today. With a global pandemic and a steadily warming planet. It feels like people are holding their noses up at scientific evidence left and right. So this has made me ask is there an increase science of denial?
I think the difference that we see is the amplification of misinformation through social media, and that's coupled with us living in our information bubbles where we get the same information and if it's misinformation, that's same misinformation reinforced over and over again and it becomes more credible. There's the joke that misinformation travels around the world before the truth gets up and puts its pants on. Misinformation is really compelling.
It's sometimes interesting or intriguing or even funny to some people, and that gets the clicks. And as we know the way the algorithms are shaped, that more clicks gets more attention.
We've talked about algorithms on social media before. What goes viral isn't always true. It really helps us understand why it's so important to talk about science denial right now. So when you think about that amplification and what we know about the brain, and the more you see something, the more is reinforced and you begin to believe it. I think all that makes sense in the current context. Sometimes people who are science deniers go overboard and say
I'm just waiting for the science. Well, part of the science is assessing risk. Early on and even later in the pandemic, was people outright saying no to mass like, it's not gonna keep you one hundred percent safe. Well, ma'am, if it's going to keep you ninety percent safe, I'm gonna say, that's still useful, right, And I think that's the part that we start to see this kind of doubling down on. I'm so scientific. I know ninety is less than one hundred, but I think you also know
ninety is higher than zero. You know, It's like if you look at the forecast and it says there's a seventy percent chance of rain, you see that and then you're like, Okay, let me take my umbrella just in case. Right, this is the same thing. You don't say, I'm not gonna take my umbrella because it's not one hundred percent chance of rain exactly. So why don't you apply that same logic to mass. Now that we have an understanding of what science denial is, we want to understand what
is causing people to flock to science denial. Let's get into the reasons. Doctor Sinatra and doctor Hoefer outline five explanations for science denial, doubt, and resistance. The first is mental shortcuts and cognitive biases, second is understanding beliefs on how and what you know. The third is motivated reasoning, fourth is social identity, and the fifth is emotions and attitudes and not attitude like the keys attitude, different attitude.
The first explanation is mental shortcuts and cognitive biases. Right. Cognitive biases are kind of these mental gymnastics that we do so we don't have to run through all the processing every time. Yeah, so our brain is learning along the way. You know, A equals Z, and you don't have to do ABCDEFG all the way through. But sometimes these brains can trick us, and they learn something early on and they reinforce it over and over again. We're going to talk about that in a later episode Mind
Over Matter. But you know, one type of cognitive bias is known as confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is this implicit tendency to seek, recall, affirm things that already fit with your existing beliefs. So everybody who's listening can probably think of a time when you googled something to find an answer. You already thought you knew what the answer was, and you're quick googling. As soon as you find it, right, you think, okay, that supports it, but you don't search laterally across to see if it's confirmed or if there's anything that contradicts it. That's confirmation bias.
I think we all can remember stuff that we saw on the early Internet or like heard through the grape vine at school. Do you remember me sharing with you on Twitter where this guy said that he found shrimp tails and his Sentimento's christ And I was like, h I don't doubt it, because you know, a long time ago I saw this thing that said that like up to ten percent or something like that of cerial product could be unknown material. And as soon as I said it to you, I was like, hmm, let me check that,
because I was like, I have never heard this. I don't believe that. And also, my today many years old brain knows that ten percent is a lot. I've eaten a lot of cereal in my day. I've never seen anything strange that confirmation biased, you know. I think we've been trained to always look for a countering point, make a liar out of me, make me wrong. That's how
my Google searches look. I think. The other piece of this right, So, if we think of these mental shortcuts, the second arm of this is just how we think about knowing and learning in the first place.
Another chapter that we have is on what psychologists call epistemic cognition, So it's what people believe about knowledge, how they think they know. And one of the issues is epistemic trust. Who do we trust as a source of knowledge. One of the things we talk about in the book are reasons why some people might not trust the medical community.
This feels so relevant TT, especially in the face of people deciding whether they trust or don't trust the government and regulating organizations like the FDA, and even when we see these organizations overstepping each other, just like we see the CDC overruling the FDA, who is our regulatory agency, and the CDC is saying, yes, everybody should have a booster shot, right. I mean, when you see stuff like that,
how do you know who to trust? Because they both are organizations that we look to for the facts, and especially after seeing such political influence within those organizations, it's hard to know. Hey, if it was susceptible, then is it susceptible now? Is it still unbiased? You know, it makes it really hard. We see the same thing with people being skeptical of mainstream media or which news stations they go to for their information, and it's concerning because
the information is not the same. And we talked about this in an article that we wrote for Scientific American. You know, the roots of folks distrust of the scientific community, the medical community to be real, from force sterilization to the latest evaluations of disparities and health. Yeah, I mean, historically, bad things have happened to minoritized folks and to poor folks, and now that leads to poor outcomes for those people. It's embedded in the system, and it feels like a
snowbal effect because it's self perpetuating. So you have folks who are going to receive medical treatment and receiving sub par care. That sub par care translates to terrible outcomes.
And when they see that terrible care and terrible outcomes, the other people that are on the periphery, you know, family members, children, parents, they then say, I will not trust the medical system, and so they don't go get any type of preventative care, or maybe they don't have access to preventative care, and so then they continue to present with medical issues that are at much later stages and then they get poor care then, or even if
they get good care, then they still have poor outcomes. Right, Yeah, it's a vicious cycle of things. We even see things like that present day because I know that there are probably some people who think that's old school medicine, no sir, But when you think about the care that Serena Williams had when she was giving birth to her child, she almost died, right. She kept communicating that she was in
a lot of pain, but she wasn't being believed. And that is something that studies have come out that have said there are a large group of doctors who believe that black people have a higher pain tolerance, and so they're treated differently, exactly, treated differently from top to bottom. So that means that black people are less likely to get pain medication. It's not even that you can earn enough money to move you into a different economic class
and that protects you. It's about being black, even if I go to the best hospital. Look at Serena Williams, a world class athlete, the Serena Williams, so many grand slams, all of that, and she's still a victim of this. And so when you consider this right, it makes sense that people would have this mistrust or this hesitancy or resistance to information from the medical community, or the scientific community, or even the government.
We also hear people say ask your doctor, as if everyone has a doctor they can just get on the phone. Do you have access, do you have a relationship with the doctor, do you know who you can go ask?
Not everyone has that kind of access. Some people have hypothesized that Great Britain has had a larger percentage of people vaccinated because they have a universal health care system and everyone knows who their doctor is, and everyone knows where they can go and here, people don't necessarily know where to go, and they don't necessarily have good.
Access, preach doctor Sinatra, and that makes all the sense right. Along with this historic and current difference in treatment for different groups, there's also the matter of access that you overlay. And we've heard a lot of things around vaccines where people are saying, oh, wow, well, people just get vaccinated. I'm like, hey, it's a little deeper than wrap. You know, it's not just am I going to go do this thing.
I think that that's something that scientists, scientific communicators, and folks in the medical community need to take into account when we are communicating with folks who are skeptical or deniers, is that it's not coming from a place of misinformation. It's coming from real, lived experience, a real place, and
it should be respected as such. And TT you hit the nail on the head saying that science, communicators and organizations need to consider who folks trust right and what their lived experiences may be.
It's also about trust, So you trust people you identify with, and then you have mistrust for people you don't identify with. So while it's hard for us to understand why somebody would take a livestock dewormer rather than a vaccine.
That's right. Folks have been taking ivermectin and that's a drug that's typically used as a parasitic de wormer for a livestock.
It's about where they're finding that information. They don't trust the voices that talk about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, but they are trusting people that there's alternative mechanisms medications to treat COVID, which has no basis. But they're hearing this information from people they identify with and that is who they trust.
So someone in your community who you trust says something but there's no supporting scientific evidence, that can still sway people to action or inaction. We saw that with Nicki Minaj. What people grabbed onto and ran with is Nikki didn't take the vaccine and didn't go to the met gala because of it, and then she starts talking about some cousin's friend who has swollen testicles. And that kind of misinformation is so dangerous because people won't do their due diligence.
They're going to say, I love Nikki, okay, I love Roman, and they will run with that information and they'll say that's all I need to know.
We have realized that nobody trusts just one person. We all have multiple people in our worlds that we trust, and doctors and pastors, for example, can be very influential in terms of the vaccine.
And this brings us right back to that algorithm problem though, right, because if the multiple people you trust are all in your bubble, they're all seeing the same shared misinformation, then it feels like everybody you trust is saying don't get vaccinated. The problem then is when people like I know somebody who didn't get vaccinated. They got COVID and they were really sick and they were in and out of the hospital, but then they wrote this really like cryptic post about
maybe you should get vaccine. I'm going to tell you who to believe this and that, but I had this terrible experience. You think they got shared like all of their other misinformation? Do you think they came with that same hot fire? No? No, And part of that may be that it wasn't shared because other people have their own what we call motivated reasoning behind what they will and won't share or what they will and won't believe.
And doctors Sinatra and Hoefer told us that motivated reasoning is another explanation for science denial.
Motivated reasoning is that you can either reason towards what we call an accuracy goal, like in other words, you want to find out the accurate information, or you can often subconsciously reason towards a desired conclusion. So that comes into play when you are weighing information that you've read online.
Doctor Sinatra gave us an example of motivated reasoning around stem cell therapyes potential to help with Parkinson's disease.
So perhaps you have a friend who has Parkinson's, and so you read articles about whether stem cell therapy can help with Parkinson's. You may be overly enthusiastic about the potential for this therapy and you may reason that it's
great when it may be only okay or even not great. Conversely, if you have concerns about the use of stem cells and you question where they come from and you're wondering if they've been used ethically, and then you look at a stem cell therapy online, you may reason that, oh, this stem cell therapy isn't any good, it doesn't work
at all. So that's a motivated reasoner. Whether you're reasoning too positively or too negatively, based on and wanting the outcome to go towards what you're already believing.
That's a really good point. It almost feels like how you do those Googles, you know, if you're already deciding something. Is one way we start typing into Google. Google starts to guess what you want to type. And if Google, which it does, knows like your search history, it's collecting all this data from your emails and all these things like that, it'll probably lead you to the exact place you're looking for, the exact answer that you want answered in the exact way that you want it answered to
confirm your thoughts. Another psychological challenge that can lead to science denial is related to our social identity.
We are all tribal people. We all belong to certain groups, and we draw our identity from those groups. And when the groups believe certain things, we tend to believe certain things. It's a shorthand for thinking about what to believe without even maybe looking into it in a lot of depth. So if you think about the things that many people believe right now, about whether, for example, the vaccine causes infertility,
which it does not, we know that conclusively. But if people have heard that on Facebook or heard it from their friends or their neighbors or their identity group, they go online, it's not hard to find confirming evidence for that and just quit without looking at the fact that
there is no science evidence behind it. And so we have seen some serious tribalism around science denial in ways that shock even us who have been writing and thinking about this for a long time, of looking at the degree to which people will think, this is what my
people believe, this is what I'm going to believe. And we were both dismayed to find that in Missouri last week there were people wearing disguises when they went to get vaccinations because they didn't want people they knew to see them, violating the values that they had upheld that masking was bad and that vaccinations were unnecessary.
You know, this reminds me of and it goes right back to Missouri. There was this state representative, Bill Kidd, and he had written this post. He said, no, we didn't get the vaccine. We're Republican. That's like a social identity thing, right. Yeah. I wonder if there was any other time in the history of this country where things are so strongly tied to a political affiliation where you can guess someone's stance on a medical issue outside of
abortion based on their political party. That's wild to me. I think the thing that we both understand, and we're seeing more and more people start to understand, is that all of this relates to emotions and attitudes and feelings. A lot of times, as scientists were trying to just look at the facts and only think about the facts, and we think of people as these vessels that we just pour the facts into. Okay, now, they got it. But what we know is how we feel in our emotions.
They affect how we understand and feel about scientific evidence when it's presented to us. Right, And that's the fifth reason for science denial.
Our emotions are part of how we think and reason, and they have to be You can't put your emotions in a box. But you have to use use your emotions in service of good thinking and reasoning, and you have to be thoughtful about that. So you can't let your emotions derail a good reasoning process. So if you're too anxious about climate change, for example, you can shut down and not want to engage. And if you're too angry about climate change, maybe contributing to a change in
how you'd have to live your lifestyle. You also shut down and don't want to engage. So you have to think about your emotions and how they're affecting your thinking and then use them in service of your thinking.
Yes, and is it just me or does it feel like it could apply to many areas in our life and not just science denial. It sounded like doctor Sinatra was preaching a little bit. Maybe it is a read. Okay, you already know some of y'all just got your edges snatched and you don't even realize it. Check the mirror. Are you bollved? So let's take a break and when we come back, we'll get into some of the solutions
for challenging science denial. We're back and we've been talking to doctor Gail Sinatra and doctor Barbara Hoefer about their fascinating new book. It's called Science Detile, Why It Happens and What to Do About It, out now from Oxford University Press. In the first half of the dissection, we
learned what science denial is and what it isn't. Just to recap, we went through five reasons for science denial, mental shortcuts, and cognitive biases, beliefs on how and what you know, motivated reasoning, social identity, and emotions and attitudes. So now let's get into the solutions. What can we do about it?
Often the solutions are talked about as though it's one on one individuals making change in their own thinking, and it's more than that. We need solutions at a higher level. And for example, a couple of years ago, Twitter started responding if you tried to retweet something that you had not even opened, you just like the headline, that you get a little message back that says would you like to read it first? And that moves people from system one to system two thinking in that moment.
Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Khanneman talks about system one and system two thinking in his book Thinking Fast and Slow.
So system one is that very quick intuitive response, that is that gut level confirmation bias, for example, and system two is the slower, analytical, thoughtful aspect of the mind. And a lot of the times we're operating on system one, and it works for us.
A lot of times we're using system one, and that's okay. You often need to make fast decisions, and you don't need to tire your brain out over and over. So, for example, if you're driving and you need to make a split second decision, System one is your go to then, But it's.
Not a great thing when we're trying to figure out should I inject bleach into my system in order to address COVID do some more work. Don't just do it because you just found it online. Are some friends said to you or you saw it on Facebook?
Instead, slow down, yes, absolutely, take a beat and really look for substantial evidence. Like it does not serve you to get to the answer quickly if it is the wrong answer. So this is great to think about in this kind of System one versus System two. And it seems like, you know, Twitter and even the things on Instagram that say this is about vaccine blah blah blah, those things are prompting system too, trying to get you
to engage more analytically. I mean, it's great to see this kind of stuff on social media and where information is being shared, but it still feels like there's a lot we can do as individuals to combat science denial as well. Yeah, and one of those things is practicing more balanced and informed research, especially when you're doing your goo do.
Your own research means google it. For most people, I can't go do research on ice cores or ocean acidification. That's just not going to happen. So when we say do your own research, it's really not realistic because you really can't dive into the research the way the scientists do. You look for information online and you have to be
very discerning. That takes time, it takes effort, and you have to know what you're looking for, what to be aware of, for example, the source who paid for this research, who's sharing this information, and to be able to evaluate that takes a lot of awareness and education.
The whole point of googling something is to get answers quickly. When you think of it that way, it's kind of counterintuitive to slow your brain down and really approach a subject analytically. And that's okay if you're looking for the best fall boot right, But I think when it comes to making big decisions about your health, that kind of quick judgment is not going to serve you will. One of my favorite things to do when I'm really trying to get knee deep into the information is scholar dot
Google dot com. For peer reviewed research. Yes, you know, when we think about it, that's what these PhDs are. Well, at least a large part of it is in research and the ability to look for information, judge it, combine it with other pieces of information to figure out what the landscape is and to say, here are some of the holes or here are some of the unknowns, and knowing whether or not you have the tools to answer
some of those questions. That's always what I say. Is One thing that I learned from getting a PhD is that I don't know anything. I'm skeptical of anybody who thinks they know everything about a topic. I establish myself as an expert in a very specific field. People come to me and they ask me questions, and I feel absolutely confident saying I don't know. That's one of my favorite answers. But the next is saying, how do we get to the right answer?
Right? Like?
I don't know? But what questions can we ask? Yes? Like and we can do that together Dope labs. You know, I think this really makes me think about how we teach people to ask questions and even what we teach science, as I think so often science is taught as this series of facts, and the truth is that it should be more of kind of probing questions, right to understand, to find the boundaries of what you do and don't know,
like you just said. And I think that's been a lot of the conversation, like, Oh, we've been lagging in STEM and science education for so long. Is science education the answer to all of this? I don't know. I think maybe it's just a piece of the puzzle to getting us to a better place.
We would argue, yes, let's improve science education, but you're right, it's not just about more science content. What we think students need to learn is more about how science is done, the process of science. For example, at the beginning of COVID, information kept shifting about masks and whether to wear them or not, and whether you could contract COVID from touch and surfaces and whether you had to spray down your groceries.
They didn't understand that this is what scientists do. They chip away at a problem, they work on it, they try to corroborate what they know, and that this has been done very very well in this period of time. But a lot of people have dismissed science because they think, ah, what do they know? They just keep changing their minds.
But in fact, the strength of science is that it does change based on new evidence, and I think we have not taught that enough.
Absolutely, as doctor Sinatra and doctor Hoefer explain, it's also about educating people on how science and the scientific process actually works. And by the way, that's also why we decided to structure this podcast the way that we do. Yeah. I think we're constantly asking new questions and taking in the information we have and saying, what kind of conclusions do we come to based on what we learned, and what else do we see that we don't know? You know,
often our conclusion is just more questions. And I think we've also seen this over and over again during COVID, right. Yeah, if you think back to the early stages of the pandemic, people are like, we just want something to make this over, and it's like, oh, hey, we have vaccines, and then folks are saying, I don't know if I'm going to have a vaccine. And then now people are saying we should get a booster, should we not, whether it's effective,
who should get them? You know, I think we're constantly just collecting data. We're seeing what's happening in other countries. But we're also seeing that there are some things separate from just the hardcore science, but around social interaction and behavior that make some things transferable to the United States and some things are not, you know, And all of that is part of that reiteration, right, and that constant morphing of science, of everybody bringing things in and some
people saying, oh that's no good, toss it out. You know, the quality is poor there. All of that is the constant proofreading and editing of the scientific narrative, I think.
And then the research that Gail and I have each done independently and coincidentally, we've discovered that students are overly schooled in the scientific method. They think that every scientist does this controlled experiment with a hypothesis and a control group, and so as a result, they dismiss some of the
findings that require more abstraction, more inferential reasoning, more observation. So, for example, climate change is really confusing to people like that, Well, how do they know they didn't do an experiment.
Well, that's why I think some people really were taken aback when the science changed so quickly about COVID, because perhaps they were taught that here's a textbook full of facts about science, and they're the same textbook we use five years ago and nothing's changed. Then this is how science is. And of course science is not a collection of facts. Science is a process. A science is an approach to evidence. It's an attitude, as Barber said, and
we need to teach it like that. People understand that, of course science changes. Of course there's new information, and you can use a scientific attitude in your day to day life.
TT you always say this, You've got to be willing to change your mind. Yes, you've been talking about scientific attitude all this time, and I really believe that for most people, the hardest part is unlearning. Yes, going into something feeling like you know something is a fact and then finding out that it is not. Unlearning that fact. It's really really difficult. I think that's something that's hard for everyone. But you have to be open to the
idea of unlearning. And once you are open to it, then you can really enter into these conversations and say, Okay, I'm hoping to have in my mind change because new information comes in. And the last piece of the puzzle, beyond organizations and individuals, is science communicators, researchers and professionals themselves. We need to open up the scientific community and make it more accessible to everyone.
We have too many scientists who just talk to each other, who publish in journals that only other scientists have access to their behind firewalls, and then when they go to talk to the general public, none of us humans can understand them. So we need to do a better job training our scientists to be science communicators. We need to
develop their ability to communicate better about their work. Dope Labs is an excellent example of what we can do, which is make science more accessible to the general public.
Yeah, I think we have a lot to do as scientific communicators. We do a lot of work with this show, trying to bring science to the people and do it in a way that makes sense for everyone, in a way that's fun for us and you know, hopefully fun for everybody else to listen to. But I think that for such a long time, the way that science was communicated it was community in a way to big up the scientists. But now we're finding that that does not
serve the people. No, and we do science in order to advance our world, and if we don't include the people we are trying to serve as scientists. What is the point If we.
In education don't do a better job promoting digital literacy, algorithmic literacy, critical literacy so that we can have critical thinkers and students in K through twelve and higher education who can evaluate evidence and think critically about it, then we're going to continue to have these challenges.
So we're trying something new. Every now and then, TT and I will share one thing that we either came across, experience, want you to experience, or know about in our lives. TT, what's your one thing this week? So my one thing this week is that I actually saw on Instagram that Jordan Peele was selling the get Out screenplay with all this extra information and the entire script, and so I
jumped on that asap and it's really really cool. It has some words from Tanana Revedo, which is a kid I know you're a big fan, and then we get some extra context from Jordan Peel. There's a section in the back that has deleted scenes, so it lets you know like what they were thinking about adding but ended up on the cutting room floor, And there's an alternative
ending that's at the very end. So I'm really looking forward to reading this and just seeing all the little notes from each scene that made get Out become what we know it today. Awesome. I didn't even know that was happening. What's your one thing? My one thing is really based on preparing for this lab. When I started reading Science Denial, I really became interested in what I considered irrational behavior, and so I picked up a book
that was already on my shelf. It came out in two thousand and eight, but it felt so timely and felt like it read me for filth Okay, Predictably Irrational by Dan Airily, who is actually at Duke right now. There when we were there, I don't think. But it's like behavioral economics. It helps us understand why we do some of the things that we do, and how we actually are irrational, and we can predict some of our
irrational decision making. I love that. Okay, So when you're finished with your book, I'll give you the get Out book. We'll do a book exchange and so that I can get my lap with your and you'll have all my notes and highlights. I love that. That's my favorite thing. That's it for LAP thirty seven. If you have some other stuff to think about, some more questions, please be sure to call us at two O two five six seven seven zero two eight and tell us what you thought.
We'll give us an idea for a lap you think we should do this semester. You know we like to hear from you. That's two O two five seven zero two eight. If you love today's episode, there's so much more for you to dig into on our website. There will be a cheat sheet for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it out at Dope labspodcast
dot com. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs Podcast, and TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho, and you can find Zakia on Twitter and Instagram at z Said So. And don't forget to follow Dope Labs on Spotify and tap the bill icon so you never miss when a new episode drops special thanks to today's guest experts, doctor Gail M. Sinatra and doctor Barbara K. Hoefer. Their book Sigence Denial, Why It Happens and What to Do About It is
available now from Oxford University Press. Check out IndieBound dot org, where you can find your nearest independent bookstore and pick it up. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Ownmedia Group. Our producers are Jenny Ratlickmast and Lydia Smith of Wave Runner Studios. Editing in sound design by Rob Smerciak, Mixing by Cannis Brown. Original music composed and
produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugier from Spotify. Our executive producer is Gina Delveack, and creative producers are Baron Farmer and Candace Manriquez Rinn Special thanks to Shirley Ramos Yasmin of Fifi, camu Elolia, Till krat Key and Brian Marquis executive producers from Mega Own Media Group all Right Us, T T Show Dia and Zakiah Wattley