Public Understanding of Science Blog

By Ghadeer Alsabah. Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806. In 1834, Alexander von Humboldt wrote to a friend of a ‘mad notion’ that refused to leave him. He wanted to encapsulate ‘the whole of the physical aspect of the universe in one work’, from its celestial wonders to its terrestrial events, as attentive to the nature of nebulae as he was to the ‘mosses clinging to a granite rock’. The book was to be called Cosmos, the word vast enough to accommodate the multifarious nature of Humboldt’s vision. It means the universe, of course, but also order and harmony. Similar to his fellow Naturphilosophen , Humboldt believed that the universe functioned as a unified organism, its internal order ever-shifting, with harmony arising from active, opposing forces balancing each other out. Cosmos has a third meaning, too: ornament, or adornment; beauty as the finishing touch to a whole that could well do without it. But perhaps that is where Humboldt diverges most cle...

By Philip J. Wilson. My article takes a critical look at the scholarship of conspiracy belief and concludes that it is unfair to associate it too closely with those on the political right. The British physicist Sir John Pendry is reputed to have said: "Science is like a group of children chasing a ball on a playground. Everyone runs after the ball, and where the ball goes the crowd follows." Scientists (or their funding agencies) chase innovation. The article notes something similar among social scholars, except that the impetus for them is more like conformity:  "All too often, many of the fallacies that liberal commentators see as constitutive of the conspiracy theories they oppose can in fact be ascribed to their own analyses of current affairs." This quotation, from Harper & Sykes , suggests that a left-leaning political outlook finds its way into some scholars’ writing about conspiracy belief. Bearing in mind the need for reflexivity in social scholarship,...

By Uwe Peters. Source: Pixabay. Most scientists strive to communicate their findings as accurately as possible. But our latest research suggests that they may sometimes encourage exaggerated interpretations without intending to, not because they overstate their findings, but because their audience understands seemingly ordinary scientific language differently. For instance, if you read sentences such as “Statins reduce cardiovascular events" or "People benefit from a Mediterranean diet,” you would probably understand them immediately. They are short and clear. They also share an important linguistic feature: they make claims about whole categories (statins, people) without saying how many people or situations they apply to. Linguists call these statements generics. Scientists use them very frequently (e.g., in biomedical research articles ), as generics make scientific writing concise and readable. But when scientists write these sentences, do readers understand them in the ...

By Martin Sedlár. Image source: Magnific. Medical research helps us diagnose diseases earlier, treat them more effectively, and prevent them entirely. But none of this would be possible without people willing to take part in studies. And that’s where a major challenge appears: recruiting participants is not easy. This raises a simple but important question: what factors make some people willing to take part in medical research while others hesitate? What we wanted to find out Previous research has identified a range of factors associated with participation in medical research. However, researchers have given surprisingly little attention to the role of scientific literacy—that is, how people think about, understand, and engage with science. At the same time, we know that people’s beliefs about medical researchers—especially whether they trust them or believe in conspiracy theories about them—are likely to play a role. To explore how these factors relate to willingness to participat...