Public Understanding of Science Blog

By Philip J. Wilson. Source: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 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 ...

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...

By Brian Park. Image source: Cosmacon. In recent years, bakuchiol has gained widespread attention as a “natural alternative” to retinol , appearing in everything from dermatologist recommendations to viral social media posts. Marketed as gentler yet equally effective, bakuchiol has quickly entered public discourse as a scientifically backed skincare solution. However, its rise highlights an important question central to the public understanding of science: how do people interpret, trust, and act on scientific claims about emerging ingredients? The Appeal of “Natural” Science Public interest in bakuchiol is not driven by chemistry alone. Instead, it reflects a broader cultural preference for products labeled as “natural.” Scientific evidence does suggest that bakuchiol can influence pathways associated with skin aging, including collagen production and oxidative stress. Yet, in public-facing narratives, these mechanisms are often simplified into marketing phrases such as “plant-based re...

By Rishabh Kachroo. Inaugurating the forty-fifth session of the Indian Science Conference, Madras, 6 January 1958. Source: The Nehru Archive. The Curious Afterlife of Scientific Temper “Scientific temper” has never been just another term for the Indian republic. Enshrined in the Indian constitution through the 42nd amendment in 1976 and popularised before that in India by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as an intellectual orientation and a civic ethos, scientific temper was imagined as a moral infrastructure for democratic life and a hopeful bulwark against dogma, obscurantism, and the inertia of inherited inequalities.  Today, however, it rarely evokes the ethical urgency that it once carried. It merely lingers as a vaguely pedagogical trope, invoked occasionally in textbooks and science day speeches.  Before we go any further and discuss why science temper’s decline matters, it would help to have a working definition of the term. In the Indian context, scientific temper is...