On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up

Chris Mooney has an op/ed piece in today's Washington Post calling on scientists to communicate more with the public, especially on controversial issues in the public eye. His case is based on the fact that the proponents of the non-scientific or even anti-scientific views are quite willing to use the media to influence public opinion, but that scientists tend to protect their credibility by making very careful and nuanced statements or avoiding the media entirely. He also writes:

According to a recent Pew study, 85 percent of U.S. scientists say it's a "major problem" that the public doesn't know much about science, and 76 percent say the same about what they see as the media's inability to distinguish between well-supported science and less-than-scientific claims. Rather than spurring greater efforts at communication, such mistrust and resignation have further motivated some scientists to avoid talking to reporters and going on television.

They no longer have that luxury. After all, global-warming skeptics suffer no such compunctions. What's more, amid the current upheaval in the media industry, the traditional science journalists who have long sought to bridge the gap between scientists and the public are losing their jobs en masse. As New York Times science writer Natalie Angier recently observed, her profession is "basically going out of existence." If scientists don't take a central communications role, nobody else with the same expertise and credibility will do it for them.

I have been writing about climate change research, but let me also now follow Mooney's advice and write about evolution,

The Theory of Evolution is the keystone of modern biology, and there is almost two centuries of accumulated evidence from thousands of scientists attesting to the validity of the theory. I have written in the past that the intellectual demonstration -- that a process combining random variation and selection for success can lead to designs of great beauty -- was important itself; that insight has led to useful computer design approaches as well to selective breeding of improved crops. While scientists are always looking for ways that theory can be improved, the theory of evolution is as likely to be true as anything we believe we know.

Those in the Christian tradition who oppose the teaching of the theory of evolution apparently do so because they believe that it is inconsistent with the bible. There is a religious tenant that makes sense to me. Clearly people differ in the interpretation of the bible, so it should be clear that devote Christians can at least misinterpret the bible. It has been suggested that if someone believes that the bible is revealed truth, and believes that the bible is in conflict with something that appears to be factual, that person has probably misinterpreted the bible.

So one considers the probabilities that:

• The scientists have misinterpreted the evidence
• The individual has misinterpreted the science
• The individual has misinterpreted the bible or
• The bible as read by the individual has been misinterpreted by the translators

For people who know little of the science certainly the second alternative is more likely than the first. I suspect that many of the self proclaimed bible experts are indeed less than expert on the bible and likely to be misinterpreting it.