Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session Q12: Countering Misinformation in Physics Outreach and Public EngagementEducation Invited Outreach Undergrad Friendly
|
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: FOEP Chair: Roxanne Hughes, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory Room: Room 235 |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 3:00PM - 3:36PM |
Q12.00001: Mitigating misinformation in and about science Invited Speaker: Jevin West Science is the greatest of human inventions. It has solved and continues to solve many of societies most pressing questions in human health, planetary wellness and economic viability. But one of Science's new challenges is the well being of Science itself. The reproducibility crisis, misaligned motivations, literature overload, publication bias, p-hacking, retraction loss, gender inequity, complicity of university presses, and out-of-date publishing models are just a few of the maladies of Science and its modes of communication. These maladies are further exacerbated with intentional disinformation campaigns and by the speed in which misinformation travels on social media. Turning the microscope on Science, this talk will address these issues with a focus on how to mitigate the spread of misinformation in science and society. |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 3:36PM - 4:12PM |
Q12.00002: Depictions of Science in Media and Resulting Opinion Formation Invited Speaker: Michael Cacciatore Public confidence in science has weakened in the United States in recent years, with some Pew data showing that as little as four-in-ten Americans report having a “great deal” of confidence in the scientific community, along with sizeable percentages expressing skepticism about how well the scientific community understands the key scientific issues of the day (Funk, 2017). The changing information environment, characterized by high degrees of user control in the content being consumed and major cuts to traditional outlets for science content (e.g., the removal of science sections from many daily and weekly newspapers) can make reaching audiences with credible scientific information seem like an impossible task. Couple these changes with increased political polarization and news reporting that politicizes many scientific news topics and one can see why audiences may miss out on science content, work to avoid it altogether, or become resistant to the information they do encounter when it fails to conform with their prior opinions and beliefs. Science communication is at a crossroads. |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 4:12PM - 4:48PM |
Q12.00003: HOW TO TALK TO A SCIENCE DENIER: WHAT I LEARNED AT THE FLAT EARTH CONVENTION Invited Speaker: Lee McIntyre It is sometimes claimed that trying to convince science deniers with facts will only backfire. The latest empirical research, however, shows that this conclusion is mistaken and that there are effective techniques that can be used to keep someone from becoming a science denier or even to help them give up mistaken beliefs already held. The secret lies in recognizing that even empirical beliefs may be held for non-evidential reasons -- such as personal values, trust, ideology, and group identity -- and that science deniers need to learn not just more scientific facts but how scientists reason about evidence. The best way to convince a science denier is not to insult them -- or clobber them with data -- but to engage in calm, respectful, patient conversation that simultaneously builds trust and encourages them to reflect not just on what they believe but the (flawed) reasoning strategy that brought them to believe it. In this talk I will recount my own experience using these techniques, most notably at the Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) 2018. My goal is to encourage more scientists to believe that everyone -- both scientists and non-scientists alike -- has a role in pushing back against science denial, and that the skills for doing so can be learned by all allies of science. |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 4:48PM - 5:24PM |
Q12.00004: TBD Invited Speaker: Yasmin Tayag
|
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700