A difficult scientific conversation with society
What the Select Subcommittee on COVID hearings reveal about science communication
I was perusing LinkedIn today (follow us!) when I read an interesting idea from Rayvon Fouché in Issues in Science and Technology, which is my current favorite source for information on science policy. Fouché, a professor at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, said the following:
“Science and scientists live in a quickly changing world, which requires a rhetorical shift from talking about science “and” society and science “for” society to science “with” society.” — Rayvon Fouché
I stopped after I read that sentence and reflected on my Twitter profile, which stated: “Science + society at @FancyComma.” Professor Fouché had a point. Science is already part of society, so scientists should be working with society. So, I changed my Twitter bio to read “Science with society @FancyComma.”
In the article, Fouché talks about “radical inclusion” of people in science. A crux of the article is when he says:
“We as a society need to think, in a big way, about what would be possible if the questions science addresses are coproduced with social scientists, affected communities, and other stakeholders. Instead, coproduction of science often means bringing others into the conversation once the research question has already been asked—sort of like putting sprinkles on a cupcake.” — Rayvon Fouché
It’s a powerful analogy! While the focus of the article is about community-focused engagement, there’s another type of engagement that is crucially important, and that is engagement with policymakers. Allow me to explain why with a quick and timely example from politics.
First, some background: the US House of Representatives has various committees, of which the Committee on Oversight and accountability is one. The Oversight Committee, as it is often called, was established in 1927 as a way to oversee government activities’ spending and efficiency; in the modern era, its jurisdiction, according to the House rules, includes the “relationship of the Federal Government to the States and municipalities generally.”
That’s where the impetus came for establishing the Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. A select subcommittee is one created to serve a specific purpose, and in this case, its purpose is somewhat obvious from its name: to examine all things COVID pandemic.
While the legislation to create the select subcommittee was introduced by Democrats to oversee the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic in 2020, its current focus has shifted in the post-pandemic era.
The select subcommittee is chaired by Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Iraq War Veteran and podiatrist turned politician. The subcommittee seems to pick up the difficult work of not only looking into the origins of the COVID pandemic — a taboo subject among scientists during the pandemic — but also examining blue-state COVID policies, many of which were reported objectively or even positively by the media (remember that whole narrative about “Trumpy states” being full of anti-vaxxers — a glib diss to red-staters everywhere?). These investigations are a painful reminder of all we’ve experienced in the pandemic. Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York, testified on June 11 in a closed-door session about COVID nursing home deaths there.
The select subcommittee sessions have also sometimes pit high-profile federal scientists and administrators against members of Congress. This summer, high-profile scientists such as CDC Director Rochelle Walenski and NIH’s Anthony Fauci have testified before the Select Subcommittee on COVID.
However, the subcommittee hearings reveal surprising pockets of agreement fueled by critical thinking. “Dr. Fauci, I am not a virologist. But I am a physician and like most physicians we are constantly learning,” Rep. Wenstrup said in his introductory remarks before Fauci’s testimony. He also talked about public trust in science in those remarks, saying, “Americans do not want to be indoctrinated. They do want to be educated. And they prefer to make their health decisions in conjunction with the doctor that they know and trust.”
After the Fauci hearing, Wenstrup made more remarks, as members of Congress are expected to do. He praised Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration’s response to accelerate biomedical research to create a COVID vaccine. He also talked about what concerned him about moving forward post-pandemic, which involved science and health communication: “I think what I'm most concerned about is we go forward as a country and from our agencies. Is that we can be trusted. And that we are better in our messaging. And talk about clarity.”
In other words…science communication with society.
I’ve often talked about the ways that politicians used science to create political messages in the pandemic. Things like the deleted GOP Judiciary tweet: “If vaccines work, why don’t they work?” These legitimate questions became political talking points.
So while it’s been painful to see Elon Musk tweet about his desire for Anthony Fauci to go to jail (again), it’s also been encouraging to see policymakers and high-level science and medical officials have an actual conversation about the pandemic that focuses on facts and examination of evidence, and doesn’t resort to name-calling. This is something that optics made nearly impossible in the pandemic, and it’s not too late to have these conversations…with scientists…with policymakers…with society.
Society includes both policymakers and scientists. It includes the people who elect policymakers and who benefit from scientific discoveries — the same people whose dollars go to taxpayer-funded research — in other words, us. Policymakers are masters of communicating with society. Scientists can be, too, communicating with “radical inclusion,” as Fouché says, irrespective of what divides us.
We have to keep having these difficult conversations, because they humanize scientists as well as science as an enterprise!
What Fancy Comma’s been up to this month
On our blog, I’ve been recapping all of the science policy sessions I could possibly attend as a journalist attending the 2024 AAAS Meeting. I’ve written about science use in Congress, best practices for Congressional science policy, working with policymakers across divides, state and local policymaking for scientists, and state-level science-informed policymaking. More to come! Subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss these.
I lectured about science storytelling and SciComm lessons from politicians for the SciComm course (watch all lectures here)!
I interviewed Adriana Bankston, PhD, a biochemist and incoming AAAS/ASGCT Congressional policy fellow, and rambled about the labor market and the Bayh-Dole Act.
We also started producing YouTube shorts!
We’ve been busy in this election year reflecting on the role of scientists and science communicators in government. It’s a great time to do so! I encourage you to reflect on the topic of “SciComm with society” this summer as we collectively celebrate our time away from the “regular” school year. If you do share about it on social media, feel free to tag us: @FancyComma on Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin, and @FancyCommaLLC on Facebook.
That’s it for this month’s newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share it!