Public Understanding of Science最新文献

This exploratory article provides groundwork towards a tentative framework for exploring how lay measures and units - what is here called 'lay metrology' - intersect with formal metrology, and its various mediations. This article concerns itself with the role that everyday 'units' - grounded in part in the material culture of bodies and experience - play in relation to a metrological landscape, or 'metroscape' that is also inhabited by standardised units routinely popularised through various media. After a brief overview of the relevant literature on metrology, examples of lay metrology are provided that examine the relation of everyday units of, for example, length and area, to particular forms of bodily experience, social identity and sensorial capacities. This article draws on elements from science communication and affect theory to develop the notion of 'metroscoping' and to articulate a series of orienting questions for engaging with lay metrological processes.

Public attitudes towards technology have been studied extensively for decades, but older people were not largely involved in early studies. In recent years, with the trend of digitalisation and the rapid growth of the older population around the world, the attitudes of older people towards emerging technologies have attracted the attention of researchers. This article is a systematic review of 83 relevant studies, to summarise the factors that impact older adults' attitudes towards adopting and using technology. It is found that older people's attitudes are influenced by their personal characteristics, technology-related factors and the social context of technology adoption. The complex relationship between older people and technology is interpreted by researchers with the framing of older people's identity, the role of technology, the interaction of the above factors and the opportunity for older adults to act as co-designers.

The study examines whether adding a refutational ending to narrative messages improves correction effectiveness and how the effect differs depending on whether the correction message is presented before or after exposure to misinformation. A 2 (narrative format: simple vs refutational narrative) × 2 (correction placement: prebunking vs debunking) between-subjects online experiment (N = 281) with US participants was conducted to correct misinformation about human papilloma virus vaccines. The results suggested that the refutational narrative was more effective in reducing misbeliefs in prebunking, whereas the simple narrative was more effective in debunking. This interaction was further moderated by issue involvement. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Climate scientists face many challenges when it comes to communicating their work to the public, yet it is largely unknown how junior climate scientists give meaning to their role as science communicators. Therefore, the current research conducted five focus group discussions with Dutch junior climate scientists, which were structured around the following themes: (a) common barriers; (b) climate advocacy; (c) message content; and (d) climate skepticism, misinformation, and incivility. The results reveal the motivations and barriers for junior climate scientists to do science communication. New barriers were identified relating to participants' lack of seniority, meaning a self-attributed lack of expertise and not having established their scientific credentials yet, providing evidence for the imposter syndrome. Furthermore, many participants alluded to the information-deficit model and indicated they do not know where to start with science communication. Overall, the findings show uncertainty, which could be mitigated by media training and institutionalized incentives.

This study questions the social relations behind the challenges that popular science magazines in Turkey have faced from their onset, by focusing on the peculiarities of different historical periods and prevailing relations of production. The history of popular science magazines from the Ottoman Empire to the present day is also the history of the transition from artisan-like relations of production to factory-like relations of production and more. In this long historical period, premodern social relations and market conditions come to the fore as the main source of the challenges these magazines face. In recent years, big capital's interest in popular science and the enthusiastic struggle of "zero capital" magazines on the other hand reveal two different sides of the picture. Similar challenges and divergent experiences across different periods indicate that popularizing science goes far beyond bringing science to lay people. This study shows that it is possible to trace a frustrated story of modernization, as well as economic and political turmoil, in these magazines' survival struggle in a country which has not been closely studied in this respect.

This article studies resemblances between academic postmodernism and today's popular contestations of the authority of science by means of a qualitative content analysis of 657 critical online comments on a Belgian newspaper article about the COVID-19 crisis that features a prominent Belgian virologist. The comments portray scientists as (1) prophets who pretend their knowledge to be superior to competing understandings of the world; (2) puppets who figure in hidden schemes that cannot stand the light of day; and (3) pinheads who lack the intellectual competence to give solid scientifically informed advice. While the first two critiques do at first sight resemble academic postmodernism, they are in fact informed by the markedly modern understanding that objective and neutral scientific knowledge is as feasible as it is desirable. What we find, then, are not contestations of the authority of science per se, but indeed of practices deemed deviant aberrations of science.

Climate change misinformation leads to significant adverse impacts and has become a global concern. Identifying misinformation and investigating its characteristics are of great importance to counteract misinformation. Therefore, this study aims to characterize the semantic features (frames and authority references) of climate change misinformation in the context of Chinese social media. Posts concerning climate change were collected from Weibo between January 2010 and December 2020. First, veracity, frames, and authority references were manually labeled. Then, we applied logistic regression to examine the relationship between information veracity and semantic features. The results revealed that posts concerning environmental and health impact and science and technology were more likely to be misinformation. Moreover, posts referencing non-specific authority sources are more likely to be misinformed than posts making no references to any authority references. This study provides a theoretical understanding of the semantic characteristics of climate change misinformation and practical suggestions for combating them.

Scientific experts can play an important role in decision-making surrounding policy for technical and value-laden issues, often in contexts that directly affect lay publics. Yet little is known about what characterizes scientific experts who want lay public involvement in decision-making. In this study, we examine how synthetic biology experts' perceptions of risks, benefits, and ambivalence for synthetic biology relate to views of lay publics, deference to scientific authority, and regulations. We analyzed survey data of researchers in the United States, who published academic articles relating to synthetic biology from 2000 to 2015. Scientific experts who see less risk and are more deferent to scientific authority appear to favor a more closed system in which regulations are sufficient, citizens should not be involved, and scientists know best. Conversely, scientific experts who see more potential for risk and see the public as bringing a valuable perspective appear to favor a more open, inclusive system.

This study is about how lay persons perceive and represent artificial intelligence in general as well as its use in weaponised autonomous ground vehicles in the military context. We analysed the discourse of six focus groups in Estonia, using an automatic text analysis tool and complemented the results by a qualitative thematic content analysis. The findings show that representations of artificial intelligence-driven machines are anchored in the image of man. A cluster analysis revealed five dominant themes: artificial intelligence as programmed machines, artificial intelligence and the problem of control, artificial intelligence and its relation to human life, artificial intelligence used in wars and ethical problems in developing autonomous weaponised machines. The findings are discussed with regard to people's tendency to anthropomorphise robots despite their lack of emotions, which can be seen as a last resort when confronting an autonomous machine where the usual interpersonal understanding of intentions does not apply.