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Mistrust in Science: Why Trust A Neuroscientist?

The road to scientific progress has long been paved by scepticism. Why then, has the same tool that bestowed science its credibility, now been accused of eroding it? Humanity has had a far older, far more impressive history of irrationality than it has had of reason (1,2). But something is changing in the way that we doubt. 


Since the age of the algorithm, and the sheer volume of data that it has allowed to spawn, our ignorance is progressively becoming as structured as our knowledge. False narratives, half-truths, and unfounded beliefs are louder and more wide-reaching than ever before (3-5). While evidence indicates that the vast majority of people across the globe still trust research, it also highlights an increasingly vocal minority that is making their scepticism known (6,7). As our past has too often shown us, irrational ideas can quickly snowball from the fringes into widely-held regard - think phrenology, the lobotomy, and insulin shock therapy (8,9). Therefore, it is crucial that in our modern day, even budding signs of suspicion are not overlooked. 

With its eruption into arenas like technology, economics, and law, and with questions of free will, neural tracking, and cognitive enhancements steadily entering the public consciousness, investing in the public’s confidence has never been more pertinent for the world of neuroscience. To understand how mistrust may manifest in this field, I will be reviewing a symposium hosted by the World Science Festival in 2021 called Why Trust a Scientist? and applying its findings to the context of neuroscience. The panel featured four academics and a cultural commentator who examined contemporary mistrust towards science, and crucially, how to combat it.


The first major theme addressed by the panel concerned science misinformation, i.e., the spread of inaccurate material that contradicts established evidence. While outright invention and hostility tend to be reserved for the more politicised sciences (e.g., climatology, immunology, and genetics), misrepresentations and cherry-picked data have certainly had their impact on our mainstream understanding of the brain. With the growing democratisation of our media landscape and the advent of tools like short-form content and podcasts, neuroscience has increasingly found itself discussed outside academia. Many creators have leveraged this greater accessibility masterfully, educating the public in clear and creative ways that move research beyond its ivory tower. 


Concomitantly however, these tools have ushered in a wave of science flavoured content, designed primarily to harness your attention and maximise engagement. Accordingly, much of the neuroscience that gains traction in the mainstream is often emotionally charged - a phenomenon observed across science in general, as raised by our panel. Emphatic voice after emphatic voice layers our feed, drawing tenuous links between consciousness and quantum physics (“join this paywalled course to unlock your highest vibrational self!”), or revising various diagnostic criteria based on anecdotes. Unduly solemn-looking men sit in front of mics with (cherry-picked) neuroscientists, and together they overstate correlations between biology and behaviour (most often regarding sex differences) or hallucinate evolutionary theories for modern psychology; never mind the swathes of null or contradictory findings that did not make the draft for their story (10). 


Many  of these claims, while reductionistic, may seem mostly innocuous. But, a misinformed society is one whose scientific illiteracy can be capitalised on in more pernicious ways (11); consider for example, the exploitative marketing of testosterone supplements towards young men (12,13), or the dubious array of cognitive enhancements promised by certain wearable neurotech companies (14,15). Poorer critical thinking is widely associated with economic insecurity, overexposure to automated technology, information overwhelm, and reduced attentional control (16,17). So, it is not surprising that in a time characterised by all of the above, people have been turning to the safety of a coherent narrative. Naïve links between brain scans and behaviour are exciting, clear, and pithy. They are certainly more comfortable to grapple with than the complexity of contextualising data within the vast body of work out there. It is clear then that if we want greater public engagement, we must be able to justify why this discomfort is worth facing. 


Naturally, the significance of science communication is raised by our panellists at multiple points throughout the discussion. Researchers, they stress, must be trained in the alchemy of turning abstract figures and text into meaningful information. However, findings from neuroscience can often be difficult to process, and doubly so to describe. How does the cognitive scientist explain the implications of their work on free will to a society reckoning with a crisis of meaning (18,19)? How does the tech developer talk about integrating mind and machine without simplifying and inadvertently sensationalising (20)? These are delicate tasks but vital to perfect, particularly given the growing evidence implicating anxiety, social media use, and boredom (i.e., three factors that have skyrocketed in the contemporary age) as common drivers of misinformation dissemination (21). Good science communication requires structure and support, and the onus cannot fall on the individual scientist alone. Increased funding must be directed towards designing specialised roles for science outreach, as well as into research on how to equip people with both knowledge and the ability to evaluate it (22). If we want more functional democracies (23), greater prosperity (24), and better wellbeing (25), science communication must be made a global priority. By decreasing the degrees of separation between the individual and science, the less room we can hope there will be for mistrust to slip in.   


However, it would be remiss to position misinformation as the only root of mistrust because, as our panel reminds us, our scientific past is not quite litter-free: from the work of a few bad actors profiting off commercial incentives (e.g., distorting neuropharmacological and behavioural evidence for career advancement) (26-28) to broader, systemic failings that have failed vulnerable groups in society (e.g., pathologising social differences and misrepresenting biological determinism) (29-31). As the applications of neuroscience become ever more lucrative (32), and the pressure to publish intensifies (33), it could not be more pertinent that we cultivate a culture of integrity from bench to market. In effect, this means ensuring our promises don’t outdo our delivery, taking society’s input into priorities for innovation seriously, and valuing research rigour over volume (34). The latter is particularly worth noting, given the strong associations between public trust in science and its perceived benefits (6). Hence, a restructuring of academic incentives is needed where the quality of output is always ranked above quantity. This entails encouraging greater formal theory testing and cross-collaboration, increasing data access, adopting metrics of academic success beyond just the number of publications in X prestigious journals, and crucially, promoting greater clarity when communicating the limits of our work (35, 36). Science is ultimately a human endeavour, and we prove that each time a model needs refitting. While disappointment and displeasure may be the consequences of being open with this fallibility, they are also necessary costs of being consistent with our own scientific principles – i.e., transparency and objectivity (or as close as we can get to it). 


If scepticism is what has paved the road to progress, it is denial that will erode it. In its most un-myopic, unselective, unbiased form, questioning is not something we can afford to lose. Rather, it is the very thing that will free us from the surplus of certainty and lack of rigour that plague our age. An illiterate scepticism born of dogma is one that must turn inwards with the same probing that it yields like a weapon. Likewise, researchers, for our part, must turn outwards with what we know, disarmed of dense language and self-serving objectives. There will always be a tension in a discipline that must forever self-falsify while still asking for faith - but it helps that this faith is not blind. It helps that this faith has no other idols to look to as formidable or consistent in their contribution to knowledge. Our universe only ever seems to reveal itself to the scientific method and has yet to unfold for myth. So, if it is reality that humanity’s after, for as long as the physical world keeps trusting in science, perhaps we ought to do so too.



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This article was written by Sadali Wanniarachchi and edited by Rebecca Pope, with graphics produced by Ameesha Gehlot. If you enjoyed this article, be the first to be notified about new posts by signing up to become a WiNUK member (top right of this page)! Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch.

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