Mar 10, 2024 07:02 PM
https://undark.org/2024/03/08/interview-...nce-trust/
INTRO: Astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter studies some of the largest features of the universe, including cosmic voids — vast, nearly empty chasms that separate clusters of galaxies from one another. “I enjoy becoming more and more of an expert on absolutely nothing,” joked Sutter, a visiting professor at Barnard College, Columbia University and a research professor at Stony Brook University.
While Sutter loves science, he believes there are deep problems with the way science is actually done. He began to notice some of those problems before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was Covid that brought many of them to the fore. “I was watching, in real time, the erosion of trust in science as an institution,” he said, “and the difficulty scientists had in communicating with the public about a very urgent, very important matter that we were learning about as we were speaking about it.”
“I was watching just one by one,” he continued, as “people stopped trusting science.”
Sutter takes issue with the hyper-competitiveness of science, with peer review, with the journals, with the way scientists interact with the public, with the politicization of science, and more. But his new book, “Rescuing Science: Restoring Trust In an Age of Doubt,’’ published this month by Rowman & Littlefield, is more than a laundry list of grievances — it’s also filled with ideas about how science might be improved.
Our interview was conducted over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - the interview)
INTRO: Astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter studies some of the largest features of the universe, including cosmic voids — vast, nearly empty chasms that separate clusters of galaxies from one another. “I enjoy becoming more and more of an expert on absolutely nothing,” joked Sutter, a visiting professor at Barnard College, Columbia University and a research professor at Stony Brook University.
While Sutter loves science, he believes there are deep problems with the way science is actually done. He began to notice some of those problems before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was Covid that brought many of them to the fore. “I was watching, in real time, the erosion of trust in science as an institution,” he said, “and the difficulty scientists had in communicating with the public about a very urgent, very important matter that we were learning about as we were speaking about it.”
“I was watching just one by one,” he continued, as “people stopped trusting science.”
Sutter takes issue with the hyper-competitiveness of science, with peer review, with the journals, with the way scientists interact with the public, with the politicization of science, and more. But his new book, “Rescuing Science: Restoring Trust In an Age of Doubt,’’ published this month by Rowman & Littlefield, is more than a laundry list of grievances — it’s also filled with ideas about how science might be improved.
Our interview was conducted over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - the interview)