What gives scientists – and writers – credibility?

Kat Austen, CultureLab editor

(Image: Sir Cam)

You know those random conversations you strike up with strangers? I remember one from years ago, with a guy on a train from London to Cambridge, where we started talking about life-logging. It turned out he was a psychologist, working in the research department at Microsoft on the precursor to the SenseCam.

The technology was in its early days, and he was telling me about how being shown photos of the previous day?s activities can help people recollect in different ways. It?s intuitive, but being told it by a chap at Microsoft Research added the gravitas needed to move it from ?common sense? to ?information?. His position there gave him credibility.

(Image: Sir Cam)

Employment at a recognised institution can do that for a scientist. In fact, these days, it?s almost requisite. And, as I learned this week at the Festival of Ideas, hosted by the University of Cambridge, it is increasingly important for people who write about science too.

The session, INcredible: Stories in Science, explored not only how scientists gain, maintain and lose credibility, but also how that kind of credibility translates over into writing about science and scientists.

The Royal Observatory?s public astronomer, Marek Kukula, explained that he got his job because of his 15 years of research experience in supermassive black holes - because of the ?plausibility that experience lends?, as Wellcome Trust public engagement fellow Richard Barnett interjected. But in the intervening years, this credibility, and his job title, seems to have transferred away from his area of astronomical expertise, he noted, positioning him to speak with authority about anything related to physics or satellite collisions or faster-than-light neutrinos.

For writers about science, the institution is no less important. Novelist and poet Sue Guiney told us how her position as writer-in-residence at the at the University of London has opened far more doors than did the fact she has written four books.

In fact, as fellow novelist Laura Dietz pointed out, the institution is such a strong factor in science that citizen scientists who prove their worth outside of the traditional research environment tend to get scooped up into a university as soon as they rise to prominence. Like research papers, it seems that people require peer review in order to gain credibility, too.

As an ex-scientist and current science journalist, I am confronted with questions over credibility on a daily basis, be it my own or that of others. This aspect was touched upon only lightly - how the media?s predilection for a good narrative arc in stories compares to that of fiction writers - but given the impassioned views and breadth of the topic, that debate could have raged for hours. After much discussion, though, the panel decided that plausibility - be it of fictional characters, imagined research ideas, or even real-life stories of scientists - is the overarching measure for credibility. This was most succinctly summarised in an interjection from the audience, when esteemed science historian Simon Schaffer piped up with, ?I couldn?t put a cigarette paper between plausibility and credibility?.

The importance of credibility came sharply into focus for me later on in the week when I attended a debate entitled "Energy policy: should scientists be in charge?" The panel was stacked to the gunnels with intellectual heavyweights, but was in fact more of a face-off between engineering and economics than a question of whether scientists should be in charge. Electrical engineers Mike Kelly and Richard McMahon argued the pragmatism and overarching vision of their profession meant they should be in charge. Economists David Newbery and Michael Pollitt countered by arguing strongly for the effect of the free market in directing energy policy. They also pointed out that one country?s energy policy alone won?t mitigate climate change, that other countries must be ?persuaded? to meet targets too.

The audience?s opinion was as divided on leaving the discussion as on entering it. On a topic as important and complex as energy policy, who to trust becomes even more important. But confronted with a panel of experts giving conflicting advice, individual credibility won?t be able to sway the decision. In the end, you are left to hope that the credibility of their arguments will win out.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/19a48a54/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A110C10A0Cwhat0Egives0Escientists0E0E0Eand0Ewriters0E0E0Ecredibility0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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