I am including the latest episode of my Books and Ideas Podcast (Episode 25) in the feed for the Brain Science Podcast because I think it may be the most important interview I have ever recorded. My guest was Dr. Paul Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. This book examines the history of on-going controversy about whether vaccines cause autism.
Listen to Dr. Offit’s Interview
Episode Transcript (Download PDF)
I recommend Dr. Offit’s book Autism’s False Prophets to everyone because of its thorough examination of the vaccine-autism controversy. He examines the evidence from both sides, while showing compassion for why parents are easily confused and frightened by claims that physicians and scientists have dismissed. The book is unlikely to dissuade those who are convinced by the tactics of vaccine opponents, but it will be a valuable resource to parents who want a clear explanation that includes a sober account of the risks of not vaccinating their children. Physicians and scientists will also benefit from reading this book because it provides an important case study in how lack of scientific literacy can threaten public health.
Click here for detailed show notes and to learn more about the Books and Ideas podcast.
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I thought this was an extremely interesting show. The topics were well-presented. I’ve enjoyed most of the podcasts.
I am pesonally appalled by the anti-science attitude that seems to have taken root in this country. This show more than any other made me think about why people would care more the motives of the people presenting information than the information (facts) themselves. And I think part of the answer is simple: the facts are inaccessible to most of the population. Undoubtedly there are important reasons that the scientific studies are written up the way they are. But the language used and way the data is presented is almost incomprensible to non-scientists.
I am an environmental lawyer and so routinely deal with complicated technical issues. I was recently compelled to do research into some issues in veterinary medicine and found, to my dismay, that the papers on the findings of the reseach were almost impossible to read. I diligently looked up words I had never seen, only to find that they generally referred to ordinary concepts embodied in common English. The outsider gets the sense that the intent of these papers is to obfuscate as much as to illuminate.
In the absence of an ability to understand the research and findings, it is not surprising that a person looking for answers uses the motives of the people funding the research as proxy for the facts.
Not everyone would be able to read or would want to read scientific reports, even if they were written in plain English. However, I think it would help persuade people if the data was available to them in a format they could grasp, rather than forcing them to rely on the assurances of an outside authority, so many of which have been discredited recently.
Kate,
You make a valid point, but I found it ironic that a complaint about scientific language should come from a lawyer, since most of us non-lawyers feel the same about legalese.
It might be interesting to explore why specialists in almost every field, not just science and the law, tend to use language that makes their writing incomprehensible to outsiders. Whatever the original goal of such “technical language,” I think that now it often just represents laziness. To many young people have no experience in writing clearly, even in ordinary English, so then when they start writing in technical jargon the obtuseness of the their writing seems to be magnified.
My podcasts are my own small effort to translate some science into ordinary English. I would love to be part of a larger effort in this regard.
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