To mark Science Literacy Week, students, researchers and science supporters flocked to Residence Commons on Sept. 20 to listen to a panel of experts discuss the importance of research funding and science-based decision making in Canada.
Elizabeth May, the leader of the federal Green Party and member of Parliament for the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding in B.C., attended the event. She was accompanied by two local science professors: Paul Dufour, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy, and Jim Davies, a cognitive science professor, author and the director of the Science of Imagination laboratory at Carleton.
The event, called Naylor Report 101, was a collaboration between Justin Singer, a first-year PhD in cognitive science at Carleton, and Evidence for Democracy, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to advocating for science-based policy decisions in Canada.
According to Singer, he organized the event to educate his audience and develop support for the 35 recommendations in the Naylor Report. The report was commissioned by the Government of Canada from nine scientists who searched for gaps in the Canadian research system.
It notably calls for a shift to investigative research including a $485 million increase in its funding, a $1.3 billion increase in government funding for scientific research over the next four years, gender equity targets to address gender inequality in the system, and the creation of a new national advisory council on research and innovation.
“As scientific researchers, they depend on funding from the government, and it’s not just them–the whole public depends on the results of scientific research in order to make informed decisions,” Singer said.
He added that one of his main goals for the event was to provide “useful information on how to engage in discourse with a variety of different people, including people who may have differing opinions from theirs, or come from different academic backgrounds.”
The three speakers emphasized how the scientific community could best communicate with politicians and groups who have opposing opinions. Davies talked about the importance of using storytelling to make the case for science-based policy.
He proposed that the scientific community has not been able to reach science skeptics because their messaging is not directed at opposite values.
“The problem is that most people assume that the other people they are talking to will listen to the same reasons, they will find the same reasons convincing,” Davies said. “For many left-wing people, they will talk in terms of the things that left-wing people care about like harm and fairness, and they will forget about all the things that right-wing people care about like purity and loyalty, and all these other moral foundations that actually mean a lot.”
Davies said that if the scientific community can rephrase their message in a way that addresses the values of science skeptics, rather than using counter arguments, which frequently only cause opposers to dig their heels in.
Dufour compared the current state of Canada’s science research system to a snowman, melting and being rebuilt with the changing political seasons.
“While many of the recommendations in the Naylor Report if not all, are targeted at the federal government, responsibility for the implementation of these recommendations goes way beyond the federal government, and in fact the responsibility of universities themselves is critical in this area, as is the role of provincial governments,” Dufour said.
May agreed with Davies and Dufour that using alternative methods of communication with political leaders and opponents of science in government is key.
“A competing pile of factoids will never convince someone because they think they know something,” she said.
According to May, corporate and partisan interests have harmed government-based research funding over several years.
Above all, May emphasized that research is critical in making scientific advancements and that money should not be more important.
“Einstein wasn’t motivated by how much money he could make,” she said. “People who are motivated by how money they can make are generally uninteresting people with little to contribute to the world.”
Clay Steele, a second-year science and biology graduate student, said he attended the talk because he wanted to learn more about the Naylor Report and catch a glimpse of May.
“The decisions our government makes affect everyone’s lives and they are often made without considerations of evidence or science . . . I think scientists and society as a whole need to push back against that,” Steele said.
Photo by Graham Swaney
