It’s no surprise that the scientific and medical research in which the public tends to show the most interest is the research that is somehow connected to practical issues, like living longer and healthier lives. Scientists who depend on public monies to support their investigations have gotten pretty good at painting the “so what” for their findings.
The problem, of course, is that the “so what” painted for a non-scientific audience is frequently oversimplified, glossing over a lot of the complexities that the scientists deal with daily. It’s hard to cram complexities into a sound bite. As well, these sound bites telling us why a certain finding matters often play into the pre-existing biases and social expectations of the non-scientific audience at which they’re aimed. Unfortunately, this can persuade that audience that, with a particular finding, we know all that we need to — or, perhaps, that we at least know enough to justify particular ways of doing things (surprise!) toward which we were already inclined.
Consider, for example, a New York Times op-ed piece by Marianne Legato on gender and health. She writes:
What emerges when one studies male biology in a truly evenhanded way is the realization that from the moment of conception on, men are less likely to survive than women. It’s not just that men take on greater risks and pursue more hazardous vocations than women. There are poorly understood — and underappreciated — vulnerabilities inherent in men’s genetic and hormonal makeup. This Father’s Day, we need to rededicate ourselves to deepening our knowledge of male physiology.
On the surface, this sounds reasonable. But Echidne of the Snakes worries that it is not only vulnerable to being spun, but also engages in some oversimpliciation and spin itself:
I feel as angry about this reverse take on the relative health of the sexes, and the reason for my anger in both cases is the same one: Discussions like these may or may not be the springboard for better health research, but they certainly will be used to perpetuate the status quo of power imbalances between the sexes.