Today we continue our look at the reasons that attempts to have a dialogue about the use of animals in scientific research routinely run aground.
Dialogue, you’ll remember, involves the participants in the dialogue offering not just their views but also something like their reasons for holding those views. In addition, in a real dialogue, participants engage seriously with each other’s positions. Serious engagement doesn’t necessitate that one of the positions on offer ends up persuading everyone in the dialogue, but everyone is supposed to be open to considering each view — and open to critically examining one’s own view. A dialogue is not a high school debate where the point is for your side to win. Instead, “winning” here is really understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competing view, and ideally, all of the dialogue’s participants can achieve this sort of win.
Research with animals seems to be a topic of discussion especially well-suited to shouting matches and disengagement. Understanding the reasons this is so might clear a path to make dialogue possible. Yesterday, we discussed problems that arise when people in a discussion start with the assumption that the other guy is arguing in bad faith. If we can get past this presumptive mistrust of the other parties in the discussion, another significant impediment rears its head pretty quickly:
Substantial disagreement about the facts.
Trying to get people to accept (or even seriously consider) your conclusion, no matter what that conclusion might be, is a lot harder if those people do not accept your premises. In discussions (or shouting matches) around animal rights, animal welfare, and the use of animals in research, there are plenty of premises that are hotly disputed by participants. Thus, I’m going to focus on three types of facts that are usually points of contention and give them each a post of their own. In the next post, I’ll discuss contention about what animal welfare regulations allow or require. In the post after that (part 4 of the series), I’ll take up disagreements around the facts as far as animal discomfort, distress, pain, or torture when animals are used in scientific research. We will start, though, by considering a pretty basic clump of claims over which various sides have trouble agreeing to the same facts:
Is animal research necessary or unnecessary for scientific and medical advancement?
Category Archives: Communication
Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 1).
In a post last month about an animal rights group targeting a researcher’s car with an incendiary device, I closed by expressing my profound pessimism at the prospects of having a serious dialogue about animal rights:
Morality, outrage, and #amazonfail: a reply to Clay Shirky.
A bunch of people (including Bora) have pointed me to Clay Shirky’s take on #amazonfail. While I’m not in agreement with Shirky’s analysis that Twitter users mobilized an angry mob on the basis of a false theory (and now that mob is having a hard time backing down), there are some interesting ideas in his post that I think merit consideration. So, let’s consider them.
Framing and ethics (part 3).
In a pair of earlier posts, I looked at the ethical principles Matthew C. Nisbet says should be guiding the framing of science and at examples Nisbet discusses of ethical and unethical framing. Here, consider some lessons we might learn from the framing wars. I’m hopeful that we can gain insight about the folks interested in communicating science, about the various people with whom they’re trying to communicate, and perhaps even about the approaches that might be useful (or counterproductive) in trying to sell scientists on the utility of the framing strategy.
This post is not so much a response to Matt’s recent post on the ethics of framing as it is to the multi-year brouhaha over framing and its discontents in the science blogosphere.
The lessons I’m taking away from all of this are more along the lines of bite-sized nuggets than a Grand Unified Moral of the Story (although it’s quite possible that someone with more patience or insight than I can muster could find the grand unifying thread in these nuggets):
Framing and ethics (part 2).
In my last post, I looked at a set of ethical principles Matt Nisbet asserts should be guiding the framing of science. In this post, I consider the examples Matt provides as the “DO” and “DON’T” pictures for the application of these guiding ethical principles.
First, Matt examines an example of framing done well:
Framing and ethics (part 1).
If it’s spring, it must be time for another round of posts trying to get clear on the framing strategies advocated by Matthew C. Nisbet, and on why these communications seem to be so controversial among scientists and science bloggers.
My past attempts to figure out what’s up with framing can be found here:
- Movie screening expulsion: whose hearts and minds are up for grabs?
- Trying to understand framing.
- Trying to understand framing (II): draw me a picture.
- Trying to understand framing (III): the example of stem cell research.
- Minor epiphany about framing.
The present post has been prompted by Matt’s recent post on the ethics of framing science.
If you haven’t the stomach for another round of the framing wars (or the attempt at analysis from here on the sidelines), come back later for tasty framing-free content: This afternoon I’ll be posting an illustration by the elder Free-Ride offspring, and this evening I’ll be revealing the identities of the mystery crops in my garden.
For those still reading, here’s my plan: First, in this post, I’ll consider the four ethical principles Matt says ought to be guiding scientists, journalists, and other communicators who are framing science. In the next post, I’ll say something about what seems to be going on when proponents of the framing strategy object that scientists are not applying it correctly. Finally, I’ll try to draw some broader lessons about the folks interested in communicating science – and about the strategies that might be useful (or counterproductive) in trying to sell scientists on the utility of the framing strategy.
Circumstances under which it is OK for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air?
Some commenters on my last post seem to be of the view that it is perfectly fine for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air to bolster their claims, at least under some circumstances.
I think it’s a fair question to ask: In which circumstances are you comfortable giving scientists the go-ahead to make up their numbers?
Is being a scientist something you do, or something you are?
Over at Neurotopia, SciCurious has a fabulous post on the question of who is a scientist. Her discussion really teases out a lot of important nuances, and I think her analysis is spot on.
I’m going to add my two cents simply to connect Sci’s discussion with an issue I’ve pondered before: the boundaries (or lack thereof) between who we are and what we do.
Mentoring ethics and authorship ethics.
One of my correspondents told me about a situation that raised some interesting questions about both proper attribution of authorship in scientific papers and ethical interactions between mentor and mentee in a scientific training relationship. With my correspondent’s permission, I’m sharing the case with you.
A graduate student, in chatting with a colleague in another lab, happened upon an idea for an experimental side project to do with that colleague. While the side project fell well outside the research agenda of this graduate student’s research group, he first asked his advisor whether it was OK for him to work on the side project. The advisor was reluctant to allow the student to work on the project, but agreed to give him a relatively short window of time (on the order of weeks, not months) to work on the side project and see if he got any results.
Unsolicited words of advice for those participating in online discourse.
(It’s worth noting, however, that this may also be useful advice for interactions with others offline.)
I don’t know what’s in your heart. I don’t know what’s in your mind. I don’t have direct access to either of those (because I’m a distinct person from you), and if I did, you’d probably feel violated.
The only sensible data I have on what’s in your heart and your mind when I’m interacting with you online is how you present yourself — and your regard for others — through your words.