Neue Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, wie die wahrgenommene Vertrauenswürdigkeit von Wissenschaftlern erhöht werden kann

Well yes, of course, humility improves perceived trustworthiness. This didn’t require a study to know. What I want to know is how we’re going to overcome the right wing media dreadnought that villainizes scientists and anything else that is contrary to their agenda 24/7, and pretty much has a complete lock in communication with their audience.

Article is on a paywall. Can someone post the article in this thread?

I definitely agree that humility is the key. There’s an image which science has tried to project over the years that science = truth, and that these days it’s just filling in tiny gaps in our knowledge and understanding of reality. The problem is, it’s far too easy to come up with counterexamples, at which point some people lose faith in science and go off on wild goose chases in the realms of conspiracy theories. With a bit more humility about things like the replication crisis, and acceptance that science is rarely driven by pure altruism, it would be much more straightforward to dismiss such conspiracies.

Maybe don’t lead with your data showing how to increase your perceived trustworthiness!

Finally. Admits to thinks you know and to things you don’t know. No ‘jumping to conclusions’, you can use the words ‘theory’ or ‘probable’ instead.

Ironically my institution doesn’t subscribe to Nature Human Behaviour so I also can’t read the paper.

Yes, having major policies based on evidence is vitally important, I will never, ever deny that.

What we need, I think, is for us to stop pretending that scientists are those perfect storybook scientists of yore – disinterested, independent and free of values, ideologies and politics and dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, as if we exist off in science monasteries free from influence from or upon the world.

Science is just like business and government. Science is about money, and resources, and people, and heavily invested in all the political and social systems it took to generate it, yet insistent on not being accountable to anyone but itself; a system in which ones credibility is built on arcane concepts like citation count, grant funding, and ones position in a list of authors that mean absolutely nothing to the public.

The AAAS during those Marches for Science back in 2017 said they want to “*protect the rights of scientists to pursue and communicate their inquiries unimpeded, expand the placement of scientists throughout the government, build public policies upon scientific evidence*” – which could be read by a skeptic as; “We want power, and we don’t want you to get in the way”

It seems outrageous to have political leaders that exist on a social tier free from the consequences of law, able to place their political allies around them, enact policy built upon whatever political ideology they choose. And yet here science is, demanding to have it’s own special pedestal because it produces “neutral”, “value-free” “truths”.

A meritocracy sounds delightful to someone that never considers *who* decides who gets merit. Science exceptionalism makes it little wonder that people reject science, because it becomes simply another aspect of that untouchable elite “establishment” that populism thrives on rejecting.

A healthy dose of humility and self-awareness would, I think, do wonders.

People who distrust science don’t seem to value humility in their elected leaders, and they most certainly don’t value changing opinion when presented with new data. Yes, humility is important, but it’s not going to change anyone’s mind, and it’s not going to cause anyone who already distrusts science to begin trusting.