| I think this is a tricky one. Certainly I wasn't particularly impressed with how the science was communicated in a few areas: - The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and the risk/benefit analysis, particular in younger adult demographics - The WHO's position on airborne transmission of Covid-19, and the way in which understanding in this area was misrepresented to the public I took part in a vaccine clinical trial myself, and there was a much more in-depth discussion as to what was known about the candidate vaccination, its side effect profile - and, more importantly, the limits of our knowledge given the small population it had been tested in when I volunteered. We didn't see much of that nuance during the height of the pandemic. At the same time though, some may argue that trying to combat misinformation requires over-simplifying some things, such that they can be effectively communicated to the public. Ref: https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 |
This is more of a matter of public health than science though. It would be nice if they were the same thing but it's like asking for people to be perfectly rational and well-informed actors like in those economics models