- Email: [email protected]
Social Epistemology
C H A P T E R
12
Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience Joan Leach University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
O U T L I N E Introduction
231
Science Communication: Beyond Media Training
233
Communication Expectations
235
Social Epistemology and Science Communication, Alongside Neuroethics
238
INTRODUCTION Serious discussions of social impact, public understanding and engagement, and public debate emerge strongly in current discourses about the sciences. Neuroscience is second only to genetics in foregrounding such concerns by inventing an interdisciplinary space, “neuroethics”, in which social discourses of neuroscience are considered within an ethical framework (Carter, Capps, Nutt, ter Muelen, Ashcroft, & Hall, 2009; Moreno, 2003). Adjacent to the interests in ethics, and many times superseded by them, issues of communication and knowledge circulation have become increasingly important in scientific fields, including neuroscience (Illes et al., 2010). The goal of this chapter is to suggest a social epistemology of neuroscience, with a special focus on the communication of addiction neuroscience. It sets social epistemology in a complementary relation to neuroethics, as part of this important interdisciplinary space
Addiction Neuroethics
231
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
232
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
where issues of knowledge circulation and science communication are foregrounded. Social epistemology is the study of how knowledge is constituted, defined and circulated in social groups—as opposed to how individuals come to knowledge. [Of course, as in many academic disciplines, this definition is not unproblematic. There is at least one version of social epistemology that suggests that “the social” is what is being analyzed by epistemology, not where knowledge resides (Goldman, 2010).] It was invented as a category of library science by the philosophically and sociologically minded Jesse Shera at the University of Chicago in the 1960s (Shera, 1968). His insight was that, with the rapid proliferation of knowledge and the introduction of information technology, librarianship was about to be transformed. Access to knowledge, as he saw it, was going to become a bigger problem not only for people not involved in its production but also for the knowledge producers themselves. Thus, he saw a need for a specialist area, social epistemology, to study and resolve issues of access to knowledge and mediate between the skills of librarianship and those of information technology. Like many good ideas, it escaped its initial formulation. “Social epistemology” has been used to describe all sorts of knowledge mediation enterprises in philosophy, sociology, education and elsewhere (Baba & Walsh, 2010; Downer, 2010; Fagan, 2010; Lundqvist, Almqvist, & Ostman, 2009; Warner, 2008). Like traditional epistemology, social epistemology has been strongly normative, attempting not only to describe the circulation and constitution of knowledge, but also to assist social groups to obtain knowledge that is best for them (Fuller, 2002). As Steve Fuller has put it, the difference between social epistemology and traditional epistemology is whether one focuses on “knowledge” as a noun or the verb “to know” (Fuller, 2007, p. 177). For social epistemologists whose focus is on the social aspect of epistemology, the key interest is in knowledge, the noun, and not individual knowledge acquisition. For mainstream epistemology, with its emphasis on knowledge acquisition, the “coming of neuroscience” has been profoundly unsettling; social epistemologists find the terrain more exciting. [The representative anecdote indicating the degree of discord between neuroscience and traditional epistemology is Patricia Smith Churchland’s (1987, p. 545) Journal of Philosophy article, where she opines that with the coming of neuroscience, “most of the questions which used to preoccupy us as graduate students and whose answers seemed necessary to advancing the general program of epistemology, now look either peripheral or misguided, and the general program itself looks troubled”.] A social epistemologist, then, might even see an account of knowledge acquisition as a problem for neuroscience itself. This is important because an approach from social epistemology is happy to use neuroscience to naturalize questions of cognitive function or individual
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Science Communication: Beyond Media Training
233
knowledge acquisition. It is more likely, however, to naturalize questions of knowledge circulation to philosophy, sociology, education, communication studies and other analytic fields in the humanities and social sciences.
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION: BEYOND MEDIA TRAINING What makes the terrain of neuroscience exciting for the social epistemologist is the priority that the field has given to science communication. There is a range of professed reasons why neuroscientists want to communicate that imply a diversity of communication modes and genres through which this might happen (Table 12.1). These and other motivations for science communication in neuroscience are an indication of the broad range of reasons why communication has emerged as a central topic. On the one hand, there is general interest in communicating to a broad range of audiences in the mode and genres of popular neuroscience. On the other, ethical discussions of emerging neuroscience applications (neuroenhancement, neuromarketing) create spaces in which neurorhetoric can thrive. Thus, the term “science communication” covers a wide range of practical applications of communication in science as well as a nascent discipline that studies communication in those fields (Logan, 2001). “Science communication” also refers to the process whereby scientific knowledge is communicated from inside science to a range of audiences and the processes by which audiences demand knowledge, engage it, contribute to it and respond to it (variously known as science popularization, citizen science and public engagement). The field of science communication has a somewhat chequered history in engaging with multiple communication contexts in a coherent fashion (Bauer & Bucchi, 2007; Logan, 2001). That pattern seems to be continuing in addiction neuroethics, where professional and clinical communication are seen as separate practices from ethical discussion and identity work. Thus, it is possible, even likely, to find neuroscientific communication fragmented among researchers who are undergoing media training, clinicians working through scenarios of doctor–patient communication, and public relations officers well-schooled in issuing press releases touting research breakthroughs. Each of these communication scenarios might be effective and useful communication practices in itself, but taken together, they can operate in a counter-productive fashion, if the goal is the communication of knowledge. A recent example of this is the emergence of neuromarketing. The New York Times (popular science) covered the recent acquisition by
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
234
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
TABLE 12.1 Multiple Modes and Media of Science Communication Clinical communication
Neuroscience as clinical practice: Neuroscience has a clinical component and patients are an important group with whom to communicate (Bell, Mathieu, & Racine, 2009; Gilbert & Ovadia, 2011; Pluta, Perazza, & Golub, 2011; Sachdev, 2011; Schermer, 2011)
Ethical discussion
Neuroscience as problematic practice: Neuroscience involves new scientific techniques whose ethical or social status is not yet clear. Communicating about these techniques may pre-empt controversy, generate ethical discussion and raise awareness of the emergence of new knowledge practices (Illes et al., 2010)
Professional communication
Neuroscience as interdisciplinary practice: Neuroscience research spans disciplines as well as theoretical, applied and clinical settings. Thus, the need for transparent communication is central to research having impact and the generation of interdisciplinary knowledge (Leshner, 1997)
Identity work
Neuroscience as social game-changer: Neuroscience has implications for questions of individual and social identity. Communication to audiences with a stake in these questions is core business for such a field (Dumit, 2004); see Fry and Buchman (This volume, Chapter 9)
Multimodal communication
Neuroscience and multimodal communication: Imaging techniques in neuroscience (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010) produce novel ways to conduct and report neuroscience research. Communication through these modes is both popular and difficult territory (Joyce, 2005)
Cannot not communicate
Neuroscience as “normal science”: Neuroscience is coming of age in an era where science communication is expected and public relations must be managed (Bubela et al., 2009)
Neurorhetoric
Neuroscience advocacy: Areas such as neuromarketing, addiction treatment programs and drug policy draw advocates and critics, both producing neurorhetoric for public and professional consideration (Jack, 2010)
Popular neuroscience
Popular neuroscience: There is a general interest in neuroscience that can be satisfied with various forms of popular mediation, from news, blogs, websites, paperback books and advertising to business analysis and documentary
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Communication Expectations
235
Nielsen of NeuroFocus, a leading neuromarketing company. NeuroFocus was also of interest to The New York Times because they had ignored the policy guidelines of the Advertising Research Foundation on the ethical use of neuromarketing. The paper reported the views of other neuromarketers and neuroethicists on this development (ethical discussion). Meanwhile, on blogs, in popular science and in professional forums, neuroscience researchers have been characterizing neuromarketing as “junk science” or an “area of concern” (professional communication). Given that much of the technology of neuromarketing results in the interpretation of images (multimodal communication), some marketers are skeptical about the value of neuromarketing (neurorhetoric) apart from the persuasive images it produces. Finally, neuroethicists have worried, that if successful, neuromarketing could raise serious ethical problems by targeting “stealth neuromarketing” at audiences who were unaware that marketing was taking place (more ethical discussion) (Murphy, Illes, & Reiner, 2008). Thus, there is a tremendous variety of communication modes and interests involved in assessing one emerging area of applied neuroscience. Tackling this issue solely by suggesting that neuroscientists undergo media training or any other one-mode or genre solution is unlikely to be successful. This is because the audiences for neuroscience have already shown themselves to be multiple (inter alia, patients, critics, fellow professionals). Examining science communication, then, can be a much more multifaceted activity than understanding how the media works or being able to parse the interests of various actors in a controversy. Being able to analyze the various communication modes at play is a first step in understanding how knowledge is circulated among various communities. In the example above, one relevant audience is Nielsen shareholders. Another is the large community of marketers curious about the possibilities of neuromarketing research. What do they know about neuroscience after this episode? Do they find the claims of NeuroFocus credible enough to jump on the neuromarketing bandwagon? What, if any, is the impact of increased popular discussion of neuromarketing on opinions or beliefs about other forms of neuroscience? These are questions of knowledge circulation and of the cumulative effects of multiple communication modes and genres.
COMMUNICATION EXPECTATIONS What can more or better communication achieve for neuroscience? Those in the fields of neuroscience and neuroethics have begun to answer that question. Jonathan Moreno (2003), for example, posits that “some neuroscientific discoveries, once they become more widely appreciated,
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
236
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
are likely to become objects of popular imagination”. He goes on to conclude that: many of those engaged in these efforts [neuroscientific research] will find themselves the subjects of the sort of public attention that was previously experienced by their colleagues in nuclear physics and genetics. Neuroscientists will increasingly be challenged to explain the significance of their work in moral as well as scientific terms. The burden of discovery in neuroscience, from this point of view, is that people outside the field will engage with new discoveries, perhaps coming away with ideas not sanctioned by their discoverers. Further, the specter of moral controversy is raised to underscore the need for neuroscientists and neuroethicists to justify themselves and their research to a skeptical or worried audience. In short, faced with potentially problematic findings, the neuroscientist will be forced to communicate. Or, in the terms laid out in Table 12.1, faced with an accusation that neuroscience is a problematic practice, neuroscientists cannot not communicate; they will have to engage in ethical discussion. This formulation raises questions about the general expectations for what communication can achieve and what other formulations for motivating communication might be. In observing researchers’ attitudes to science communication, three rather clear stances are taken, with the same people sometimes occupying different stances for different occasions and purposes. That is, neuroscience and neuroethics researchers can encourage or discourage others from attempting to engage in science communication by taking rhetorical stances about the possibility of success. First, there are science communication optimists. They claim that communication will make a substantial difference to the way knowledge is constituted and circulated and in ways that produce positive social outcomes. Inside neuroscience, optimists are best represented by Alan Leshner (1997) in his well-cited editorial “Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters”. While Leshner is dubious about other social mechanisms that negatively impact knowledge circulation such as “ingrained ideology”, he says, “I believe we can and must bridge this informational disconnection if we are going to make any real progress in controlling drug abuse and addiction”. Despite the infelicitous term “informational disconnection”, for Leshner it seems clear that improved science communication is how the field must progress. Note that Leshner seems to be directing his attention to science communication in professional circles. It is the professional and clinical audiences who need to worry most about communication (one-way, “informational” communication) because confusion about the definition and quality of addiction in professional circles has, in his view, made the successful treatment of addiction more difficult. Successful communication
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Communication Expectations
237
in this view is a range of experts speaking with a unified voice to express a scientific consensus. (For expressions of “scientific optimism” from leading addiction neuroscientists including current and recent directors of US national research institutes on illicit drugs and alcohol, see Baler & Volkow, 2011; Dackis & O’Brien, 2005; Shurtleff, Liu, & Sasek, 2009; Volkow & Li, 2004, 2005; Volkow, Fowler, Wang, Baler, & Telang, 2009; for critical reviews, see Campbell, 2010; Courtwright, 2010; Vrecko, 2010.) Science communication pessimists, by contrast, worry that science communication is futile, or worse, that communication (especially journalism) can have negative social consequences. In neuroethics, pessimists can be represented by the view that science communication in the field is rife with misrepresentation which, at least in some cases, is worse than not communicating at all (e.g. Gonan, Bezard, & Boraud, 2011). Criticisms of neurorealism, the idea that some neuroscience findings appear more real or true because they are associated with images (typically functional magnetic resonance imaging scans) are also suggestive of this stance (Racine, Bar-Ilan, & Illes, 2005). While the images themselves are a source of media appeal, their effects may have emphasized the standing of the wrong research or provided inferential leaps to claims that “hysteria is real” or autism is caused by a “super-male brain”. A more ambivalent form of pessimism is framed by Illes and colleagues (2010, p. 61): Neuroscience is among several scientific disciplines that are particularly prone to misinformation and inaccurate reporting. Sensational media headlines that evoke mind reading, a neurogenetic basis for fidelity or voting patterns, memory boosters for the healthy, and miracle cures for sensory and movement disorders are but a few examples. Without accurate and sufficient background information or context, the public—who are naturally interested in diseases and cures, especially with regard to common and serious brain disorders—may accept these simplistic messages uncritically. While pessimistic about current public communication of science, Illes et al. retain a modicum of optimism about the possibilities for science communication to have a positive social impact. This requires an overhaul of the media, a cultural transformation inside neuroscience circles and more empirical research on public understandings. Indeed, they write “with an even stronger commitment to communication, the neuroscience community and its partners will mitigate or avoid the public backlash and funding freezes that have taken other areas of science by surprise …” (Illes et al., 2010, p. 68). Of course, there are also pessimists about professional communication in neuroscience. The anonymous author of an editorial in Nature Neuroscience (2000) throws up his or her hands at the end of an essay, describing professional communication of neuroscience as “pomposity”,
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
238
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
“ineffective communication solutions”, “vapid statements” and a “culture of bad writing”. They conclude that “perhaps the solution is for graduate programs to place more emphasis on formal instruction in scientific writing, but this will only happen if scientists appreciate the need for better communication and understand the steps that can be taken to achieve it”. The pessimistic implication is that scientists do not and will not communicate effectively. These stances are rhetorical strategies, and whether you are an optimist or a pessimist radically changes your strategy. A typical pattern for researchers is to be optimistic about scientific communication, but pessimistic about public communication of science. A more nuanced view holds that there is something about neuroscience, or even reflexively, about ourselves, that makes neuroscience more difficult to communicate about, or for the public to understand or engage with it. Also, there is more than a bit of threat, of fear, in each of these rhetorical stances about communicating neuroscience. Moreno presents the image of public attention, sweeping like a spotlight from physics to genetics before it finally rests upon neuroscience. Will neuroscientists be able to perform in that spotlight? Leshner sets the communication bar quite high: can clinicians and researchers forge a common language in order to make any impact on the suffering of addiction? Illes et al. create the specter of a public beguiled by neurohype before challenging their audience of neuroscientists to engage in direct (and sober) communication with an interested public. The anonymous editorial writer leaves us with the threat of unending unreadable prose, opaque to public and professional alike. Even the optimists see communication as difficult at best, and scary too because the threat of misunderstanding and skepticism is real, and the stakes are high. Those who succeed in communicating are duly congratulated for scaling this high rhetorical wall. As Stephen Hilgartner (1990) pointed out in relation to science popularization, this “scary” view of public communication “serves scientists (and others who derive their authority from science) as a political resource in public discourse”. It ensures flexibility in the face of mistakes and failures of communication, and provides an excuse when controversy prevents open communication. Thus, talk of “science communication” is not necessarily to be taken at face value; it also needs to be seen as a part of a larger set of questions about how knowledge in neuroscience circulates.
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION, ALONGSIDE NEUROETHICS Neuroethicists aim to identify, analyze and provide possible solutions or guidance for ethical problems arising in neuroscience; the science
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
239
communicator and the social epistemologist have related tasks. Communication modes, tools, techniques and genres can be used in service of ethical debate and even their resolution. However, there are other goals for science communication that an approach from social epistemology can help to articulate alongside a research program to answer the questions of communication raised in the previous two sections. First, given the rhetorical quality of appeals for more and better science communication, what would count as successful neuroscientific communication? While some neuroethicists have acknowledged the “two-way nature” of public engagement and dialogue (Illes et al., 2010, p. 62), the venues suggested for this to happen have been limited to “café scientifique” discussions and online interaction, both still focused on professional communication with lay audiences. If a goal for such communication is a larger social engagement with neuroscientific research, audiences will need also to feel some responsibility for or at least affinity with the research. Currently identified as “citizen science” (Irwin, 1995), this approach advocates a position of audiences, not as passive witnesses to scientific or ethical arguments, but as active participants in the definition and creation of new scientific knowledge. The flagship successes of this approach have been in ecology and conservation biology (Evans et al., 2005; Jenkins, 1999), where participants in the research make observations that would be impossible for researchers to achieve by themselves. This has also expanded to genetics and biotechnology, where non-scientists can make observations and contribute to the formation of research projects (Swan, Hathaway, Hogg, McCauley, & Vollrath, 2010). Medical researchers have approached this way of bringing lay expertise to bear on clinical questions. As citizen science projects typically ease funding restrictions on research by using volunteers to carry out research, they can be attractive projects for researchers pursuing large-scale research that otherwise would not be done. Neuroscience is an area where such an approach could also prove fruitful. A recent editorial in Nature Neuroscience (2010) reinterprets citizen science as an opportunity for bringing funders and researchers together: Several new funding initiatives that encourage the public to fund science directly with their pocket change … Such microfinance efforts will not make an immediate dent in systemic problems of insufficient funding, but increased personal investment in scientific research could help improve scientific literacy and enthusiasm for science and, ultimately, win stronger backing for federal support of scientific research. Reformulating citizen science in this way replaces intellectual engagement and direct dialogue with personal investment and risks undermining any trust that has been gained already by neuroscientists discussing ethical issues and promoting open communication. It also points to
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
240
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
the slipperiness of the goals of science communication. From a social epistemology perspective, an important goal of science communication is the more equal distribution of knowledge and the more active engagement of participants in its production, not solving the funding crisis for neuroscience. In this instance, there is a worrying trend to replace knowledge policy with economic policy for science, using “science communication” as a convenient excuse for the exchange. The criteria for measuring successful science communication, then, need to be clearly articulated. Is it increased science literacy? Is it increased support for neuroscience? Is it creating a more engaged audience for neuroscientific research? Also, how and by whom will these goals be set? A second perspective on science communication from social epistemology argues for a joined-up approach to science communication. This is especially true in addiction neuroscience. Hall, Carter, and Morley (2004) have sympathetically characterized drug-dependent people, arguing that, “addiction needs to be seen, in part, as the result of choices that are not always wisely made by young people who operate with a short time perspective, a sense of personal invulnerability and skepticism toward elders’ advice about the risks of drug use”. Alongside this characterization of addicted drug users rests the problem of representations of neuroscience in mediated contexts. Hall et al. write, citing Colin Blakemore: Given the public interest in neuroscience research, potential misunderstandings may rebound to the detriment of neuroscience and genetics. Neuroscientists and geneticists arguably have a moral responsibility to be proactive in their dealings with the media (Blakemore, 2002). There are a few common communication facets to these two problems. First, ignorance, skepticism and misunderstanding are common threads to these two characterizations, if not to the people they may apply to. However, it is worth seeing ignorance, skepticism and misunderstanding not as the simple “lack” of the right knowledge, but as the result of a state of affairs that has been actively produced by a lack of communication. This more positive account of ignorance as a product of ineffective activity, or none at all, provides a target for improving communication activity. It is already a mainstay of public health messaging for families that open communication channels and proactive communication with teens are prophylactic for adolescent drug abuse; Anderson’s recent study (2010) documents the continuing popularity of this governing idea despite problems demonstrating its effectiveness. As this chapter has demonstrated in a few examples, it is becoming a common trope of neuroethics that open communication channels and proactive communication with interested
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
241
publics for neuroscience are necessary to resolve emerging ethical dilemmas. The key issue, however, is to see these two situations (the skeptical drug-dependent user and the misunderstanding public) as related figures who have been, in part, rhetorically characterized by the communication practices of neuroscience in order to give itself a communication problem to solve. Also, that problem is seen as one of “lack’; a lack of communication or a lack of understanding to which communication becomes a remedy. Communication misunderstandings can always be blamed on the receiving end of the communication. The challenge is to place the communication burden on neuroscience. The injunction to “communicate or there will be misunderstandings”, emphasizing “lack” in both communication and knowledge terms, is changed to “your communication practices are not working; try something else”, which emphasizes the goals of communication. In summary, science communication is an important area for neuroscience and neuroethics that can all too readily be identified with its modes and genres instead of its goals and purposes. The use of a framework from social epistemology that is more concerned with how knowledge circulates can provide efforts to improve communication with a more appropriate focus. In addition, this approach suggests a series of research questions that can provide solutions for practical communication problems (e.g. what is the best way to explain synapses to a person considering taking an antidepressant such as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor?) as well as address larger normative issues about the goals of science communication in neuroscience (e.g. to aid in scientifically formed public debates about ethical issues raised by neuroscience). An overemphasis on certain genres of communication in neuroscience, for example media training, can distract attention from the wide variety of pressing communication concerns of clinical, ethical and epistemic significance. It is therefore important that discussion of science communication is not centered on only one mode or genre. Popular neuroscience, in the form of expert media commentary is only one possible way that neuroscientists and neuroethicists communicate. Indeed, if the pessimistic editorialist quoted above is to be believed, professional communication needs as much attention as communication with lay audiences. It is worth concluding on a note of qualified optimism, inspired by the qualified pessimism of Illes et al. (2010). Neuroscientists might yet be able to engage with questions of the public good, if they take communication seriously, if they are rewarded for communication interventions that, by clear criteria, work, if neuroscientists continue to examine their relationship with social mediation, and if a social epistemology research framework can generate good answers to some complicated empirical questions of knowledge circulation.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
242
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Wayne Hall and Judy Illes for inviting me to talk about science communication in neuroscience at “Introducing Neuroethics”, a conference at the University of Queensland, April 2010. I would also like to thank Sarah Yeates as a model of social epistemology in action, from library to neuroethics.
References Anderson, D. M. (2010). Does information matter? The effect of the meth project on meth use among youths. Journal of Health Economics, 29, 732–742. Baba, Y., & Walsh, J. P. (2010). Embeddedness, social epistemology and breakthrough innovation: The case of the development of statins. Research Policy, 39, 511–522. Baler, R. D., & Volkow, N. D. (2011). Addiction as a systems failure: Focus on adolescence and smoking. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 50, 329–339. Bauer, M. W., & Bucchi, M. (2007). Journalism, science and society: Science communication between news and public relations. London: Routledge. Bell, E., Mathieu, G., & Racine, E. (2009). Preparing the ethical future of deep brain stimulation. Surgical Neurology, 72, 577–586. Berns, G., Capra, C., Moore, S., & Noussair, C. (2010). Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music. NeuroImage, 49, 2687–2696. Blakemore, C. (2002). From the “public understanding of science” to scientists’ understanding of the public. In S. J. Marcus (Ed.), Neuroethics: Mapping the field (pp. 211–221). New York, NY: Dana Press. Bubela, T., Nisbet, M. C., Borchelt, R., Brunger, F., Critchley, C., Einsiedel, E., et al. (2009). Science communication reconsidered. Nature Biotechnology, 27, 514–518. Campbell, N. D. (2010). Toward a critical neuroscience of “addiction”. Biosocieties, 5, 89–104. Carter, A., Capps, B., Nutt, D., ter Muelen, R., Ashcroft, R., & Hall, W. (2009). Addiction neurobiology: Ethical and social implications. Lisbon: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Churchland, P. (1987). Epistemology in the age of neuroscience. Journal of Philosophy, 84, 544–553. Courtwright, D. T. (2010). The NIDA brain disease paradigm: History, resistance and spinoffs. Biosocieties, 5, 137–147. Dackis, C., & O’Brien, C. (2005). Neurobiology of addiction: Treatment and public policy ramifications. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1431–1436. Downer, J. (2010). Trust and technology: The social foundations of aviation regulation. British Journal of Sociology, 61, 83–106. Dumit, J. (2004). Picturing personhood: Brain scans and biomedical identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Editorial (2000). How experts communicate. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 97. Editorial (2010). Citizen science. Nature Neuroscience, 13, 1151. Evans, C., Abrams, E., Reitsma, R., Roux, K., Salmonsen, L., & Marra, P. P. (2005). The Neighborhood Nestwatch program: Participant outcomes of a citizen-science ecological research project. Conservation Biology, 19, 589–594. Fagan, M. B. (2010). Stems and standards: Social interaction in the search for blood stem cells. Journal of the History of Biology, 43, 67–109. Fuller, S. (2002). Social epistemology. Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press. Fuller, S. (2007). The knowledge book: Key concepts in philosophy, science and culture. Stocksfield: Acumen.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
243
Gilbert, F., & Ovadia, D. (2011). Deep brain stimulation in the media: Over-optimistic portrayals call for a new strategy involving journalists and scientists in ethical debates. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5, 16. Goldman, A. (2010). Systems-oriented social epistemology. In T. Gendler & J. O’LearyHawthorne (Eds.), Oxford studies in epistemology (Vol. 5, pp. 189–214). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gonan, F., Bezard, E., & Boraud, T. (2011). Misrepresentation of neuroscience data might give rise to misleading conclusions in the media: The case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Public Library of Science ONE, 6(1), e14618. Hall, W., Carter, L., & Morley, K. (2004). Neuroscience research on the addictions: A prospectus for future ethical and policy analysis. Addictive Behaviors, 29, 1481–1495. Hilgartner, S. (1990). The dominant view of popularization—Conceptual problems, political uses. Social Studies of Science, 20, 519–539. Illes, J., Moser, M. A., McCormick, J. B., Racine, E., Blakeslee, S., Caplan, A., et al. (2010). Neurotalk: Improving the communication of neuroscience research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 61–69. Irwin, A. (1995). Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. London: Routledge. Jack, J. (2010). What are neurorhetorics? Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 44, 405–410. Jenkins, E. W. (1999). School science, citizenship and the public understanding of science. International Journal of Science Education, 21, 703–710. Joyce, K. (2005). Appealing images: Magnetic resonance imaging and the production of authoritative knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 35, 437–462. Leshner, A. I. (1997). Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters. Science, 278, 45–47. Logan, R. A. (2001). Science mass communication—Its conceptual history. Science Communication, 23, 135–163. Lundqvist, E., Almqvist, J., & Ostman, L. (2009). Epistemological norms and companion meanings in science classroom communication. Science Education, 93, 859–874. Moreno, J. D. (2003). Neuroethics: An agenda for neuroscience and society. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 149–153. Murphy, E. R., Illes, J., & Reiner, P. B. (2008). Neuroethics of neuromarketing. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 7, 293–302. Pluta, R. M., Perazza, G. D., & Golub, R. M. (2011). JAMA patient page. Deep brain stimulation. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305, 732. Racine, E., Bar-Ilan, O., & Illes, J. (2005). fMRI in the public eye. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 159–164. Sachdev, P. (2011). The narrative in neurology and psychiatry. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 24, 215–218. Schermer, M. (2011). Ethical issues in deep brain stimulation. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5, 17. Shera, J. (1968). An epistemological foundation for library science. In E. B. Montgomery (Ed.), The foundations of access to knowledge: A symposium (pp. 7–25). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Shurtleff, D., Liu, R., & Sasek, C. (2009). Frontiers in addiction research: Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the National Institute on Drug Abuse: Sponsor’s foreword. Neuropharmacology, 56, 1–2. Swan, M., Hathaway, K., Hogg, C., McCauley, R., & Vollrath, A. (2010). Citizen science genomics as a model for crowdsourced preventive medicine research. Journal of Participatory Medicine, 2, e20. Volkow, N. D., Fowler, J. S., Wang, G. J., Baler, R., & Telang, F. (2009). Imaging dopamine’s role in drug abuse and addiction. Neuropharmacology, 56(Suppl. 1), 3–8. Volkow, N. D., & Li, T. K. (2004). Science and society—Drug addiction: The neurobiology of behaviour gone awry. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 963–970.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
244
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
Volkow, N. D., & Li, T. K. (2005). The neuroscience of addiction. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1429–1430. Vrecko, S. (2010). Birth of a brain disease: Science, the state and addiction neuropolitics. History of the Human Sciences, 23(4), 52–67. Warner, J. (2008). Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand? The social epistemology of information technology. Journal of Documentation, 64, 738–759.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
12
Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience Joan Leach University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
O U T L I N E Introduction
231
Science Communication: Beyond Media Training
233
Communication Expectations
235
Social Epistemology and Science Communication, Alongside Neuroethics
238
INTRODUCTION Serious discussions of social impact, public understanding and engagement, and public debate emerge strongly in current discourses about the sciences. Neuroscience is second only to genetics in foregrounding such concerns by inventing an interdisciplinary space, “neuroethics”, in which social discourses of neuroscience are considered within an ethical framework (Carter, Capps, Nutt, ter Muelen, Ashcroft, & Hall, 2009; Moreno, 2003). Adjacent to the interests in ethics, and many times superseded by them, issues of communication and knowledge circulation have become increasingly important in scientific fields, including neuroscience (Illes et al., 2010). The goal of this chapter is to suggest a social epistemology of neuroscience, with a special focus on the communication of addiction neuroscience. It sets social epistemology in a complementary relation to neuroethics, as part of this important interdisciplinary space
Addiction Neuroethics
231
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
232
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
where issues of knowledge circulation and science communication are foregrounded. Social epistemology is the study of how knowledge is constituted, defined and circulated in social groups—as opposed to how individuals come to knowledge. [Of course, as in many academic disciplines, this definition is not unproblematic. There is at least one version of social epistemology that suggests that “the social” is what is being analyzed by epistemology, not where knowledge resides (Goldman, 2010).] It was invented as a category of library science by the philosophically and sociologically minded Jesse Shera at the University of Chicago in the 1960s (Shera, 1968). His insight was that, with the rapid proliferation of knowledge and the introduction of information technology, librarianship was about to be transformed. Access to knowledge, as he saw it, was going to become a bigger problem not only for people not involved in its production but also for the knowledge producers themselves. Thus, he saw a need for a specialist area, social epistemology, to study and resolve issues of access to knowledge and mediate between the skills of librarianship and those of information technology. Like many good ideas, it escaped its initial formulation. “Social epistemology” has been used to describe all sorts of knowledge mediation enterprises in philosophy, sociology, education and elsewhere (Baba & Walsh, 2010; Downer, 2010; Fagan, 2010; Lundqvist, Almqvist, & Ostman, 2009; Warner, 2008). Like traditional epistemology, social epistemology has been strongly normative, attempting not only to describe the circulation and constitution of knowledge, but also to assist social groups to obtain knowledge that is best for them (Fuller, 2002). As Steve Fuller has put it, the difference between social epistemology and traditional epistemology is whether one focuses on “knowledge” as a noun or the verb “to know” (Fuller, 2007, p. 177). For social epistemologists whose focus is on the social aspect of epistemology, the key interest is in knowledge, the noun, and not individual knowledge acquisition. For mainstream epistemology, with its emphasis on knowledge acquisition, the “coming of neuroscience” has been profoundly unsettling; social epistemologists find the terrain more exciting. [The representative anecdote indicating the degree of discord between neuroscience and traditional epistemology is Patricia Smith Churchland’s (1987, p. 545) Journal of Philosophy article, where she opines that with the coming of neuroscience, “most of the questions which used to preoccupy us as graduate students and whose answers seemed necessary to advancing the general program of epistemology, now look either peripheral or misguided, and the general program itself looks troubled”.] A social epistemologist, then, might even see an account of knowledge acquisition as a problem for neuroscience itself. This is important because an approach from social epistemology is happy to use neuroscience to naturalize questions of cognitive function or individual
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Science Communication: Beyond Media Training
233
knowledge acquisition. It is more likely, however, to naturalize questions of knowledge circulation to philosophy, sociology, education, communication studies and other analytic fields in the humanities and social sciences.
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION: BEYOND MEDIA TRAINING What makes the terrain of neuroscience exciting for the social epistemologist is the priority that the field has given to science communication. There is a range of professed reasons why neuroscientists want to communicate that imply a diversity of communication modes and genres through which this might happen (Table 12.1). These and other motivations for science communication in neuroscience are an indication of the broad range of reasons why communication has emerged as a central topic. On the one hand, there is general interest in communicating to a broad range of audiences in the mode and genres of popular neuroscience. On the other, ethical discussions of emerging neuroscience applications (neuroenhancement, neuromarketing) create spaces in which neurorhetoric can thrive. Thus, the term “science communication” covers a wide range of practical applications of communication in science as well as a nascent discipline that studies communication in those fields (Logan, 2001). “Science communication” also refers to the process whereby scientific knowledge is communicated from inside science to a range of audiences and the processes by which audiences demand knowledge, engage it, contribute to it and respond to it (variously known as science popularization, citizen science and public engagement). The field of science communication has a somewhat chequered history in engaging with multiple communication contexts in a coherent fashion (Bauer & Bucchi, 2007; Logan, 2001). That pattern seems to be continuing in addiction neuroethics, where professional and clinical communication are seen as separate practices from ethical discussion and identity work. Thus, it is possible, even likely, to find neuroscientific communication fragmented among researchers who are undergoing media training, clinicians working through scenarios of doctor–patient communication, and public relations officers well-schooled in issuing press releases touting research breakthroughs. Each of these communication scenarios might be effective and useful communication practices in itself, but taken together, they can operate in a counter-productive fashion, if the goal is the communication of knowledge. A recent example of this is the emergence of neuromarketing. The New York Times (popular science) covered the recent acquisition by
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
234
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
TABLE 12.1 Multiple Modes and Media of Science Communication Clinical communication
Neuroscience as clinical practice: Neuroscience has a clinical component and patients are an important group with whom to communicate (Bell, Mathieu, & Racine, 2009; Gilbert & Ovadia, 2011; Pluta, Perazza, & Golub, 2011; Sachdev, 2011; Schermer, 2011)
Ethical discussion
Neuroscience as problematic practice: Neuroscience involves new scientific techniques whose ethical or social status is not yet clear. Communicating about these techniques may pre-empt controversy, generate ethical discussion and raise awareness of the emergence of new knowledge practices (Illes et al., 2010)
Professional communication
Neuroscience as interdisciplinary practice: Neuroscience research spans disciplines as well as theoretical, applied and clinical settings. Thus, the need for transparent communication is central to research having impact and the generation of interdisciplinary knowledge (Leshner, 1997)
Identity work
Neuroscience as social game-changer: Neuroscience has implications for questions of individual and social identity. Communication to audiences with a stake in these questions is core business for such a field (Dumit, 2004); see Fry and Buchman (This volume, Chapter 9)
Multimodal communication
Neuroscience and multimodal communication: Imaging techniques in neuroscience (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010) produce novel ways to conduct and report neuroscience research. Communication through these modes is both popular and difficult territory (Joyce, 2005)
Cannot not communicate
Neuroscience as “normal science”: Neuroscience is coming of age in an era where science communication is expected and public relations must be managed (Bubela et al., 2009)
Neurorhetoric
Neuroscience advocacy: Areas such as neuromarketing, addiction treatment programs and drug policy draw advocates and critics, both producing neurorhetoric for public and professional consideration (Jack, 2010)
Popular neuroscience
Popular neuroscience: There is a general interest in neuroscience that can be satisfied with various forms of popular mediation, from news, blogs, websites, paperback books and advertising to business analysis and documentary
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Communication Expectations
235
Nielsen of NeuroFocus, a leading neuromarketing company. NeuroFocus was also of interest to The New York Times because they had ignored the policy guidelines of the Advertising Research Foundation on the ethical use of neuromarketing. The paper reported the views of other neuromarketers and neuroethicists on this development (ethical discussion). Meanwhile, on blogs, in popular science and in professional forums, neuroscience researchers have been characterizing neuromarketing as “junk science” or an “area of concern” (professional communication). Given that much of the technology of neuromarketing results in the interpretation of images (multimodal communication), some marketers are skeptical about the value of neuromarketing (neurorhetoric) apart from the persuasive images it produces. Finally, neuroethicists have worried, that if successful, neuromarketing could raise serious ethical problems by targeting “stealth neuromarketing” at audiences who were unaware that marketing was taking place (more ethical discussion) (Murphy, Illes, & Reiner, 2008). Thus, there is a tremendous variety of communication modes and interests involved in assessing one emerging area of applied neuroscience. Tackling this issue solely by suggesting that neuroscientists undergo media training or any other one-mode or genre solution is unlikely to be successful. This is because the audiences for neuroscience have already shown themselves to be multiple (inter alia, patients, critics, fellow professionals). Examining science communication, then, can be a much more multifaceted activity than understanding how the media works or being able to parse the interests of various actors in a controversy. Being able to analyze the various communication modes at play is a first step in understanding how knowledge is circulated among various communities. In the example above, one relevant audience is Nielsen shareholders. Another is the large community of marketers curious about the possibilities of neuromarketing research. What do they know about neuroscience after this episode? Do they find the claims of NeuroFocus credible enough to jump on the neuromarketing bandwagon? What, if any, is the impact of increased popular discussion of neuromarketing on opinions or beliefs about other forms of neuroscience? These are questions of knowledge circulation and of the cumulative effects of multiple communication modes and genres.
COMMUNICATION EXPECTATIONS What can more or better communication achieve for neuroscience? Those in the fields of neuroscience and neuroethics have begun to answer that question. Jonathan Moreno (2003), for example, posits that “some neuroscientific discoveries, once they become more widely appreciated,
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
236
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
are likely to become objects of popular imagination”. He goes on to conclude that: many of those engaged in these efforts [neuroscientific research] will find themselves the subjects of the sort of public attention that was previously experienced by their colleagues in nuclear physics and genetics. Neuroscientists will increasingly be challenged to explain the significance of their work in moral as well as scientific terms. The burden of discovery in neuroscience, from this point of view, is that people outside the field will engage with new discoveries, perhaps coming away with ideas not sanctioned by their discoverers. Further, the specter of moral controversy is raised to underscore the need for neuroscientists and neuroethicists to justify themselves and their research to a skeptical or worried audience. In short, faced with potentially problematic findings, the neuroscientist will be forced to communicate. Or, in the terms laid out in Table 12.1, faced with an accusation that neuroscience is a problematic practice, neuroscientists cannot not communicate; they will have to engage in ethical discussion. This formulation raises questions about the general expectations for what communication can achieve and what other formulations for motivating communication might be. In observing researchers’ attitudes to science communication, three rather clear stances are taken, with the same people sometimes occupying different stances for different occasions and purposes. That is, neuroscience and neuroethics researchers can encourage or discourage others from attempting to engage in science communication by taking rhetorical stances about the possibility of success. First, there are science communication optimists. They claim that communication will make a substantial difference to the way knowledge is constituted and circulated and in ways that produce positive social outcomes. Inside neuroscience, optimists are best represented by Alan Leshner (1997) in his well-cited editorial “Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters”. While Leshner is dubious about other social mechanisms that negatively impact knowledge circulation such as “ingrained ideology”, he says, “I believe we can and must bridge this informational disconnection if we are going to make any real progress in controlling drug abuse and addiction”. Despite the infelicitous term “informational disconnection”, for Leshner it seems clear that improved science communication is how the field must progress. Note that Leshner seems to be directing his attention to science communication in professional circles. It is the professional and clinical audiences who need to worry most about communication (one-way, “informational” communication) because confusion about the definition and quality of addiction in professional circles has, in his view, made the successful treatment of addiction more difficult. Successful communication
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
Communication Expectations
237
in this view is a range of experts speaking with a unified voice to express a scientific consensus. (For expressions of “scientific optimism” from leading addiction neuroscientists including current and recent directors of US national research institutes on illicit drugs and alcohol, see Baler & Volkow, 2011; Dackis & O’Brien, 2005; Shurtleff, Liu, & Sasek, 2009; Volkow & Li, 2004, 2005; Volkow, Fowler, Wang, Baler, & Telang, 2009; for critical reviews, see Campbell, 2010; Courtwright, 2010; Vrecko, 2010.) Science communication pessimists, by contrast, worry that science communication is futile, or worse, that communication (especially journalism) can have negative social consequences. In neuroethics, pessimists can be represented by the view that science communication in the field is rife with misrepresentation which, at least in some cases, is worse than not communicating at all (e.g. Gonan, Bezard, & Boraud, 2011). Criticisms of neurorealism, the idea that some neuroscience findings appear more real or true because they are associated with images (typically functional magnetic resonance imaging scans) are also suggestive of this stance (Racine, Bar-Ilan, & Illes, 2005). While the images themselves are a source of media appeal, their effects may have emphasized the standing of the wrong research or provided inferential leaps to claims that “hysteria is real” or autism is caused by a “super-male brain”. A more ambivalent form of pessimism is framed by Illes and colleagues (2010, p. 61): Neuroscience is among several scientific disciplines that are particularly prone to misinformation and inaccurate reporting. Sensational media headlines that evoke mind reading, a neurogenetic basis for fidelity or voting patterns, memory boosters for the healthy, and miracle cures for sensory and movement disorders are but a few examples. Without accurate and sufficient background information or context, the public—who are naturally interested in diseases and cures, especially with regard to common and serious brain disorders—may accept these simplistic messages uncritically. While pessimistic about current public communication of science, Illes et al. retain a modicum of optimism about the possibilities for science communication to have a positive social impact. This requires an overhaul of the media, a cultural transformation inside neuroscience circles and more empirical research on public understandings. Indeed, they write “with an even stronger commitment to communication, the neuroscience community and its partners will mitigate or avoid the public backlash and funding freezes that have taken other areas of science by surprise …” (Illes et al., 2010, p. 68). Of course, there are also pessimists about professional communication in neuroscience. The anonymous author of an editorial in Nature Neuroscience (2000) throws up his or her hands at the end of an essay, describing professional communication of neuroscience as “pomposity”,
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
238
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
“ineffective communication solutions”, “vapid statements” and a “culture of bad writing”. They conclude that “perhaps the solution is for graduate programs to place more emphasis on formal instruction in scientific writing, but this will only happen if scientists appreciate the need for better communication and understand the steps that can be taken to achieve it”. The pessimistic implication is that scientists do not and will not communicate effectively. These stances are rhetorical strategies, and whether you are an optimist or a pessimist radically changes your strategy. A typical pattern for researchers is to be optimistic about scientific communication, but pessimistic about public communication of science. A more nuanced view holds that there is something about neuroscience, or even reflexively, about ourselves, that makes neuroscience more difficult to communicate about, or for the public to understand or engage with it. Also, there is more than a bit of threat, of fear, in each of these rhetorical stances about communicating neuroscience. Moreno presents the image of public attention, sweeping like a spotlight from physics to genetics before it finally rests upon neuroscience. Will neuroscientists be able to perform in that spotlight? Leshner sets the communication bar quite high: can clinicians and researchers forge a common language in order to make any impact on the suffering of addiction? Illes et al. create the specter of a public beguiled by neurohype before challenging their audience of neuroscientists to engage in direct (and sober) communication with an interested public. The anonymous editorial writer leaves us with the threat of unending unreadable prose, opaque to public and professional alike. Even the optimists see communication as difficult at best, and scary too because the threat of misunderstanding and skepticism is real, and the stakes are high. Those who succeed in communicating are duly congratulated for scaling this high rhetorical wall. As Stephen Hilgartner (1990) pointed out in relation to science popularization, this “scary” view of public communication “serves scientists (and others who derive their authority from science) as a political resource in public discourse”. It ensures flexibility in the face of mistakes and failures of communication, and provides an excuse when controversy prevents open communication. Thus, talk of “science communication” is not necessarily to be taken at face value; it also needs to be seen as a part of a larger set of questions about how knowledge in neuroscience circulates.
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION, ALONGSIDE NEUROETHICS Neuroethicists aim to identify, analyze and provide possible solutions or guidance for ethical problems arising in neuroscience; the science
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
239
communicator and the social epistemologist have related tasks. Communication modes, tools, techniques and genres can be used in service of ethical debate and even their resolution. However, there are other goals for science communication that an approach from social epistemology can help to articulate alongside a research program to answer the questions of communication raised in the previous two sections. First, given the rhetorical quality of appeals for more and better science communication, what would count as successful neuroscientific communication? While some neuroethicists have acknowledged the “two-way nature” of public engagement and dialogue (Illes et al., 2010, p. 62), the venues suggested for this to happen have been limited to “café scientifique” discussions and online interaction, both still focused on professional communication with lay audiences. If a goal for such communication is a larger social engagement with neuroscientific research, audiences will need also to feel some responsibility for or at least affinity with the research. Currently identified as “citizen science” (Irwin, 1995), this approach advocates a position of audiences, not as passive witnesses to scientific or ethical arguments, but as active participants in the definition and creation of new scientific knowledge. The flagship successes of this approach have been in ecology and conservation biology (Evans et al., 2005; Jenkins, 1999), where participants in the research make observations that would be impossible for researchers to achieve by themselves. This has also expanded to genetics and biotechnology, where non-scientists can make observations and contribute to the formation of research projects (Swan, Hathaway, Hogg, McCauley, & Vollrath, 2010). Medical researchers have approached this way of bringing lay expertise to bear on clinical questions. As citizen science projects typically ease funding restrictions on research by using volunteers to carry out research, they can be attractive projects for researchers pursuing large-scale research that otherwise would not be done. Neuroscience is an area where such an approach could also prove fruitful. A recent editorial in Nature Neuroscience (2010) reinterprets citizen science as an opportunity for bringing funders and researchers together: Several new funding initiatives that encourage the public to fund science directly with their pocket change … Such microfinance efforts will not make an immediate dent in systemic problems of insufficient funding, but increased personal investment in scientific research could help improve scientific literacy and enthusiasm for science and, ultimately, win stronger backing for federal support of scientific research. Reformulating citizen science in this way replaces intellectual engagement and direct dialogue with personal investment and risks undermining any trust that has been gained already by neuroscientists discussing ethical issues and promoting open communication. It also points to
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
240
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
the slipperiness of the goals of science communication. From a social epistemology perspective, an important goal of science communication is the more equal distribution of knowledge and the more active engagement of participants in its production, not solving the funding crisis for neuroscience. In this instance, there is a worrying trend to replace knowledge policy with economic policy for science, using “science communication” as a convenient excuse for the exchange. The criteria for measuring successful science communication, then, need to be clearly articulated. Is it increased science literacy? Is it increased support for neuroscience? Is it creating a more engaged audience for neuroscientific research? Also, how and by whom will these goals be set? A second perspective on science communication from social epistemology argues for a joined-up approach to science communication. This is especially true in addiction neuroscience. Hall, Carter, and Morley (2004) have sympathetically characterized drug-dependent people, arguing that, “addiction needs to be seen, in part, as the result of choices that are not always wisely made by young people who operate with a short time perspective, a sense of personal invulnerability and skepticism toward elders’ advice about the risks of drug use”. Alongside this characterization of addicted drug users rests the problem of representations of neuroscience in mediated contexts. Hall et al. write, citing Colin Blakemore: Given the public interest in neuroscience research, potential misunderstandings may rebound to the detriment of neuroscience and genetics. Neuroscientists and geneticists arguably have a moral responsibility to be proactive in their dealings with the media (Blakemore, 2002). There are a few common communication facets to these two problems. First, ignorance, skepticism and misunderstanding are common threads to these two characterizations, if not to the people they may apply to. However, it is worth seeing ignorance, skepticism and misunderstanding not as the simple “lack” of the right knowledge, but as the result of a state of affairs that has been actively produced by a lack of communication. This more positive account of ignorance as a product of ineffective activity, or none at all, provides a target for improving communication activity. It is already a mainstay of public health messaging for families that open communication channels and proactive communication with teens are prophylactic for adolescent drug abuse; Anderson’s recent study (2010) documents the continuing popularity of this governing idea despite problems demonstrating its effectiveness. As this chapter has demonstrated in a few examples, it is becoming a common trope of neuroethics that open communication channels and proactive communication with interested
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
241
publics for neuroscience are necessary to resolve emerging ethical dilemmas. The key issue, however, is to see these two situations (the skeptical drug-dependent user and the misunderstanding public) as related figures who have been, in part, rhetorically characterized by the communication practices of neuroscience in order to give itself a communication problem to solve. Also, that problem is seen as one of “lack’; a lack of communication or a lack of understanding to which communication becomes a remedy. Communication misunderstandings can always be blamed on the receiving end of the communication. The challenge is to place the communication burden on neuroscience. The injunction to “communicate or there will be misunderstandings”, emphasizing “lack” in both communication and knowledge terms, is changed to “your communication practices are not working; try something else”, which emphasizes the goals of communication. In summary, science communication is an important area for neuroscience and neuroethics that can all too readily be identified with its modes and genres instead of its goals and purposes. The use of a framework from social epistemology that is more concerned with how knowledge circulates can provide efforts to improve communication with a more appropriate focus. In addition, this approach suggests a series of research questions that can provide solutions for practical communication problems (e.g. what is the best way to explain synapses to a person considering taking an antidepressant such as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor?) as well as address larger normative issues about the goals of science communication in neuroscience (e.g. to aid in scientifically formed public debates about ethical issues raised by neuroscience). An overemphasis on certain genres of communication in neuroscience, for example media training, can distract attention from the wide variety of pressing communication concerns of clinical, ethical and epistemic significance. It is therefore important that discussion of science communication is not centered on only one mode or genre. Popular neuroscience, in the form of expert media commentary is only one possible way that neuroscientists and neuroethicists communicate. Indeed, if the pessimistic editorialist quoted above is to be believed, professional communication needs as much attention as communication with lay audiences. It is worth concluding on a note of qualified optimism, inspired by the qualified pessimism of Illes et al. (2010). Neuroscientists might yet be able to engage with questions of the public good, if they take communication seriously, if they are rewarded for communication interventions that, by clear criteria, work, if neuroscientists continue to examine their relationship with social mediation, and if a social epistemology research framework can generate good answers to some complicated empirical questions of knowledge circulation.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
242
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Wayne Hall and Judy Illes for inviting me to talk about science communication in neuroscience at “Introducing Neuroethics”, a conference at the University of Queensland, April 2010. I would also like to thank Sarah Yeates as a model of social epistemology in action, from library to neuroethics.
References Anderson, D. M. (2010). Does information matter? The effect of the meth project on meth use among youths. Journal of Health Economics, 29, 732–742. Baba, Y., & Walsh, J. P. (2010). Embeddedness, social epistemology and breakthrough innovation: The case of the development of statins. Research Policy, 39, 511–522. Baler, R. D., & Volkow, N. D. (2011). Addiction as a systems failure: Focus on adolescence and smoking. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 50, 329–339. Bauer, M. W., & Bucchi, M. (2007). Journalism, science and society: Science communication between news and public relations. London: Routledge. Bell, E., Mathieu, G., & Racine, E. (2009). Preparing the ethical future of deep brain stimulation. Surgical Neurology, 72, 577–586. Berns, G., Capra, C., Moore, S., & Noussair, C. (2010). Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music. NeuroImage, 49, 2687–2696. Blakemore, C. (2002). From the “public understanding of science” to scientists’ understanding of the public. In S. J. Marcus (Ed.), Neuroethics: Mapping the field (pp. 211–221). New York, NY: Dana Press. Bubela, T., Nisbet, M. C., Borchelt, R., Brunger, F., Critchley, C., Einsiedel, E., et al. (2009). Science communication reconsidered. Nature Biotechnology, 27, 514–518. Campbell, N. D. (2010). Toward a critical neuroscience of “addiction”. Biosocieties, 5, 89–104. Carter, A., Capps, B., Nutt, D., ter Muelen, R., Ashcroft, R., & Hall, W. (2009). Addiction neurobiology: Ethical and social implications. Lisbon: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Churchland, P. (1987). Epistemology in the age of neuroscience. Journal of Philosophy, 84, 544–553. Courtwright, D. T. (2010). The NIDA brain disease paradigm: History, resistance and spinoffs. Biosocieties, 5, 137–147. Dackis, C., & O’Brien, C. (2005). Neurobiology of addiction: Treatment and public policy ramifications. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1431–1436. Downer, J. (2010). Trust and technology: The social foundations of aviation regulation. British Journal of Sociology, 61, 83–106. Dumit, J. (2004). Picturing personhood: Brain scans and biomedical identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Editorial (2000). How experts communicate. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 97. Editorial (2010). Citizen science. Nature Neuroscience, 13, 1151. Evans, C., Abrams, E., Reitsma, R., Roux, K., Salmonsen, L., & Marra, P. P. (2005). The Neighborhood Nestwatch program: Participant outcomes of a citizen-science ecological research project. Conservation Biology, 19, 589–594. Fagan, M. B. (2010). Stems and standards: Social interaction in the search for blood stem cells. Journal of the History of Biology, 43, 67–109. Fuller, S. (2002). Social epistemology. Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press. Fuller, S. (2007). The knowledge book: Key concepts in philosophy, science and culture. Stocksfield: Acumen.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
243
Gilbert, F., & Ovadia, D. (2011). Deep brain stimulation in the media: Over-optimistic portrayals call for a new strategy involving journalists and scientists in ethical debates. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5, 16. Goldman, A. (2010). Systems-oriented social epistemology. In T. Gendler & J. O’LearyHawthorne (Eds.), Oxford studies in epistemology (Vol. 5, pp. 189–214). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gonan, F., Bezard, E., & Boraud, T. (2011). Misrepresentation of neuroscience data might give rise to misleading conclusions in the media: The case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Public Library of Science ONE, 6(1), e14618. Hall, W., Carter, L., & Morley, K. (2004). Neuroscience research on the addictions: A prospectus for future ethical and policy analysis. Addictive Behaviors, 29, 1481–1495. Hilgartner, S. (1990). The dominant view of popularization—Conceptual problems, political uses. Social Studies of Science, 20, 519–539. Illes, J., Moser, M. A., McCormick, J. B., Racine, E., Blakeslee, S., Caplan, A., et al. (2010). Neurotalk: Improving the communication of neuroscience research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 61–69. Irwin, A. (1995). Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. London: Routledge. Jack, J. (2010). What are neurorhetorics? Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 44, 405–410. Jenkins, E. W. (1999). School science, citizenship and the public understanding of science. International Journal of Science Education, 21, 703–710. Joyce, K. (2005). Appealing images: Magnetic resonance imaging and the production of authoritative knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 35, 437–462. Leshner, A. I. (1997). Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters. Science, 278, 45–47. Logan, R. A. (2001). Science mass communication—Its conceptual history. Science Communication, 23, 135–163. Lundqvist, E., Almqvist, J., & Ostman, L. (2009). Epistemological norms and companion meanings in science classroom communication. Science Education, 93, 859–874. Moreno, J. D. (2003). Neuroethics: An agenda for neuroscience and society. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 149–153. Murphy, E. R., Illes, J., & Reiner, P. B. (2008). Neuroethics of neuromarketing. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 7, 293–302. Pluta, R. M., Perazza, G. D., & Golub, R. M. (2011). JAMA patient page. Deep brain stimulation. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305, 732. Racine, E., Bar-Ilan, O., & Illes, J. (2005). fMRI in the public eye. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 159–164. Sachdev, P. (2011). The narrative in neurology and psychiatry. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 24, 215–218. Schermer, M. (2011). Ethical issues in deep brain stimulation. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5, 17. Shera, J. (1968). An epistemological foundation for library science. In E. B. Montgomery (Ed.), The foundations of access to knowledge: A symposium (pp. 7–25). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Shurtleff, D., Liu, R., & Sasek, C. (2009). Frontiers in addiction research: Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the National Institute on Drug Abuse: Sponsor’s foreword. Neuropharmacology, 56, 1–2. Swan, M., Hathaway, K., Hogg, C., McCauley, R., & Vollrath, A. (2010). Citizen science genomics as a model for crowdsourced preventive medicine research. Journal of Participatory Medicine, 2, e20. Volkow, N. D., Fowler, J. S., Wang, G. J., Baler, R., & Telang, F. (2009). Imaging dopamine’s role in drug abuse and addiction. Neuropharmacology, 56(Suppl. 1), 3–8. Volkow, N. D., & Li, T. K. (2004). Science and society—Drug addiction: The neurobiology of behaviour gone awry. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 963–970.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA
244
12. Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience
Volkow, N. D., & Li, T. K. (2005). The neuroscience of addiction. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1429–1430. Vrecko, S. (2010). Birth of a brain disease: Science, the state and addiction neuropolitics. History of the Human Sciences, 23(4), 52–67. Warner, J. (2008). Organs of the human brain, created by the human hand? The social epistemology of information technology. Journal of Documentation, 64, 738–759.
IV. ADDICTION HISTORY AND THE MEDIA