"Science: Stay in your lane!"

Or, build some new ones.

 

New editorial in Science.

 

A recent Science editorial on the social and political headwinds that have blunted, obfuscated, and confused public behavior in the United States’ COVID-19 response cautioned both politicians who appoint themselves scientists and scientists—including virologists and epidemiologists—to stay in their lanes. The warning raises an important question: Should science add another lane?


Despite the remarkable development of safe and effective vaccines, only about two-thirds of Americans have received their first dose. Even nonmedical actions (social distancing and masking) supported by rigorous evidence are met with widespread indifference, resistance, and rage. Unfortunately, this number is the rule rather than the exception. Broadly, Americans receive about 55% of clinical interventions known to benefit their health.


To address this failing, science needs to add another lane—one called implementation research. Implementation scientists move beyond medication and device development and study how to facilitate their use by clinics, front-line health care providers, patients, communities, and policy-makers. Public health failures that could have been avoided, as well as successes attributable to this science, illustrate the importance of this work... 

...{R]esearch on how to expand the use of proven COVID-19 interventions is underway but must be scaled up substantially to address pressing questions: What strategies lead to vaccine acceptability, feasibility, fidelity, equity, scale-up, and spread? What social marketing messages are most effective? Who are the best opinion leaders? How can health systems overcome delays in identifying mildly ill outpatients eligible for monoclonal antibodies? Data are emerging about how to equip vaccine champions with the resources necessary to train others, build coalitions, and optimize organizations to administer vaccines as widely as possible. But more must be done, especially given the current politicized pandemic response and frayed social fabric.


Society needs a lane of science that studies rapid uptake of proven interventions. Questions pursued in implementation research require cross-disciplinary collaborations among scientists who understand communication, marketing, anthropology, economics, and social psychology—disciplines that have not historically interacted with one another.
..

...The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) should create an Office of Implementation Research with funding that institutes must compete for, modeled on the Office of AIDS Research. The office would study emerging interventions and address obstacles to their use. Insights would guide health delivery, making learning-while-doing a standard. The office should support innovations that track rates of intervention use (vaccination and effective therapeutics) and capture the strategies leading to their uptake. And the NIH should support networks for implementation research, similar to the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. At least 10% of the NIH budget should be dedicated to this work. If this seems expensive, consider the costs of not taking these steps: Effective interventions that are not used optimally will fail to reap value from existing investments.

COVID-19 has shown the world that “knowing what to do” does not ensure “doing what we know.” It demonstrates that intervention discovery is the start, not the end, of the scientific journey. There is no better time for science to establish a new lane, one devoted to ensuring that our nation’s health discoveries are used to improve population health...

Well, given that we are now apparently going to have all of this federally funded "infrastructure" building and re-building going on pursuant to President Biden's recent legislative victories, I would certainly support rational initiatives via which to increase the effectiveness of the breadth of applied sciences. "Exigencies? Priorities?" Hello?
 

apropos?

This open access book provides a broad context for the understanding of current problems of science and of the different movements aiming to improve the societal impact of science and research.

The author offers insights with regard to ideas, old and new, about science, and their historical origins in philosophy and sociology of science, which is of interest to a broad readership. The book shows that scientifically grounded knowledge is required and helpful in understanding intellectual and political positions in various discussions on the grand challenges of our time and how science makes impact on society. The book reveals why interventions that look good or even obvious, are often met with resistance and are hard to realize in practice. [emphasis mine]

Based on a thorough analysis, as well as personal experiences in aids research, university administration and as a science observer, the author provides—while being totally open regarding science's limitations—a realistic narrative about how research is conducted, and how reliable ‘objective’ knowledge is produced. His idea of science, which draws heavily on American pragmatism, fits in with the global Open Science movement. It is argued that Open Science is a truly and historically unique movement in that it translates the analysis of the problems of science into major institutional actions of system change in order to improve academic culture and the impact of science, engaging all actors in the field of science and academia. [emphasis mine]

'eh? 

 

From the book:

It is truly amazing, that a way to do science and research, that for the majority of its practitioners and the public and policy makers makes a lot of sense, and which has been around for quite some time, has not been embraced to become common practice. To answer this question, we have to delve deep into the science of science and research. We have to understand ‘the idea of science’ that does exist in the plural. We have to analyse why in particular one of these concepts and its corresponding public image has been dominant practically since 1945 and what that has done to science and scientists. That philosophical/sociological idea has been the basis for the ideologic narrative with which science has been internally organized and is being used to claim a unique position, authority and funding for science. With this narrative, the scientific community promised that science would be there to the benefit of society, at least when her autonomy and neutrality are respected. How come that although this legendary image and its narrative by the philosophers, historians and sociologists has no philosophical and timeless foundation, scientists apparently without knowing this demise of their Legend keep using that narrative? It may well be the fear, the insecurity that comes with the awareness that knowledge production in science is based not on a given metaphysical foundation, but rests on a firm social process of a community of inquirers that relentlessly criticize, question, debate what the best knowledge claims are. Knowing very well that the consensus reached may work well but is never absolute and may be replaced by better ones by this same process of inquiry called science. Having said this, we realize that, despite the commonly held views, the ‘method’ of the ‘hard’ sciences and that of the ‘soft’ social science and humanities may not be all that different after all!

In our present-day world of hyper-modernity, where knowledge is everywhere to be found and always contested by some, the process of the production of knowledge cannot be insulated from potential users and interested critical other parties. Clinging to the idea of a unique method for absolute truth and a foundation for science is understandable but a wrong reflex in debates with the public about its problems. Explaining how science really works and produces knowledge would be the best response… [Open Science, The Very Idea, vii-viii]

Again, "is there a 'science' of science communication?"

 

MORE FROM OPEN SCIENCE:

Chapter 8
Epilogue: Open Science in an Open Society

Abstract The European Union has chosen Open Science as the way to do science and research based on its cultural and social values. Open Science can only really thrive in democracies and Open Societies to the benefit of humanity. This relationship between science, scientists and society is not trivial and sometimes endangered, therefore we need to continuously engage in research with and for society...[Page 211].

Taking stock of science in the COVID-19 crises, it seems that science and scientists as an international community are committed and more than ready to practice Open Science. However, the open society—with its plurality, economic inequality, the speed and the use and abuse of social media, the higher levels of education, but also the increasing differences in education levels, the populism fueled by politicians—is often felt to make the connection between science and the public no less complex and to some even dangerous. Social media and the role of the tech giants since 1990 have had an enormous impact on how, when and where the debates in the public sphere take place. Fueled by ugly partisan battles, the internet it seems has divided countries and people more than it has resulted in open debates, in which listening to each other’s fears and opinions is being practiced, to reach mutual agreements. This is a major problem for science and society. Recently we have seen the worst of it in the USA, where partisan battle lines already since the 1980s are raging… [Page 217].

The time is long gone that the claims and views of science and experts were automatically accepted because of mythical ‘God given’ authority or a ‘unique scientific method’. As I have argued and demonstrated, the sciences, in their many different communities of inquirers do produce reliable and robust knowledge that has proven successful and has in the past contributed enormously to the quality of life. Much is still to be done and at this very moment scientist around the world are working 24/7 on therapies and vaccines for COVID-19 which are badly needed. To make clear what science has to offer we have to engage tirelessly in continuous conversation, debate and discussions about science and society. With the same energy and perseverance, because of geopolitics, ugly partisan politics and outright suppression we have to keep campaigning for open debates and deliberative democracies, as the stakes for humanity are higher than ever, this needs to be done within our own region, country, in the EU and in global collaborations around the globe…[Page 218]. 

"We have to keep campaigning for open debates and deliberative democracies, as the stakes for humanity are higher than ever..."

"Deliberative democracies?" Hmmm... Is there a "science of deliberation?"

 

"BUILD SOME NEW LANES?"

 

Yeah, and perhaps invest in some off-road vehicles, too. 

 

OPEN SCIENCE TED TALK

 

After the increasingly toxic environment of modern research culture forced her to nearly abandon her career, astrophysicist Dr Rachael Ainsworth began to question why the subject she loved had become so inhospitable. Identifying some of the pressures placed on her peers that encouraged aggressive competitiveness, unfair benchmarking and shoddy research practices also helped her identify a compelling potential solution.

Dr Rachael Ainsworth is a Research Associate and Open Science Champion at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She has a PhD in Astrophysics, a BSc in Physics and was an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is an expert in the interpretation of radio emissions from protostellar systems in nearby star-forming regions and her research involves observing jets from young stars with next-generation radio telescopes to investigate the physical processes that assemble stars like our Sun.

She is passionate about openness, transparency, reproducibility and inclusion in research, and organises a women-in-data meetup group in Manchester called HER+Data MCR. Originally from Hampton, New Hampshire, USA, Dr Ainsworth is now based in Manchester. Dr Rachael Ainsworth is a Research Associate and Open Science Champion at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She has a PhD in Astrophysics, a BSc in Physics and was an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is an expert in the interpretation of radio emission from protostellar systems in nearby star forming regions and her research involves observing jets from young stars with next-generation radio telescopes to investigate the physical processes that assemble stars like our Sun. She is passionate about openness, transparency, reproducibility and inclusion in research and organises a women in data meetup group in Manchester called HER+Data MCR. Originally from Hampton, New Hampshire, USA Rachael now lives in Manchester.

Dr. Ainsworth on Twitter.

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