December 2016 Workshop Findings
December 2016 Workshop Findings
December 5-6, 2016, Washington, DC
December 2016 Workshop Findings
December 5-6, 2016, Washington, DC
December 2016 Workshop Findings
December 5-6, 2016, Washington, DC
Scientific Uncertainty and Professional Ethics: Getting from Strong Public Science to Sound Public Policy
December 5-6, 2016, Washington, DC
In preparation for the workshop, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire as a way to initiate the exploration of the issue. Their answers set the stage for the workshop discussions. During the workshop, participants explored both challenges to communicating scientific uncertainty and ways to overcome them. In addition, participants divided into groups based on profession and identified some of the professional norms and ethics that guide their approaches to communicating scientific uncertainty.
For more information about ELI's Ethics of Communicating Scientific Uncertainty workshop, contact Jay Austin.
These readings introduced some basic elements of the ethics of uncertainty in science, law, and journalism, and laid the groundwork for the study topics discussed during the workshops:
Science & Uncertainty
On the second day of the workshop, scientists, lawyers, and journalists broke into groups by profession and explored the ethics and professional norms that influence communication of scientific uncertainty. This section briefly summarizes the key points of discussion in these sessions.
SCIENTISTS
In a series of breakout sessions on the first day of the meeting, the meeting participants explored challenges to and solutions for communicating scientific uncertainty as it related to one of three fields—climate change, hydraulic fracturing, and chemical exposure. While each breakout session explored these individual issues in detail, some overarching observations about challenges and potential solutions were identified. The following table summarizes these observations.
In preparation for the workshop, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire as a way to initiate the exploration of the issue. Their answers, summarized here, set the stage for the workshop discussions.