SCIENTISTS URGED TO SIMPLIFY LANGUAGE

VIENNA: “We mortals do not understand you” — that’s the heartfelt cry from former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres, pleading with scientists to use everyday language to help counter growing public mistrust.

Figueres was giving an explanation of why scientists were struggling to get their message across to a skeptical public at a major conference here this week.

Delegates made time for soulsearching at the meeting, conceding that they bare part of the blame for alienating some people.

Just days after a historic March for Science in Washington, the experts owned up to failures, including remoteness and condescension, and operating in an “echo chamber of like-minded people”.

“I think it’s the conceitedness, in a way. Scientists have not spoken at an even level with people who are out there,” said Heike Langenberg, chief editor of the journal Nature Geoscience, on the sidelines of a European Geosciences Union meeting of more than 14,000 experts in 22 fields.

“They tend to give long speeches and not listen. I think they have underestimated intelligence and overestimated knowledge.”

This has contributed to an erosion of support for science since a high point in the 1960s when humans planted a flag on the Moon.

Led by the United States, a trend has grown since then to challenge certain basic tenets that enjoy overwhelming expert consensus — the benefits of childhood vaccination, evidence for species evolution and the perils of global warming.

One prominent doubter, US President Donald Trump, has described climate change as a hoax and linked childhood vaccines to autism.

Since taking office, Trump has moved to curb science spending and gag government researchers.

A 2012 study in the American Sociological Review reported a dramatic loss of scientific faith among US conservatives, from nearly 50 per cent, who reported a “great deal” of trust in 1974, to only 35 per cent four decades later. AFP