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According to Wooding, from the Omni Calculator team, one of the main things to consider when communicating anything—whether science-related or not—is tailoring the message to the audience receiving it.
"The primary consideration is their scientific knowledge, but also their interests and concerns. So, refrain from using jargon or technical terms they might not understand. Try to explain concepts in a way that's easy to follow—creating a story around the research is a great idea," Wooding shared with Bored Panda.
"You also want to tell them what it might mean for them and why they should care about what could be relatively dry scientific facts. Images and infographics are also good tools for communicating complex information clearly and concisely."
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Meanwhile, Bored Panda wanted to get Wooding's thoughts on how researchers might tackle people who are always skeptical of any scientific developments because the facts seem to always be changing.
"One way is to explain the differences between scientific facts and theories; what might be reported as facts are actually theories," the Omni Calculator team member explained.
"A scientific fact has well-substantiated evidence and is widely accepted by the scientific community (e.g., the Earth is round). On the other hand, a scientific theory is an explanation of a phenomenon that includes facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. A scientific theory can change as new facts are discovered and experiments are carried out," he said.
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"A good example is gravity. First, we had Newton's theory of gravity, which tried to incorporate the observations scientists could carry out at the time. As experiments improved, inaccuracies became apparent, which were then resolved by Einstein's theory of gravity, general relativity," Wooding told us.
"We can still use Newton's approach most of the time, but we use Einstein's where extreme accuracy is required."
Refusing to accept new information doesn’t just have to do with an individual’s stubbornness or narrowmindedness. Broadly speaking, people tend to cling to information that supports whatever worldview they have at the moment. Having to monumentally shift your understanding of how life and society function on Planet Earth is a huge task. As The New Yorker put it, impressions are very perseverent once they're formed.
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However, that’s why striving to be open-minded is such an important thing. No matter how much we think we know, there’s always something new to learn as technology advances and new research is conducted.
One study, published in 2023, found that attempts to debunk science-relevant misinformation were, on average, not successful. However, there is a silver lining. When misinformation has to do with negative topics other than health, and the corrections to the information are detailed, then people are more likely to change their beliefs.
What also helps make these corrections is when the misinformed have familiarized themselves with both sides of the issue and when the topic in question isn’t politically polarized.
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As ‘Discover’ magazine points out, facts alone aren’t always enough to correct misinformation. Nor are they enough to change people’s minds. People’s understanding of the world is closely related to their sense of personal identity. Meanwhile, human beings as a whole aren’t the most rational even at the best of times.
Our biology, as remarkable as it is, isn’t all that helpful when it comes to changing people’s minds, too. Psychology professor Lisa Fazio, from Vanderbilt University, notes that our minds tend to create new memories alongside ones that already exist, instead of ‘overwriting’ information that’s not correct. So when you try to recall information that you’ve recently learned has changed, you might come up with ideas that are a collage of these competing facts.
On top of that, repetition tends to encode information into our minds, even if those facts are false. The more often we hear something, the more likely it is to get stuck in our minds. This phenomenon is known as the illusory truth effect.
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Then you get people who accept it but refuse to go after the main causes.
“There's an infinite universe of false things and a more narrow universe of true things, so most of the stuff that we hear multiple times is true,” Fazio told ‘Discover’ magazine. However, this can be particularly troublesome if someone is deliberately trying to spread false information.
Meanwhile, new and correct facts have to be presented in a way that’s approachable and palatable. If important discoveries are only ever publicized in ways that only other researchers would understand their significance, the general population might not understand why the new info matters so much.
On the flip side, it’s also essential not to dumb the information down too much or to over-exaggerate its significance. Otherwise, you might make people less willing to trust articles about scientific discoveries.