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Effectively Presenting Science Information and Results without Advocating Policy or Preference
Citation:
Goodfellow, W., Timothy J. Canfield, AND P. Guiney. Effectively Presenting Science Information and Results without Advocating Policy or Preference. SETAC Europe 30th Annual Meeting, Ada, Oklahoma, May 04 - 07, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation of one’s findings is a professional responsibility. Science is not value free; however, it is expected to be policy neutral and ideally policy relevant. Presentations at scientific meetings, such as SETAC are key communication vehicles for scientists. Articles in journals, such as SETAC’s ET&C and IEAM are often opportunities that scientist choose to get their research results out to a wider audience in order to receive feed-back, grow the state of science or knowledge, gain credentials and professional growth as well as provide increased attention to their organization. The purpose of this presentation is to provide case examples to explore issues related to proper science integrity and how the general misuse of science, particularly in ecotoxicology and chemistry, can be improved. These case examples will provide context as to how we can move forward to produce science outputs that are: impartial and objective, fact-based, does not have to be correct-but must be testable, does not presuppose a policy preference, and ultimately can be proven or disproven. Sound empirical information that reports accurately data measurements, not a scientist’s opinions and has a weight-of-evidence foundation with conclusions that are supported by the results is what our scientific community should be striving to achieve. This session will prompt a wide group of international scientists to start thinking about their experiences with how science is presented and where it could have been presented in a more policy neutral format. It will force scientists to evaluate their approaches to presenting science without advocating preferences in action or policy and help support the ultimate goal of seeing more science presented in a non-advocacy manner.
Description:
Presenting technical information and one’s position is seemingly under increasing pressure to make sweeping claims, maximize impacts or simply enhance being noticed. Environmental management and policy is only as good as the science that informs the discussions and ultimate decisions. Without a sound understanding of how environmental systems work and how stressors on these systems can affect ecosystems, programs intended to manage these systems will continually be off target and policies developed to protect and enhance these systems may be inadequate due to this overall lack of scientific understanding by decision makers and the general public. An important aspect of the science that forms the foundational information needed to make correct decisions for managing these systems and developing policy is that the science and how it was obtained have to be transparent, well documented and impartial to the potential regulatory decisions that are under consideration. This talk will set the stage for the second session “Advocating Science: Practical Approaches to Presenting Science Information and Results without Advocating Policy or Preference (Part 2)” by providing additional examples and experiences of the authors. The first session was presented at the SETAC Toronto meeting last November. Using case examples, the authors will explore issues related to proper science integrity and how the general misuse of science most particularly in ecotoxicology and chemistry applications can be improved. These examples will help to provide context as to how we can move forward to produce science that is impartial, fact-based, testable, does not presuppose a policy preference, and is a sound empirical set of information that provides the necessary data and weight-of-evidence foundation that all good decisions must rely upon.