Creating a foundation for origin of life outreach: How scientists relate to their field, the public, and religion - PubMed (original) (raw)
Creating a foundation for origin of life outreach: How scientists relate to their field, the public, and religion
Karl Wienand et al. PLoS One. 2023.
Abstract
Origins of life research is particularly challenging to communicate because of the tension between its many disciplines and its nearness to traditionally philosophical or religious questions. To authentically represent scientists' perspective in a museum exhibition, we interviewed 46 researchers from diverse backgrounds. We investigated how they perceive their field, science communication, and the relation with religion. Results show that researchers actively participate in resolving the scientific debate, but delegate the resolution of controversies involving non-scientific institutions. Advocating for science is the foremost communication goal in all contexts. Career stage, research subject, religiosity, etc. influence the approach to controversies and communication.
Copyright: © 2023 Wienand et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Figures
Fig 1. The triangle of mutual social dependencies between OoL research, science communication, and religion.
These three aspects contribute to connect OoL to society and relate to each other. In this work we address how scientists approach these topics and their mutual dependencies.
Fig 2. Controversy profiles frequency.
Prevalence of the answering (orange) and delegating (blue) controversy profiles, when segmenting the sample by discipline, hypothesis preference, and career stage of the researchers (n = 45).
Fig 3. Communication profiles prevalence and view of the public (n = 33).
(a) Prevalence of the teaching (yellow), advocating (green), and discussing (purple) profiles when segmenting the sample by career stage, field, and hypothesis preference of the researchers; (b) View of public attitude towards OoL (brown series), target public (blue series), and public’s prior knowledge of OoL (green series) seen by all scientists (overall), as well as by the different communication profiles.
Fig 4. Religion and science in origins of life.
(a) Religious composition of the sample, roughly equally divided between atheists, agnostics, spiritually inclined and religiously affiliated to some degree (N = 46). (b) Prevalence of answering (orange) and delegating (blue) profiles in the science-religion controversy (n = 28). (c) How different religious segments see: the public attitude towards OoL (brown series), the target public (blue series), and the public’s prior knowledge of OoL (green series) (N = 46). (d) Prevalence of the teaching (yellow), advocating (green), and discussing (purple) profile by religiosity (n = 18).
References
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