This kind of storytelling can help save science.

And it can work to turn the storyteller into a hero.

Science these days is a kid nobody wants to sit next to in the media lunchroom. Less than a quarter of Americans say they have a “great deal” of confidence that scientists will act in the public’s best interest. A greater portion say they have “not too much” or “no” confidence. Young men (gift link) show strong resistance to science in general. And that distrust has been growing.

You can blame politics, of course. It doesn’t help that elected officials label climate and vaccination research as “woke,” whatever that means. But we can also blame the way we talk about science. And scientific establishments themselves share some of that blame.

I began noticing this problem early in my career when I became publications director for a group of environmental science journals. Part of my job entailed reading press releases from university science departments. Their tone was all about discovery, about the potential to bring huge benefits to Americans and the rest of the world.

Sadly, most of those benefits went the way of flying cars and Rosie the Robot. That’s because science doesn’t end with answers. It asks questions. The last part of your typical research article ends with the sad and passive—and utterly honest— “More research is needed…”

Rosie the tradrobot. While scientists come up with more questions, their PR shops promise us around-the-corner tech miracles.

The marcomm shops in research institutions don’t help. In their quest to make science sound useful, they perch scientists on a rhetorical ledge. PR’s emphasis on results and answers instead of mysteries and questions leaves scientists open to ad hominem attacks. When near-future claims of cures and tech get made for science, it sets us all up for disappointment. People start to feel that scientists are disappointingly human, biased, and (oh my stars!) even woke.

Plus, a pure emphasis on results and promises allows contrarian scientists to gain more attention than the majority opinion. The minority can play David to the Ivory Tower Goliath. And who doesn’t like an underdog? These contrarians defended smoking for years against all the evidence of harm. And that was before social media turned science contrarians into influencers (and secretaries of Health).

One solution: Change the way we tell science stories.

Instead of using deductive logic (Here’s the truth, and here’s the proof), we should use inductive logic (we found this, and this, and then this, and it made us think…).

Bear with me here. Learning logic is as much fun as reading a dishwasher-loading manual (but then I repeat myself). Deduction starts with a premise—a claimed fact or belief or expectation.

Humans evolved from apes. / The planet is warming. / Guns make us safer.¹

The premise doesn’t have to be true; in the dark art of rhetoric, your audience just has to believe it.

The deductive statement then hits you with the conclusion.²

So chimps and gorillas can teach us about ourselves. / Therefore we need to talk about the reasons it’s warming. / That’s why gun “safety laws” are an oxymoron.

Inductive persuasion takes a kinder, gentler approach. It leads the audience on a journey of discovery.

I found this, and then this, and then this stymied me until I tried this and got surprised by this.

If your own learning and discoveries caused you to change your mind, you can employ one of the most powerful tools of argument; I call it the reluctant conclusion. At first you shared the belief of your opponent, until reality smacked you upside the head.

I tell this inductive story to climate skeptics:

My inglorious rejection of soda-bubble science

Back when I was editing science journals, around 1980 or ’81 I got invited to a “CO2 conference.” This made me laugh. How obscure could science get? And why was I getting invited to learn more about the gas bubbles in, like, soda pop? Naturally, I declined the invitation. But whenever I was “CO2” in future research articles, I found myself paying attention. And over the years I saw more and more good research. Scientists around the world were measuring that gas and finding more and more of it. And I read more and more research about the planet warming up, ever so slightly.

Well. Any logician will tell you that correlation doesn’t prove causation. That’s a fallacy.³ But then I couldn’t help but read journal articles that showed how CO2 and methane actually trap heat, the way glass windows do. And over time I was forced to admit that I should have been a bit more open-minded about that CO2 invitation.

Okay, my story will never make a major motion picture. But it works even better when scientists themselves use the same approach. My wife happens to be the board chair for an organization that recruits young scientists to tell their stories. Once a year I get to foist induction onto them. Their stories are inspiring. They have nothing to do with scoring political points. Instead, they show an engaging curiosity and an eagerness to move humanity forward.

In my next post I’ll introduce you to one of those scientists, a man who’ll really want to meet. He and his young colleagues share an essential humility: They know that science never reaches its final question.

And that’s the moral to the greatest of all inductive stories.

1. I don’t believe that guns make us safer, if by “guns” we mean personal ownership and by “us” we mean home and family. Science (ahem) shows otherwise.

2. This one-two logical punch comprises what Aristotle called an enthymeme. I really should do a post about that.

3. Officially called Post hoc ergo propter hoc. After this, therefore because of this. Like the rooster who thought his crowing made the sun come up.