The First Step to Persuading All: Understand Scientists Are Not God

You are a science writer. You report ONLY the findings of doctors and researchers. The news that you report is correct, will always be correct, because it comes from science. Hours and hours of research have been done just for you to write a short article that will be put only at the back of the newspaper once a week. Therefore, what you write will always be correct.

WRONG!

Science makes mistakes. Scientists come to many wrong conclusions.

As Lemony Snicket said in The Blank Book, “It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is wrong is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right.” It is frustrating to those who think they are right but told their thoughts are wrong. This happens amongst science writers and scientists alike. Science advocates essentially tell science writers that their ideas are incorrect. It is difficult to not take it this negativity to heart.

Think about Nietzsche’s view, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Many people will ignore scientific evidence because that is not their interpretation of the world. Science writers need to understand that because something is perceived as correct and science proves that it is correct does not mean that it is correct. There could be many other answers or avenues that science has not yet discovered. Science writers should not laugh at their potential readers since the readers do not have the same interpretation of the research being presented. Embrace your readers or the result may be that you will have no readers. Do more research. Science is not willing to hand you the answer.