Doing the Wave with Science and Credibility
1st March 2010
Okay. The oceanography guys called the Chilean tsunami wrong. They made dire predictions of killer waves and then the tide actually ran out in some locations. So, they should have said nothing?
“It’s a key point to remember that we cannot end the warnings. Failure to warn is not an option for us,” said Dai Lin Wang, an oceanographer at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. “We cannot have a situation that we thought was no problem and then it’s devastating. That just cannot happen.”
And that false choice between either saying nothing or else exaggerating is exactly the wrong belief to hold and yet entirely characteristic of the Expert. As I’ve recounted numerous times in this blog, Experts in one area tend to think they are Experts in communication, persuasion, or behavior change as if those things are the easy part compared to Molecular Genetics, Advanced Global Concepts, and now, Wave-ology Studies. Without criticizing the science (and that’s another issue), I can confidently assert that Dai Lin Wang and other oceanography experts I’ve read in the past day or two know next to nothing about the communication problem they face.
You see their ignorance in that false choice they perceive. Either we don’t say anything (and make no public errors in our science or our communication) or we exaggerate (to save the foolish public from themselves). Consider other options.
Just say exactly what you know. If you know something to the decimal, nanosecond, or angstrom, then say it that precisely. If you know something with a confidence interval a mile wide and a day long, then say it that with that range. Say what you know and stick to that. If someone asks for more precision, repeat your original warning and add that is the best science can do right now. Above all, do not exaggerate the claim in the name of communicating risk to stupid people.
If a scientist cannot do this or something similar, then hire someone to the team who can. Please consider the limitations to your Expertise. You do know what you know, but you do not know what you are doing here.
Listen, scientists. This is exactly how climate change science got into the public mess it now faces. Scientists did not stick to their science. They assumed more expertise in areas they clearly lacked. Just do your science. That’s the best thing you bring to the world. Your science. Just do that.
Remember the Rules.
If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.
You Cannot Persuade a Falling Apple.