PHILIP CAMPBELL is the editor in chief of Nature.
Scientists and governments developing public engagement about science and technology are missing the point. This turns out to be true in cases where there are collapses in consensus that have serious societal consequences. Whether in relation to climate change, genetically modified crops, or Britain’s triple vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella, alternative-science networks develop among people who are neither ignorant nor irrational but have perceptions about science, the scientific literature, and its implications that differ from those prevailing in the scientific community.
Those perceptions and discussions may be half-baked but are no less powerful for all that, and they carry influence on the Internet and in the media. Researchers and governments haven’t yet learned how to respond to such “citizens’ science.” Should they stop explaining and engaging? No. But they need also to understand better the influences at work within those networks (often too dismissively stereotyped) at an early stage in the debate, in order to counter bad science and minimize the impact of falsehoods.