How to Communicate Scientific Uncertainty
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
9-2016 NEWS & ANALYSIS 46 ELR 10731
D I A L O G U E
How to Communicate
Scientific Uncertainty
Summary
Scientic uncertainty is a component of many envi-
ronmental and public health issues, such as climate
change or the use of biotechnology. While some
uncertainty is inevitable, the ways in which various
professions communicate uncertainty also shape those
debates, from the interpretation of scientic data to
its dissemination for a mass audience to its use in
advocacy and policymaking. Scientists, lawyers, and
journalists all play dierent roles in addressing scien-
tic uncertainty, in part due to diering professional
norms and ethical standards. On April 15, 2016, the
Environmental Law Institute convened a webinar fea-
turing experts from each of these professions, who
provided their perspectives on eectively communi-
cating scientic information, practicing climate and
weather journalism in a shifting media environment,
and translating uncertainty into policy. Below we
present a transcript of the discussion, which has been
edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.
Jay Austin (moderator) is a senior attorney at ELI and
Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Reporter.
Dr. Sunshine Menezes is E xecutive Director of the Met-
calf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting at
the University of Rhode Island.
Jason Samenow is weather editor for the
and founder of the Capital Weather Gang.
Margaret Dav idson is the senior leader for Coastal Inun-
dation and Resilience Science and Services at NOAA’s
National Ocean Service.
Jay Austin: Today’s Dialogue on issues in communicating
scientic uncertainty is the second time we’ve addressed
this topic in the past couple of years.1 As we all know, sci-
entic uncertainty is an aspect of almost every environ-
1. Jay Austin et al., , 45 ELR
10105 (Feb. 2015); see also ELI, Communicating Scientic Uncertainty:
2014 Workshop (Sept. 22-23, 2014), http://www.eli.org/scientic-uncer-
tainty/communicating-scientic-uncertainty-2014-workshop. Materials
from the April 2016 webinar, including an audio recording of the event, can
be found at ELI, Issues in Communicating Scientic Certainty, http://www.
eli.org/events/issues-communicating-scientic-uncertainty.
mental and public health issue today, and at almost every
stage of the process. It’s there from the time scientists make
their initial observations and measurements, through their
analysis, a ll the way up to their published conclusions. In
those conclusions, scientic uncertainty is often formally
expressed and quantied.
Journalists and other communication specialists then
have to grapple with how to translate t hose ndings a nd
the accompanying uncertainty for a larger audience; with
how to stay faithful to what the science is trying to tell us
(or, equally important, not tell us), while still holding their
readers’ or listeners’ attention in an era when there’s ever-
increasing competition for people’s attention.
We lawyers tend to invoke certainty and uncertainty in
a variety of ways and in a variety of contexts. We use it as
a reason for taking action where the evidence shows that
something is “more likely tha n not.” We use it as a reason
for absta ining from legal action and instead deferring to
an agency’s scientic expertise u nder a much higher stan-
dard of proof, or use it as a reason for acquitting someone
when there’s even so much as a “reasonable doubt.” Finally,
policymakers and tribunals somehow have to make sense
of all this and weigh the scientic evidence, the advocates’
arguments, and even some degree of popular opinion when
they issue their rules and decisions.
Our goal today is fairly mode st: to i llustrate some of
the challenges and show how each of the se professions
addresse s and commu nicates scientic uncertaint y, and
in particular how t heir professional culture and ethical
standa rds might shape the way that t hey do that. First,
we’ll hear from Dr. Sunshine Menezes, executive direc-
tor of the Metc alf Institute for Marine & Environmen-
tal Reporting at the University of Rhode Island and
an expert in science communication. Next up will be
Jason Samenow, weather editor for the ,
founder of the much-consulted Capital Weather Gang,
and a real pioneer in how to communicate very com-
plex atmospheric science online a nd for a mass audience.
Finally, we’ll hear from Margaret Davidson, senior leader
for Coastal Inundation and Resilience at t he Nationa l
Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad minist ration’s (NOAA’s)
National Ocean Ser vice. Like me, Marga ret is a lawyer;
unlike me, she’s an ex perienced policymaker.
Sunshine Menezes: To start, I’d like to sum up what was
discussed in the 2014 dialogue on scientic uncertainty,
Copyright © 2016 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.
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