From the margins to the mainstream: deconstructing science communication as a white, Western paradigm

In this commentary we are concerned with what mainstream science communication has neglected through cultural narrowness and ambient racism: other practitioners, missing audiences, unvalued knowledge, unrecognised practices. We explore examples from First Nations Peoples in the lands now known as Australia, from Griots in West Africa and from People's Science Movements in India to help us reimagine science communication. To develop meaningfully inclusive approaches to science communication, we argue there is an urgent need for the ‘mainstream’ to recognise, value and learn from science communication practices that are all too often seen as at ‘the margins’ of this field

Communicating Certainty and Uncertainty in Science in Out-of-School Contexts

This chapter addresses the importance of understanding certainty and uncertainty in relation to scientific evidence, risk in decision-making, and trust in science and scientists. Following a museum-based story about certainty and scientific evidence, two significant international events are described to demonstrate the consequences of failing to understand uncertainty in science. Research into people’s perceptions about the nature of scientific knowledge is revisited to reveal that adults may think less scientifically after a science-related experience, and examine how values and beliefs relating to the certainty/uncertainty of scientific knowledge are inherent in how science is communicated in public places like museums. It is argued that if people are to be encouraged to think more scientifically about the nature of science and its processes, a greater effort is needed to present science in ways that may be interpreted as controversial, and also communicate uncertainty in scientific evidence. The chapter concludes by exploring how a balanced exhibition might be achieved in this difficult process