On March 17–20, 2021, the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program (New York, NY) and the Instituto Questão de Ciência (Question of Science Institute [São Paulo, Brazil]) cosponsored the first Global Congress on Scientific Thinking and Action, originally planned for Rome but conducted over Zoom due to the pandemic. One hundred scientists, scholars, journalists, and communicators from fifty-five countries gathered to discuss some of the most challenging science policy issues facing humanity today.

 

The titles of the six primary sessions, which were recorded and are available on the Aspen Institute’s YouTube channel, were: 1) Overcoming Science Denialism, 2) Science Literacy and Popularization: Understanding How Science Works, 3) Risks and Dangers of Alternative Medicine, 4) Dousing the Fires of Climate Change Denial, 5) Defeating Vaccine Hesitancy through Communication, and 6) Food Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future. Each of these sessions was conducted as a panel of five experts in conversation with each other. The session panelists are listed below:

I. Overcoming Science Denialism

• Abhilash Mishra (Illinois, USA/India), University of Chicago
• Lee McIntyre (Massachusetts, USA), Philosopher, Boston University
• Amardeo Sarma (Germany), Chair, Society for the Scientific Investigation of Parasciences
• Philipp Schmid (Germany), Behavioral Scientist, University of Erfurt
• Joy Y. Zhang (UK/China), Senior Lecturer, University of Kent

II. Science Literacy and Popularization

• Richard Gallagher (California, USA/UK), President and Editor-in-Chief, Annual Review
• Ayelet Baram-Tsabari (Israel), Israel Institute of Technology
• Stuart Firestein (New York, USA), Department of Biology, Columbia University
• Simon Singh (UK), Author, Journalist, and TV Producer.
• Masataka Watanabe (Japan), Professor, Tohoku University

III. Risk and Dangers of Alternative Medicine

• Roxana Tabakman (Argentina), Health writer and science journalist
• Edzard Ernst (UK), Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter
• Narendra Nayak (India), President, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations
• Joe Schwarcz (Canada)    Director, Office for Science and Society, McGill University
• Natália Pasternak Taschner (Brazil), President, Question of Science Institute

IV. Dousing the Fires of Climate Change Denial

• Tim Mendham (Australia), Executive Officer, Australian Skeptics
• François-Marie Bréon (France)    , French Association for Scientific Information
• John Cook (Australia), Professor, Monash University
• Hajar Khamlichi (Morocco), Mediterranean Youth Climate Network
• Lina Yassin (Sudan), MENA Programme Manager, Climate Tracker

V. Defeating Vaccine Hesitancy through Communication

• Agnes Binagwaho (Rwanda), Vice Chancellor, University of Global Health Equity
• Noel Brewer (North Carolina, USA), Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Ovidiu Covaciu (Romania), Administrator, Vaccinuri si Vaccinare (Vaccines and Vaccinations)
• Fara Ndiaye (Senegal),    Deputy Executive Director, Speak Up Africa
• Kavin Senapathy (Illinois, USA), Science, health, and parenting writer

VI. Food Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future

• Mahaletchumy Arujanan (Malaysia), Executive Director, Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC)
• Angela Bearth (Switzerland), Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich
• Jon Entine (Ohio, USA), Founder and Executive Director, Genetic Literacy Project
• Sarah Davidson Evanega (New York, USA), Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell University
• Margaret Karembu (Kenya), Director, AfriCenter, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)

 

 

Here are a few highlights from the sessions:

Session I: Science Denialism: Lee McIntyre discussed his conversations with flat earth believers, which are the basis of his forthcoming book, How to Talk to a Science Denier. He stressed the importance of face-to-face conversations and gaining the trust of the people you are trying to convince.

Session II: Science Literacy and Popularization: Masataka Watanabe described how Manga (Japanese comics and graphic novels) are increasingly being used in science education due to their wide appeal with young people in Japan. In addition, Stuart Firestein, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, highlighted the public’s difficulty understanding uncertainty and suggested that scientists must do a better job of communicating the nature and meaning of uncertainty.

Session III: Alternative Medicine: Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, talked about the wide use of alternative medicines in India, including homeopathy, and said that various alternative treatments are often claimed to be Indian in origin. In addition, the relatively low death rate from COVID in India has been falsely attributed to the use of homeopathic medicines as preventative. When asked what should be done about the use of alternative medicines in India, he said, flatly, “They should be banned.”

Edzard Ernst, widely considered the foremost expert on alternative medicine, described how many universities are developing programs in “integrative medicine,” in part because of large donations that are available to fund them. When asked what he thought were the biggest problem areas for alternative medicine worldwide, he named homeopathy and chiropractic medicine.

Session IV: Climate Change Denial: John Cook (who will be speaking at Skeptical Inquirer Presents on April 1) discussed his research showing that an effective way to confront misinformation about climate change is to identify the logical fallacies used to support it—for example, pointing out that pitting the economy against the environment represents a false dichotomy.

Lina Yassin, a climate activist in Sudan discussed the difficulties of working with an authoritarian government that was only focused on economic issues. She has devoted much of her efforts to educating and motivating young people, but at the moment, COVID is an overshadowing issue in Sudan. She also stressed the need to use stories and concrete examples to communicate the importance of climate change. For example, creating a narrative about a family and flood is likely to be a more effective strategy than more abstract arguments.

Session V: Vaccine Hesitancy: Fara Ndiaye, deputy executive director of Speak Up Africa, based in Dakar, Senegal, emphasized the need for community ownership of health messaging. She suggested that African scientists should be given greater opportunities to speak directly to the public so that public health messages are more often seen as coming from in-country rather than from abroad. Vaccines coming from abroad are often distrusted, so community grounding of health policies is very important.

Session VI: Food Biotechnology: Margaret Karembu, director of the AfriCenter, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), who is based in Kenya, indicated seven countries have approved use of genetically modified crops (GMOs), including Kenya. Nigeria has approved the use of an insect resistant cowpea. Echoing the comments by Fara in the previous session, she said that the voices of African scientists have been overshadowed by those of human rights activists who are opposed to GMOs. She urged that it is important not to over-claim what GMOs can do and choose the right communication platform. In Africa, WhatsApp is a particularly valuable social media tool.

 

After each session presentation, the speakers were shuffled off into individual Zoom rooms with randomly assembled groups of the larger Congress participants. During this time, participants, me included, discussed some of the issues raised in presentations. Despite the strangeness of going to a conference on our computers at home, the format made it possible for people from all over the world to meet and discuss important science policy issues in a friendly environment.

The organizers of the event were quite pleased with the outcome. “Our main goal for this first event was to bring scientists, science advocates, and science communicators together, and in doing so, raise awareness to the fact that we all face common global issues that need to be communicated to different publics, cultures, and backgrounds,” said co-organizer Natalia Pasternak. “I hope that in this first event, we learned from one another’s challenges and perspectives.”

Plans are underway to have similar conferences on an annual or biannual basis, as well as more frequent small group meetings. In addition, Mertz and Pasternak indicated that a report was in progress, outlining the major findings and goals for the future.

It is clear the organizers are not interested in a merely academic enterprise. Their hopes for the Aspen Institute’s Global Congress for Scientific Thinking and Action place great emphasis on the activism part of their mission. “A key next step will be to find ways for us to have a global voice, through the future issuing of reports or petitions, when we see science mishandled transnationally,” Mertz said. It seems clear that Mertz and Pasternak have launched an ambitious project that has the potential to be a leader in the effort to promote science and reason throughout the globe.