Dr. Paul Sutter joined me on an episode of Causes or Cures to talk about declining trust in science.

Do you trust science? Why or why not? And think about what may happen if people don’t know who to trust when it comes to scientific information. You could turn that one scenario into its own dystopian scifi novel.

On a recent podcast, “The Spaceman” Dr. Paul Sutter joined me to talk about the declining trust in science and why it is happening.

We discussed how regulatory capture and the pressure to publish as many papers as possible is leading to bad science and fueling a culture of distrust.  (Watch the clips “Scientific Fraud is Through the Roof!” below)

We chatted about the difference between an effective scientific communicator vs a polarizing one and what happens when you politicize science. (BTW, I’d argue that A LOT of the popular, self-dubbed scicomms communicators on social media are horrible at connecting to tougher crowds. They are really good at “othering” them though, which is horrible from a public health perspective.)

We talked about how to manage an overwhelming amount of information and opinions (often conflicting) in a digital, social-media obsessed age. Finally, Dr. Paul Sutter outlines a path forward on how to rebuild trust in science. (And if you are interested, scroll through the “health communication” section in my blog, because I write a lot about this stuff too!)

Who is Dr. Paul Sutter?

He is a theoretical cosmologist, award-winning science communicator, NASA advisor, U.S. Cultural Ambassador, and a globally recognized leader in the intersection of art and science. He is a research professor at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and a visiting professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is also a seasoned author and his next book, Rescuing Science in an Age of Doubt, is available this March.