The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty

Keohane, Robert O; Lane, Melissa; Oppenheimer, Michael

doi:10.1177/1470594x14538570

Cited by 141Climate Change Communication and PerceptionRisk Perception and ManagementAcademic Publishing and Open Access

The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty

Open access

Keohane, Robert O, Lane, Melissa, Oppenheimer, Michael·2014·Politics, Philosophy & Economics

DOI 10.1177/1470594x14538570

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Abstract

Communication by scientists with policy makers and attentive publics raises ethical issues. Scientists need to decide how to communicate knowledge effectively in a way that nonscientists can understand and use, while remaining honest scientists and presenting estimates of the uncertainty of their inferences. They need to understand their own ethical choices in using scientific information to communicate to audiences. These issues were salient in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with respect to possible sea level rise from disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Due to uncertainty, the reported values of projected sea level rise were incomplete, potentially leading some relevant audiences to underestimate future risk. Such judgments should be made in a principled rather than an ad hoc manner. Five principles for scientific communication under such conditions are important: honesty, precision, audience relevance, process transparency, and specification of uncertainty about conclusions. Some of these principles are of intrinsic importance while others are merely instrumental and subject to trade-offs among them. Scientists engaged in assessments under uncertainty should understand these principles and which trade-offs are acceptable.

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When communicating findings to lay audiences, scientists may oversimplify, overlook value judgments behind their conclusions, or neglect to mention uncertainty.
“in aiming to communicate their findings effectively to laypeople so that they can understand and use them, scientists might oversimplify results(Forge [2008]), ignore the value judgements underlying their conclusions(Alexandrova [2018]), or fail to acknowledge uncertainty(Keohane et al. [2014]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Keohane et al. [2014]

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Authors: Keohane, R. O., Lane, M., & Oppenheimer, M.
Affiliations: Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author: Lane, Melissa
ORCID: Lane, Melissa
Oppenheimer, Michael
Venue: Politics, Philosophy & Economics
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2014-06-27
Volume: 13
Issue: 4
Pages: 343-368
ISSN: 1470-594X (ISSN-L)
1741-3060
DOI: 10.1177/1470594x14538570
OpenAlex: W2106203255
Cited by: 141
References: 51
Citations by year: 2026: 32 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 6 · 2013: 1
FWCI: 17.37
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: hybrid
doi.org
Licence: cc-by-nc
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations: Politics Philosophy & Economics (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
Keywords: uncertainty communication, science-policy communication, sea level projections, Greenland ice sheet, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, precision, process transparency, risk communication, ethical principles

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The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty

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