ANNA GAGLIANO
Copy Editor
Last Tuesday, Fredonia learned about the need for a little humanity within the sciences.
Emily Calandrelli gave the speech, “Empathetic Science Communication in an Increasingly Polarized World,” as part of the 2020-2021 Fredonia Convocation.
The theme for this year’s convocation is “Pondering the Future: Empathy as a Way Forward.”
Brad Brown, a senior biochemistry major and winner of the Lanford Prize introduced Calandrelli, while maintaining that this speech was for everyone because “everyone is a science person.”
Calandrelli is an alumna of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has made a name for herself as a modern woman in STEM.
She has been a correspondent for shows such as “Bill Nye Saves the World” and is an executive producer and host of “Xploration Outer Space” on FOX. She also executive produces and hosts her own Emmy-nominated Netflix series, “Emily’s Wonder Lab,” which she filmed while nine-months pregnant before the pandemic hit.
Calandrelli also authors her own series of children’s books known as the “Ada Lace Adventures,” which she describes as a “nerdier version of Nancy Drew.” The third installment of the series was recently launched into space to be read on the International Space Station as a part of NASA’s Story Time from Space program.
As she developed in her STEM career, Calandrelli has noticed a need for more empathy in the way that we discuss scientific issues, saying that at the simplest level, empathetic science communication can be achieved by “[understanding] that humans are not computers.”
She compared people’s worldviews to houses, things that we build up based on our morals, values and what we believe to be true. These houses can be shaken, though.
“When a new idea… comes along that threatens to renovate that house, by breaking down or changing one of those pillars, our brain acts like a bodyguard,” Calandrelli said.
The brain’s response to house-shaking information is to immediately disregard it, which is a psychological reaction known as the backfire effect.
“It means when your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, oftentimes your original beliefs get stronger,” Calandrelli explained.
This doubling-down on original beliefs can result in a person becoming alienated from further education and allows those with opposing beliefs to “falsely believe that throwing facts at the situation will make it better.”
“The trick,” Calandrelli said, “is to deliver those facts and evidence in better ways… the key to doing that is through empathic science communication.”
Calandrelli used a real example from her personal experience to demonstrate this way of communication.
As a lover of science, Calandrelli researched why so many residents of her home state of West Virginia do not believe in climate change.
She explained that the view on coal as a fuel in WV is vastly different than it is in other places. WV is one of America’s top mine-producing states with coal reserves. From a young age, the people of WV are taught that coal is a “god-given” resource that they should feel “so lucky” to have in their home.
A coal industry-founded organization called Friends of Coal works to ensure the longevity of coal in WV.
“[They] do this in two strategic ways. First, they recruit West Virginia cultural icons as spokesmen for them,” Calandrelli said.
Some of the most important people Friends of Coal recruits are head coaches of popular college football teams. For many years, there was even a sponsored Friends of Coal Bowl where West Virginia University and Marshall University would play each other.
Calandrelli explained that this is troubling because if the head coaches of praised and beloved football teams are a “Friend of Coal,” that is going to resonate with many West Virginians.
It is the second strategy employed by Friends of Coal, though, that is especially impactful.
“Tens of thousands of dollars worth of grants have been given to teachers who have been willing to teach coal lessons designed by the coal industry, and you can imagine how ‘scientific’ and ‘unbiased’ those coal lessons are,” Calandrelli said.
This strategy becomes more villainous-sounding when she goes on to explain how underpaid West Virginia teachers are, so much so that they were some of the first teachers in the country to strike over their salaries.
After researching all of this, Callandrelli used empathetic science communication to open up a dialogue with her fellow West Virginians about the risks of coal and the dangers of climate change.
She did this using one of the most important factors of empathetic science communication: “We can bait the hook to sink the fish.”
“It means to focus on the interests of your audience. Talk about what they care about, not what you think they should care about,” Calandrelli continued.
In the process of doing this, Calandrelli said that it’s important to remember that you might not always be the right messenger to deliver certain information. You might have to seek out public figures whose general values align more with your audience’s, and they could succeed more at educating them than you could have.
Calandrelli’s overall goal of her speech was to show when engaging in science communication, it is vital that we “be kind, be empathetic and listen to the person you are trying to convince.”
We must ask ourselves if we want to argue or if we want to educate, and answering this will guide our conversations toward either more disparity or a future where we will understand each other a little better.
To learn more from Calandrelli, you can stream “Emily’s Wonder Lab” on Netflix or follow her on social media under @TheSpaceGal.