Science Communication and Indigenous North America

The Modern Scientific View

Modern scientific thinking is rooted in ways of knowing—epistemologies—that are grounded in an empirical approach to describing and predicting how our world works. The empirical view is rational and objective, and it is based on the premise that scientific knowledge arises from gathering evidence and testing assumptions. Philosophers of science often point to Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who challenged the Catholic Church's view that the Earth is the center of the universe (the geocentric view) and used scientific methods from mathematics and astronomy to confirm the Copernican supposition that the sun is the center of the universe (the heliocentric view). Galileo, who rejected religious and political worldviews in favor of empiricism, is considered the father of the modern scientific perspective.

The scientific approach, often referred to as logical positivism, dominates the current paradigm of epistemological thought, according to Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn's ground-breaking work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, asserted that the scientific tradition is advanced by finding evidence that supports the prevailing paradigm or scientific perspective. A fundamental premise in this paradigm is that science is separate from religion and politics. Some also argue that this separation—between rational scientific thought and cultural humanistic thought—has led to the assumption that science exists independently of values and beliefs. This perspective unfolds in scientific controversies (for example, human cloning, genetically modifying foods, and defining what constitutes death), particularly those amplified by mass media.

Linkage of Science with Journalism

Mass media scholars have pointed out that contemporary journalistic practices follow the same path as scientific thought; that is, journalists approach [Page 698]their world as objective investigators of evidence in an attempt to communicate the facts. Like scientists, journalists attempt to cut a swath through religion and politics to uncover the underlying truth.

The practice of presenting information in an “unbiased” fashion thus follows a similar path to scientific investigation, but critics also charge that this approach to news coverage places science and scientists as supreme authorities over other perspectives, and that the journalistic paradigm thus diminishes or ignores humanistic worldviews associated with religion, social values, and indigenous thought. Scholars who have examined the role of science and scientists in journalistic coverage in the last quarter century have clearly demonstrated that both the empirical paradigm and scientists themselves occupy a privileged status in news accounts. Scientists often get “the last word” in news stories that pit empiricism against humanism.

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