Accessibility at the Sterkfontein Caves UNESCO World Heritage Site limits public and scientific engagement. The authors digitally visualised part of the cave using laser scans and photogrammetry, geospatially integrating the digital cave and fossil datasets. This enables broader access for learners, educators and scientists and enhances scientific outreach potential.

What is persuasion and how does it differ from coercion, indoctrination, and manipulation? Which persuasive strategies are effective, and which contexts are they effective in? The aim of persuasion is attitude change, but when does a persuasive strategy yield a rational change of attitude? When is it permissible to engage in rational persuasion? In this paper, I address these questions, both in general and with reference to particular examples. The overall aims are (i) to sketch an integrated picture of the psychology, epistemology, and ethics of persuasion and (ii) to argue that there is often a tension between the aim we typically have as would-be persuaders, which is bringing about a rational change of mind, and the ethical constraints which partly distinguish persuasion from coercion, indoctrination, and manipulation.

This paper examines mediators’ epistemic obligations during expert interviews. Drawing on science communication, journalism ethics, and social epistemology, I argue that mediators have an epistemic duty to ask good questions of experts. After outlining how expert testimony can harm audiences epistemically and providing a normative framework for mediators’ duty to inform, I examine three strategies to discharge this duty. The credentials monitoring approach, which limits mediators’ role in verifying experts’ qualifications and competence, fails to prevent harmful testimony from genuine experts. The interference approach, which requires mediators to challenge expert claims directly, imposes unrealistically high epistemic standards on mediators and risks counterproductive non-peer disagreements. I propose an alternative: the good questioning approach. By asking expanding and contesting questions that prompt experts to justify claims and make evidence accessible, mediators can fulfill their epistemic duty without needing domain-specific expertise. This framework enhances our understanding of distributed epistemic responsibility in public scientific discourse and offers practical guidance for improving journalistic practice in expert interviews.

Value transparency is thought to promote trust in scientific expertise. Yet, transparency is a complex concept. I will argue that transparency requirements come with a varying extent of engagement: merely disclosing information, providing information that is publicly accessible, or having additional mechanisms for criticism in place. It is often not clear in which sense transparency requirements are to be understood in the context of trust in expertise. However, each sense can backfire in different ways. Merely talking about transparency in a general sense hides these possible trade-offs. This furthermore shows that requiring transparency may come with a greater regulatory force.

Which additional epistemic skills or attributes must a competent journalist possess in order to produce competent science journalism? I aim to answer this question by bringing together insights from journalism, science communication, and epistemology. In Section 2, I outline the Epistemic Challenge for Science Journalism. In Section 3, I present the dominant answer in the literature, the Knowledge-Based Solution, and argue against it. In Section 4, I propose an alternative, the Confirmation-Based Solution. In Section 5, I argue that this solution can address recent concerns regarding journalistic objectivity. Section 6 discusses my proposal in the context of epistemological debates about norms of assertion. Section 7 concludes.

The relevance of education and outreach (E&O) activities about the Antarctic Treaty has been recognized at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM) and at the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP). This study examines the key topics and the target audiences detailed in papers submitted to the ATCM on E&O. Since the Antarctic Treaty entered into force in 1961, a total of 216 ATCM papers on E&O have been produced. The number of papers has increased substantially since the mid-1990s. ‘Science’ (76.9%) and ‘Wildlife/Biodiversity/Environment’ (75.5%) were the most addressed topics in these papers, while the ‘Public’ (81.0%) and those attending ‘Schools’ (69.0%) are the main target audiences. ‘Science’ in ATCM papers increased ~120-fold from 1961–1997 to 2015–2023, while ATCM papers discussing engagement with the ‘Public’ increased ~40-fold during the same period. ‘Climate change’ was first mentioned in 2006, and the number of papers per year increased fourfold by 2015–2023. This study shows the increasing interest in E&O through time, addressing key topics to relevant audiences related to the Antarctic region. From an educational perspective, attention should be paid to emerging topics (e.g. equity, diversity and inclusion), and the engagement of early-career professionals and educators should be made a priority.

Until recently, statistical consultants did not have to worry about being replaced by artificial intelligence. There was no statistical analogue to ‘Dr Google’ before ChatGPT arrived on the scene. Although ChatGPT (most of the time) adequately responds to basic queries such as the assumptions of different statistical tests or summarises relevant manuals on statistical software providing clear instructions with point-and-click software such as SPSS, there are many important aspects of statistical consulting that ChatGPT does not cover. This tutorial article is about these aspects: a summary of what statistical consulting is, its purpose and possible settings during the empirical research cycle, the role and responsibilities of the consultant and the client, how to ensure a good consulting experience, how to prepare for a consulting session, typical questions and more. The article was written for researchers who are considering contacting a statistician for the first time and aims to facilitate a good and fruitful consulting experience for all parties involved.

Much ink has been spilled on the scientist–practitioner gap, that is, the apparent divide between knowledge published in academic peer-reviewed journals and the actual business practices employed in modern organizations. Most prior papers have advanced meaningful theories on why the gap exists, ranging from poor communication skills on the part of academics to paywalls and other obstacles preventing the public from accessing research in industrial-organizational psychology (I-O). However, very few papers on the scientist–practitioner gap have taken an empirical approach to better understand why the gap exists and what can be done about it. In our focal article, we specifically discuss the gap as it pertains to small businesses and present empirical data on the topic. Drawing from our experiences working with and in small businesses before entering a PhD program, we suggest that a primary reason for the existence of this gap is the differences between large and small businesses, and we advance two theory-driven reasons for why this is the case. Next, we compiled abstracts and practical implications sections from articles published in top I-O journals in the past 5 years, then we collected ratings and open-ended text responses from subject matter experts (i.e., small business owners and managers) in reaction to reading these sections. We close by recommending several potential perspectives, both for and against our arguments, that peer commentators can take in their responses to our focal article.

Some vaccine-hesitant people lack epistemic trust in the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation that because vaccines have been shown to be medically safe and effective, one ought to get vaccinated. Citing what I call exception information, they claim that whatever the general safety and efficacy of vaccines, the vaccines may not be safe and effective for them. Examples include parents citing information about their children's health, pregnant women's concerns about the potential adverse effects of treatment on pregnant women, young people citing their relative invulnerability to extreme COVID-19 symptoms, or members of vulnerable racial groups citing epistemic injustice, such as a lack of representation in COVID-19 vaccine trials. This paper examines the extent to which a lack of epistemic trust in vaccine recommendations, based on such exemption information, is rational.

Invasive species can have disastrous effects on the ecosystems they invade, requiring costly, labour-intensive mitigation. Public awareness campaigns are often used as a tool to reduce these species’ impacts. While heralded as useful and cost-effective, little evidence suggests that these campaigns contribute to meaningful biological outcomes. Furthermore, awareness campaigns are relatively understudied despite their usage as a common approach to mitigating invasive species. We conducted a literature review to assess publications that evaluated the efficacy of public awareness campaigns for managing invasive species. Out of 4382 papers initially extracted for analysis, we determined that 24 of them included studies conducted on awareness campaigns for invasive species. Four public awareness campaigns were deemed a ‘success’, and the other campaigns’ success was indeterminable due to study design. Our study revealed that inconsistencies in defined end points, unclear procedures and variability of campaigns contribute to there being insufficient evidence to determine the efficacy of public awareness campaigns. To evaluate the true efficacy of public awareness campaigns, we recommend that organizations conducting such campaigns implement rigorous and standardized assessments (e.g., Before–After Control–Impact designs or Bayesian analyses) that include measures of not just changes in the knowledge and behaviour of target audiences, but also relevant biological outcomes.

In recent works, Stephen John (2018, Social Epistemology 32(2), 75–87; 2019, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 78, 64–72) has deepened the social epistemological perspective on expert testimony by arguing that science communication often operates at the institutional level, and that at that level sincerity, transparency, and honesty are not necessarily epistemic virtues. In this paper I consider his arguments in the context of science journalism, a key constituent of the science communication ecosystem. I argue that this context reveals both the weakness of his arguments and a need for further analysis of how non-experts learn from experts.

The importance of inter- and transdisciplinary research for addressing today’s complex challenges has been increasingly recognised. This requires new forms of communication and interaction between researchers from different disciplines and nonacademic stakeholders. Demonstrators constitute a crucial communication tool in technology research and development and have the potential to leverage communication between different bodies of knowledge. However, there is little knowledge on how to design demonstrators. This research aims to understand how demonstrators from the fields Internet of Things and Robotics are designed to communicate technology. The goal is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of demonstrator practice with readily implemented design knowledge and to advance theoretical knowledge in the field of communicating artefacts. We thematically analysed 28 demonstrator design cases, which led to a typology that assists in categorising and understanding 13 key design principles. The typology is built from three perspectives: First, in terms of the overall goal communication, second, in terms of visitor engagement goals (attraction, initial engagement, deep engagement) and third, in terms of resource-related goals (low effort in development and operation). With this typology, we have taken a significant step towards understanding demonstrator design principles for effective technology communication between different stakeholders.

Large-scale societal issues such as public health crises highlight the need to communicate scientific information, which is often uncertain, accurately to the public and policy makers. The challenge is to communicate the inherent scientific uncertainty — especially about the underlying quality of the evidence — whilst supporting informed decision making. Little is known about the effects that such scientific uncertainty has on people’s judgments of the information. In three experimental studies (total N=6,489), we investigate the influence of scientific uncertainty about the quality of the evidence on people’s perceived trustworthiness of the information and decision making. We compare the provision of high, low, and ambiguous quality-of-evidence indicators against providing no such cues. Results show an asymmetric relationship: people react more strongly to cues of low quality of evidence than they do to high quality of evidence compared to no cue. While responses to a cue of high quality of evidence are not significantly different from no cue; a cue of low or uncertain quality of evidence is accompanied by lower perceived trustworthiness and lower use of the information in decision making. Cues of uncertain quality of evidence have a similar effect to those of low quality. These effects do not change with the addition of a reason for the indicated quality level. Our findings shed light on the effects of the communication of scientific uncertainty on judgment and decision making, and provide insights for evidence-based communications and informed decision making for policy makers and the public.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health guidance (e.g., regarding the use ofnon-medical masks) changed over time. Although many revisions were a result ofgains in scientific understanding, we nonetheless hypothesized that makingchanges in guidance salient would negatively affect evaluations of experts andhealth-protective intentions. In Study 1 (N = 300), wedemonstrate that describing COVID-19 guidance in terms of inconsistency (versusconsistency) leads people to perceive scientists and public health authoritiesless favorably (e.g., as less expert). For participants in Canada(n = 190), though not the U.S. (n = 110),making guidance change salient also reduced intentions to download a contacttracing app. In Study 2 (N = 1399), we show that a briefforewarning intervention mitigates detrimental effects of changes in guidance.In the absence of forewarning, emphasizing inconsistency harmed judgments ofpublic health authorities and reduced health-protective intentions, butforewarning eliminated this effect.