The Value of Lying: What Normal Science Doesn’t Get

May 20, 2011 at 8:44 PM · Filed under design ecology, futures, narration, preferences, public health, science, symbolic systems

The CDC’s done a really smart thing. They lied. They created an entirely “unscientific” risk to respond to a completely “scientific” human bias.  The CDC provided an emergency management and disaster preparedness plan in case of a Zombie Apocalypse. This says two things to me: 1) the CDC is serious enough in its priorities to ignore the boundary work that usually goes on in science organizations that tries to keep culture and science separate, and 2) they understand that human bias often impedes our ability to prepare for more “rational” risks.

So I would call this a media coup – especially if (as I suspect) there was a huge spike in visits to their site since the story crashed the server.  I’m sure it helped that some people are actually predicting a zombie apocalypse this weekend.

What I like about this is the acknowledgment that people are interested in fiction at least as much as they are in reality. As a scientist or policy maker in disaster management, it’s worth recognizing that people aren’t going to respond or think a certain way just because it makes the most rational sense.  Zombies may make more sense because they tap into deeper fears and hopes and long-held narratives that are embedded in our cultural fabric.

Humans have all sorts of biases, and instead of assuming that people are going to just believe elements of science based on their rationality, we ought to start mixing the science with some more compelling narration. This may be a good indicator of its practical value of working with a paradigm of post-normal science. Post-normal science is typically characterized by cases where facts are uncertain or contested and values are in dispute. Because so much of science and its applications relies on us to make rational choices, and yet we often don’t, there’s a case to be made that the transition of new scientific meaning from discovery to practice is post-normal because it is highly influenced by our cognitive biases.

Using zombies to carry the more important message of preparedness – and the specific steps to take – is way more important than the reality of a zombie apocalypse. Then again, better safe than sorry!

Evolutionary biologists take note!

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May Be a Mix Tape

May 12, 2011 at 12:21 AM · Filed under Uncategorized

A mix tape … for my friends. It’s May. Welcome home summer.

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