the Higgs boson” (Claudio Bezzi, Scienza e tecnologia, 25/9/2017). Difficulties also due to the specialization of knowledge, that fragments the indispensable global vision of our reality and makes us “lacking the intelligence of complexity needed to deal with crises of the new global human condition”(Mauro Cerruti and Francesco Bellusci, Il Sole 24 ore 2020);
The second is a wrong communication and supposed by the scientists themselves, considering the target audience to be ‘other’; so many, failing to understand the terms and the scientific procedure, believe scientists to be part of a technocratic and undemocratic élite, with the consequent emergence of the phenomenon of institutional alienation (Roberto Paura, Ricezione pubblica della scienza e negazionismo scientifico, 2019).
Possible solutions: a confirmation bias..
But how do we reduce the spread of this plague? Almost all analysts believe it is a social psychology problem.
There are those who deny that it exists, except in very rare cases, a real rejection against science, but that it all depends on the selection of the facts that support our beliefs, hence the confirmation bias. With the consequence that ideological discussions should be avoided and “stay on the field of narratives”, more suitable for convincing than the recitation of scientific facts (Bucci and Corbellini – 2019).
..or a more structural problem?
Others believe it is important to discover the tactics of the negationists (the conspirators, the false experts, the choice of the single scientific thesis, the false logics), and fight them in the method, not in the motivations (John Cook, Skepital Science, 2010).
Still, for others, new interpretative paradigms of denial are needed, abandoning the idea that it is possible to transfer scientific knowledge from one context to another, without the inevitable variations in orientation and behavior. This thinks “people translate scientific ideas in accordance with their cultural contexts, cognitive biases and personal events” (R. Paura, 2019, citando Bucchi).
A public perception problem
The above proposals has been summarized in the analysis of the public reception of scientific knowledge proposed by Egil Asprem (2016) – according to which the scientific concept reached by people located in a different cultural niche necessarily takes on other forms and meanings. This statement leads us to conclude that, beyond irreducible contrasts, with sterile and ineffective frontal clashes (which will never gain denialists in the field of science), it is necessary to admit the importance and complexity of the communication of scientific research. Hence the development of specific forms, even simple and intuitive, representations that are grafted into the inferential abilities of most recipients.
As long as, of course, politicians don’t complicate this already difficult operation, or by denying scientific truths, that is, by exploiting them, with the attempt to “cancel the debate and the democratic conflict on issues of public importance, using science and expertise as heralds of Truth” (Giuseppe Tipaldo, La società della pseudo scienza, Il Mulino 2019).
