#8 Nat Kendall-Taylor

In his suc­cinct lecture at the Nobel Prize Summit in Wa­shing­ton in May 2023, psy­cho­lo­gi­cal an­thro­po­lo­gist Nat Kendall-Taylor talks about our mind­sets and the pre­ju­di­ces that shape our thin­king. His star­ting point is the ques­ti­on, re­gu­lar­ly posed in Western de­mo­cra­ci­es, re­gar­ding public trust in science. A growing number of ci­ti­zens in the West – just over 50 percent – believe science is de­pen­dent on po­li­tics and guided by self in­te­rest, and that it only appears to be ra­tio­nal. They regard it as a tool of the es­tab­lish­ment, as ma­ni­pu­la­ti­ve and un­re­li­able. Kendall-Taylor ex­plo­res the at­ti­tu­des behind these state­ments and asks what the sci­en­ti­fic com­mu­ni­ty itself can do to combat them.

Ac­cord­ing to Kendall-Taylor, a key at­ti­tu­de that shapes many people’s thin­king, es­pe­ci­al­ly in the West, is radical in­di­vi­dua­lism, which leaves little room for a nuanced view of the need for state, in­sti­tu­tio­nal, or legal go­ver­nan­ce. And he claims that many sci­en­tists tend to use their ex­plana­ti­ons to per­sua­de others, which pro­du­ces in­tel­lec­tu­al re­sis­tan­ce. Kendall-Taylor re­com­mends a number of ar­gu­men­ta­ti­ve stra­te­gies to over­co­me this dilemma: Sci­en­tists should avoid ste­reo­ty­pi­cal sci­en­ti­fic ar­gu­ments – re­fe­ren­ces to ma­jo­ri­ty opi­ni­ons in re­se­arch (“science says”), and sup­po­sed­ly un­sha­ka­ble cer­tain­ties. What is im­portant, he says, is the power of examp­les, which not only il­lus­tra­te an ar­gu­ment, but also make it more robust. Every hy­po­the­sis must be ex­p­lai­ned, every as­sump­ti­on il­lus­tra­ted with con­cre­te examp­les. Sci­en­ti­fic dis­cour­se should never aim to over­power because our ent­ren­ched mind­sets tend to protest and resist if they are openly at­ta­cked.  

In his en­ter­tai­ning lecture, Kendall-Taylor ad­vo­ca­tes buil­ding trust through clarity. In doing so, he sets all sci­en­tists, wha­te­ver their di­sci­pli­ne, a vital com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons task that is par­ti­cu­lar­ly im­portant in times of crisis. The future will bring more chal­len­ges that will be just as dif­fi­cult as those posed by the Covid-19 pan­de­mic. We will face en­vi­ron­men­tal and health crises, and science will have to assert itself as a re­li­able system that shows people how they can go about solving social pro­blems. Pre­ju­di­ci­al mind­sets can only be broken down by sci­en­ti­fic dis­cour­se that doesn’t come across as elitist and sure of itself, but ques­ti­ons its own mind­sets by con­stant­ly stri­ving to over­co­me li­mi­ta­ti­ons, re­sis­tan­ce, and op­po­sing views. More people will trust science if science takes its ex­pla­nato­ry mission se­rious­ly and con­vin­ces people through the power of in­tel­lec­tu­al in­te­gri­ty.

Peter-André Alt

Date May 31, 2023
Length 15 mins
Lan­guage English
Title, series How to make mind­sets matter, Nobel Prize Summit 2023
Video The Nobel Prize