Backtracking and the Ethics of Framing: Lessons from Voles and Vasopressin

Abstract

When communicating scientific information, experts often face difficult choices about how to promote public understanding while also maintaining an appropriate level of objectivity. We argue that one way for scientists and others involved in communicating scientific information to alleviate these tensions is to pay closer attention to the major frames employed in the contexts in which they work. By doing so, they can ideally employ useful frames while also enabling the recipients of information to “backtrack” to relatively uncontroversial facts and recognize how these frames relate to their own values and perspectives. Important strategies for promoting this sort of backtracking include identifying the weaknesses of particular frames, preventing misunderstanding of them, differentiating well-supported findings from more speculative claims, and acknowledging major alternative frames.

Keywords:

• backtracking
• framing
• oxytocin
• public understanding
• research ethics
• scientific communication
• vasopressin
• voles

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Carl Cranor, Adam Kadlac, Christian Miller, Adam Pelser, David Resnik, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, and Ray Yeo for extremely helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This article was made possible through the support of a grant provided to Daniel J. McKaughan from The Character Project, Wake Forest University, and the John Templeton Foundation as well as by sabbatical leave provided to Kevin C. Elliott by the University of South Carolina. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Character Project, Wake Forest University, the John Templeton Foundation, or the University of South Carolina.

Notes

1. Elliott (2010,2011) provides a somewhat different but related justification for this ideal of promoting backtracking. His justification rests on the claim that scientists (and, arguably, others involved in scientific communication, such as journalists) have prima facie ethical responsibilities to promote the self-determination of those who receive information from them, which requires (to the extent feasible) enabling the recipients of information to backtrack.