Do the Facts Speak for Themselves? USU Rhetoric Professor Investigates

If certain chemicals are known to cause cancer or other health and environmental complications, why are they allowed to be used?

USU Communication Studies Assistant Professor Mollie Murphy explains that, in part, it may be because scientific facts don’t always speak for themselves.

Taking scientist and activist Sandra Steingraber’s writings as her case study, Murphy says that because of science’s empirical nature — meaning its desire to be objective and unbiased — it can deliver the facts, but its design as unbiased often prevents scientists from telling us what to do with the information given.

This then can lead to debate and delays on public policy directions and decisions.

She argues that, instead, policy decision-making could benefit from considering experiential knowledge — similar to what Steingraber provides in her books — which can then provide guidance as for what to do with empirical findings.

With this coupling, scientific findings could show certain chemicals are in fact toxic while the experiences of those who have suffered health consequences from toxins could provide decision-makers with moral, political guidance.

The full article on which this story is based is available in the Western Journal of Communication.