Scientists are failing the public. The world is emerging from a pandemic with the help of vaccines produced by science and scientists, but hesitancy to trust these life-saving products has skyrocketed. How then are the scientists at fault and not the people? Communication is the answer. Many scientists, most recently evident in the health sciences, appear unable to convey facts in a rigorous manner for public consumption. This negligence is the most urgent challenge science faces today: meaningful communication that truly educates the general population rather than empty claims meant only to promote a specific result.

Much of science communication in news media (particularly regarding health in the age of COVID-19) instructs viewers on what they should do. For example, some mainstream news network might feature a doctor or biologist who explains vaccines for COVID-19 with a 95 percent efficacy rate are rolling out, and everyone should get vaccinated. Such a narrative sounds good, but there is no actual scientific content. While people have generally heard the term vaccine (and likely associate it with a shot administered by a doctor or nurse), they often do not know how vaccines work or the steps that go into developing and testing them. Therefore, these people cannot tell fact from fiction regarding the function of vaccines and are more susceptible to political (or conspiratorial) narratives about vaccines.

Lack of full, deliberate science communication is not a passive failure though. By leaving out elementary details, scientists and science communicators add fuel to the fire of conspiracy theories. Recently, Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, testified before the European parliament. When responding to a question from Dutch parliamentarian Robert Roos, she stated that Pfizer did not test whether their COVID-19 vaccines prevented transmission of the virus. Roos later tweeted a video statement declaring this admission was shocking and that peoples’ rights had been infringed upon by policies pushing people to get vaccinated for the sake of others. Clearly, Roos (and the innumerable people who bought his claims) somehow arrived at the conclusion that a vaccine should actively block the transmission of the target virus from a vaccinated individual to others. What a ridiculous idea: a vaccine is not a force field. However, the leading narrative advocating for COVID-19 vaccination was for a long time “stop the spread” and “protect the vulnerable.”

In the United States, for example, scientists working for the government asserted repeatedly on the news that vaccination could curb the spread of the virus. Were they lying? No. The reality is more nuanced and ties directly to the absence of thoroughness in science communication. Vaccines cannot block a virus from entering a person’s body, but they can speed up the immune system’s response to the virus. Thus, the vaccinated person is infected with the virus for a shorter period of time and spreads the virus to a smaller number of people compared to an unvaccinated person. This message should have been repeated on every mainstream platform from the moment COVID-19 vaccines were introduced; instead, we had oversimplified claims that vaccinated individuals would not spread the virus. Because many people were unaware of the basic operations of vaccines, hearing that Pfizer did not explicitly test their vaccine for transmission prevention led them to believe they previously had been lied to, pushing them right into the arms of anti-vaxxers.

Science miscommunication impacts not only the political Right but across the spectrum. The political Left professes to “trust the science,” yet those words convey a deep misunderstanding of what science is. Undoubtedly, the low resolution descriptions of science they hear in the news amount to activism rather than education, leading them to make decisions that are wacky at best. For instance, many wear a mask while driving alone in their cars or walking outside. Of course, these misconceptions then lead to odd policies, such as the closing of hiking trails during the pandemic that were never crowded to begin with. On the energy front, the political Left claims to care about the environment, yet there exists an odd opposition to nuclear energy, likely the best source of clean energy available to humanity. Again, the lack of educational content on nuclear energy in the mainstream makes for ill-informed choices.

The former example about vaccination and transmission highlights the deficiency of understanding on the Left too. Left-leaning media has not recognized its shortcomings and elaborated on the science of vaccines. Instead, they dredge up isolated statements by individuals from when the vaccines were first released suggesting there is no data yet on the vaccine’s transmission prevention, or they quote scientists who comment transmission prevention testing is commonly done after a vaccine is licensed. Hence, the cycle continues.

There have been many strategies offered attempting to ameliorate the increasing skepticism of science, most notably debunking, prebunking, and defeasibility theory. Explaining scientific content in a meticulous, accessible, and educational manner (let us label it educational communication) is simpler than any of those methods and does not explicitly equate with any of them. Instead, educational communication is a form of conveying ideas that is applicable within any of those approaches.

Debunking refutes false claims with facts; educational communication aids in the clear delineation of those facts such that the audience comprehends and can later apply them. Prebunking utilizes inoculation theory by introducing people to small doses of misinformation to help them develop their own counter-arguments. Educational communication provides the target audience the tools they need to form those counter-arguments. Defeasibility theory introduces doubt into existing false beliefs by careful conversation and questioning. If defeasibility theory is appropriately employed, the target would eventually question their beliefs and derive questions of their own, in which case educational communication would allow fruitful responses to those questions.

Clearly, educational communication is not a new concept. It is most obviously prevalent in the classroom, where seasoned teachers effortfully illustrate topics to their students. Furthermore, the internet contains a plethora of educational videos (often made by scientists and educators) detailing many science concepts for the layperson. And these YouTube channels and podcasts have millions of followers. If these free sources of educational communication exist, why then do we still have such a large-scale feeding problem from science illiteracy to science denial? These avenues of open science content are essentially preaching to the choir. Only people actively interested in science content will seek out and learn from these sources. Lee McIntyre, author of How to Talk to a Science Denier, contends that “most science deniers don’t have a deficit of information, but a deficit of trust.” Although this sounds like a contradiction to the former case, I submit that many science deniers have a deficit of trust because they lack apparently trustworthy sources of information. Indeed, science deniers distrust science much in the way students begin to dismiss—even dislike—a professor who demonstrates minimal effort. By replacing promotion-oriented science communication in mainstream news sources with educational communication—and perhaps even extending to right-wing media—the shortage of trust can be healed.

Scientists and science communicators who speak to mainstream media need to change their approach if they are to overcome the challenge of reaching wider general audiences. Instead of treating those audiences as if they cannot understand the complexities of science, they should approach communication with the same mindset they would enter a classroom. Educational communication is fundamental to engaging the general public respectfully. Only by feeling scientists are making an effort to converse, and not intellectually demean, will the wider population re-engage with science.