How do we build science-based narratives?

This episode is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

Our understanding of reality is science, and so too is our shaping of it. Facts, research, evidence are ideally the foundations of how consequential decisions are made, in policy, business and institutions, but also in households, relationships and one’s own life. Now, what role is science playing in creating a true narrative during crises such as COVID-19 and climate change? And vice versa: how are crises affecting science’s narrative and public trust?

In this GLF Live, Center for International Forestry Research scientist Amy Duchelle spoke with Science family of journals editor-in-chief Holden Thorp about the role of science in narrative-building today. This episode formed part of the Storytelling Track of the GLF Bonn 2020 digital conference.

Listen back to the conversation as a podcast, or re-watch it on YouTube:

How do we build science-based narratives? — Illustration by Jessica Ball

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Carl Sagan

The important thing is to never stop questioning.
Albert Einstein

Holden Thorp became Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals on 28 October 2019. He came to Science from Washington University, where he was provost from 2013 to 2019 and where he is Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professor and holds appointments in both chemistry and medicine. Thorp joined Washington University after spending three decades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he served as the 10th chancellor from 2008 through 2013.

Thorp is the coauthor, with Buck Goldstein, of two books on higher education: Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Centuryand Our Higher Calling: Rebuilding the Partnership Between America and its Colleges and Universities, both from UNC Press.

Amy Duchelle is Team Leader and Senior Scientist in the Climate Change, Energy & Low Carbon Development Team at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia. She leads CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+, which engages a dynamic network of research partners and diverse stakeholders to produce information, analysis and tools towards protecting tropical forests and enhancing the rights and livelihoods of local people. Prior to moving to Indonesia in 2015, Duchelle worked for CIFOR in Brazil, where she lived for nearly ten years. She holds a Ph.D. in Tropical Forestry from the University of Florida, a M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a B.A. in Biology from Colorado College.