Welcome to a new series on GeoLog dedicated to one of the most critical yet frequently misunderstood aspects of research: Communicating uncertainty in science. Over the coming months, we will feature six guest posts written by students from a summer course at the University of Tübingen. Bringing together 13 students across diverse disciplines, the course challenged them to reframe uncertainty as a ...[Read More]
scientific uncertainty
Communicating uncertainty to non-experts: A good problem to tackle
Uncertainty in geosciences is an inherent part of scientific processes and assessments, propagating throughout the entire workflow (Pérez-Díaz et al., 2020). As scientists, we are used to seeing error bars, confidence intervals, or statistical indicators that tell us how robust our models or measurements are (Padilla et al., 2021). The challenge arises when we need to communicate these scientific ...[Read More]
Geopolicy: How does scientific uncertainty translate into policy?
Scientific uncertainty is one of the only things in science that is certain. It’s found in complex modelling systems, in the unpredictability of natural processes and even when there seems to be scientific consensus, a new scientific discovery can recreate ambiguity. But how do policymakers deal with scientific uncertainty when they are making decisions? Policymakers deal with and use scientific u ...[Read More]