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Short Abstract
Public Discourse and Scientific Controversy:
A Spiral of Silence Analysis of Biotechnology Opinion in the U.S.
This analysis applies spiral of silence theory to public opinion about
biotechnology in the United States. A substantial minority in the U.S. has
reservations in this area. Evidence is presented that a spiral of silence,
as conventionally measured, has developed. However, other dynamics –
including the greater willingness to speak out of those who believe
themselves more knowledgeable, as well as differences among groups who
apply different forms of moral reasoning – are also at work.
Public Discourse and Scientific Controversy:
A Spiral of Silence Analysis of Biotechnology Opinion in the U.S.
Susanna Hornig Priest,[1] Jaejin Lee, and Gayathri Sivakumar
Department of Journalism
Texas A&M University
College Station TX 77843-4111
January 2004
Abstract
Spiral of silence theory tries to account for the dynamics through which
visible dissent decreases as public opinion begins to appear hegemonic; it
argues that fear of social isolation inhibits the expression of opinions
perceived to be in the minority. This analysis applies spiral of silence
theory to public opinion about biotechnology in the United States. Contrary
to the conventional wisdom derived from comparing the U.S. to Europe, a
substantial minority of U.S. citizens have reservations about biotechnology
and genetic engineering. Our analysis reveals at least weak evidence that a
spiral of silence has developed for these issues. However, other dynamics –
including the greater willingness to speak out of those who believe
themselves more knowledgeable about science, as well as differences in
willingness to speak among groups who apply different forms of moral
reasoning to issues regarding biotechnology – are also at work. The results
have implications for recognizing the privileged position of
consequentialist or utilitarian arguments (whether pro or con) about
science and technology in U.S. society.
Keywords: Biotechnology, ethical issues, public opinion, spiral of silence.
Public Discourse and Scientific Controversy:
A Spiral of Silence Analysis of Biotechnology Opinion in the U.S.
Spiral of silence research asserts that people who believe themselves to be
in a minority are reluctant, due to fear of isolation, ostracization or
other social consequences, to make their views publicly known
(Noelle-Neumann 1984). It is not a theory of public opinion formation per
se but a theory of communicative behavior in situations of controversy,
especially where there is social pressure to conform to perceived majority
or mainstream opinion. The development of a spiral does not necessarily
cause people to change their opinions, but it may cause people to be
reluctant to express them in public. The spiral can then escalate as points
of view perceived to be out of the mainstream become more and more
invisible and the reluctance concomitantly increases. It is in this sense
that scholars in this area may speak of public opinion as a form of social
control. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq provides a good example of a spiral
of silence, as do most situations of military conflict; during the initial
weeks and even months of the invasion, U.S. citizens seemed enormously
resistant to expressing dissenting views with regard to this policy. While
some of those who now claim to have had reservations all along may have had
actually changed their opinion, it is likely that others felt that voicing
dissent at a moment of intense patriotic fervor and anti-Iraqi sentiment
would expose them to undesirable social consequences.
Opinion researchers generally recognize that news media content is
implicated in the formation of spirals by virtue of its role in making some
voices and viewpoints appear more visible and therefore more legitimate,
more common, and more acceptable than others, as well as through the more
obvious influence of news stories based on opinion polls. In other words,
people's concepts of what other people think are believed to be largely a
function of their surveillance of the media environment. Under some
circumstances the mass media are thought to create a constrained agenda
that restricts competing ideas while reinforcing a select number of
viewpoints (Neuwirth 1999). For this reason many of the scholars that have
pursued research based on this theory have been mass media scholars, for
whom the theory helps articulate a very important but subtle aspect of the
news media's potential to influence public debate.
Research applying this theory has produced mixed results; while the concept
continues to hold intuitive appeal as a way of understanding the public
expression of opinion, the conditions under which spirals may emerge are
not yet fully understood. Further, the ways in which spirals of silence
evolve across many issues in the opinion climate generated by a particular
political or social regime (e.g., under a generally repressive political
regime) may have different dynamics from a spiral operating for a single
issue in a relatively unconstrained general communication environment in a
free-speech, free-press democracy (e.g., arguably, the U.S. climate of
opinion surrounding the invasion of Iraq[2]). In other words, in a
repressive political regime or a climate of high pressure for social
conformity, the general atmosphere may suppress dissent across a range of
issues. In other cases, spirals may develop for particular issues or issue
types but not others. Much work remains to be done to understand which
issues, under what circumstances, may exhibit spiral dynamics.
Whatever the cause, it seems apparent that a spiral of silence affected
the public expression and visibility of dissent around issues involved with
biotechnology and the "new genetics" (recombinant DNA and genome studies)
in the United States, at least through the 1990s and up until the
"breakthrough" issue of mammalian (and therefore potentially human) cloning
refocused public attention in 1997 (Priest 2001). While it seemed to be
widely believed in U.S. policy circles for some time that dissent over
biotechnology and its applications was characteristic of European but not
U.S. opinion, in fact nearly one-third of the U.S. population believes that
genetic engineering will reduce the quality of life (Priest 2000)[3]. This
is about the same percentage as believe that nuclear power production will
do so, yet nuclear power is widely recognized as controversial in the U.S.
while gene technologies (until quite recently) were not. Case study
evidence also suggests that local controversies over biotechnology face
important barriers reaching national news attention in the U.S. (Priest and
Ten Eyck, 2004), a factor that might have contribute to rendering the
extent of dissent less visible. Finally, U.S. news in the early years of
biotechnology reporting was heavily reflective of mainstream industrial and
university research perspectives and relatively rarely incorporated other
points of view (Priest and Talbert 1994). To the extent media content
contributes to spiral formation, biotechnology would be a logical candidate
issue.
Further, analysis of data from a study based on year 2000 survey data and
comparative media content analysis for both the U.S. and Europe concluded
that, contrary to conventional wisdom, more similarities than differences
characterized the relationship between European and U.S. opinion and
expression on these issues (Priest and Ten Eyck 2003). Framing
biotechnology as "progress" was equally common in the elite press in Europe
and in the United States, for example, and on both sides of the Atlantic
support for medical applications consistently appeared stronger than
support for agricultural applications.
Differences in the relative degrees of trust invested in pro-biotechnology
(e.g., industrial, scientific-medical and agricultural) and dissenting
(e.g., environmentalist and consumer activist) voices appear to account for
some of the differences in opinion that do exist (Priest et al. 2003). But
it also appears that a substantial spiral of silence existed on the U.S.
side of the Atlantic divide, as evidenced by the widespread assumption that
the U.S. was homogeneously "pro-biotech" and possibly fueled in part by
subtle differences in the press coverage not fully captured in previous
content analysis research. As European journalism is characteristically
more opinionated and European political culture affords more credibility
and legitimacy to environmentalist voices, anti-biotechnology views on the
European side of the Atlantic may simply have been more visible at an
earlier stage, creating what we might think of as an "anti-spiral" in which
dissent was more widely apparent, not just more common. Of course, other
factors including cross-Atlantic differences in attitudes toward both food
and scientific expertise were likely implicated.
We propose that issues involving complex science and technology, such as
current developments in biotechnology, may constitute a special case for
spiral of silence theory. While "deficit model" thinking (Ziman 1992)
attributes dissent from mainstream opinion on such issues to poor
understanding of the science, this explanation is usually incomplete.
Social scientists have consistently argued that other factors are more
important than scientific or technical knowledge – whether risk perception
(Slovic et al. 1995), social amplification (Kasperson et al. 1996), or
differences in social trust and value orientation (Priest et al. 2003). In
this paper we argue that, in addition, other factors such as self-perceived
levels of understanding of the science itself and the framework of moral
reasoning that is applied to these science-related controversies, may also
be implicated.
For issues involving science, mainstream opinion may be interpreted by both
members of the so-called general public and journalists to mean expert
opinion; this form of legitimacy hierarchy is a dynamic that distinguishes
controversy involving science, technology and medicine from other forms of
public controversy (and may possibly vary from one national culture to
another, perhaps being stronger in the U.S. than in parts of Europe). Those
who do not perceive themselves as having a high level of scientific
understanding or who frame their moral reasoning in non-utilitarian terms
(i.e., those who do not analyze risks primarily in terms of their known
outcomes or effects but in terms of moral principles) may be intimidated
from expressing opinions that are different from their perception of
dominant expert opinion. This is a form of spiral of silence dynamic that
is distinctly different from the forms that have been described for
political issues. Certainly personality and demographic variables also
pertain; however, this analysis is concerned primarily with those factors
more specifically related to the nature of biotechnology as scientific and
technical in nature.
However, it is important to acknowledge that while, on the one hand, not
all silence indicates assent, not all silence indicates suppressed dissent
either. Some people are not interested in scientific or technological
questions, may not believe themselves competent to form opinions in this
area, or may not believe the consequences of these developments are
particularly important in their own lives. In other words, silence may
represent apathy; even where differences of opinion exist yet minority
opinion appears largely invisible, as is arguably the case in the U.S. for
biotechnology during the 1990s, a spiral of silence is not the only
available explanation. Conceptually, the existence of a spiral implies that
some force or reluctance (generally fear of social isolation) prevents
opinions from being expressed. It is therefore necessary to look at the
relevant opinion dynamics in terms of the ability of various factors to
predict an inclination to speak out, not simply in terms of a historical
dearth of speaking.
The present study builds on a survey series originally initiated by European,
Canadian and U.S. researchers coordinated through the London School of
Economics and working with Eurobarometer data in EU countries and roughly
comparable survey work in non-EU Europe, Canada, and the U.S.[4] In the
third wave of data collection taking place during fall of 2002-2003, a
limited number of standard questions related to spiral of silence were
added to the U.S. survey only. In addition, a single open-ended question
regarding the nature of moral reasoning in this area was also included.
Because we suspected that disparate constituencies might be concerned with
different applications (e.g., human cloning versus genetic modifications in
food, medical versus agricultural issues, genetic information versus
genetic manipulation, and so on), and because previous analysis had
nevertheless failed to indicate clearcut U.S. opinion differences according
to political affiliation or degree of religiosity, we hoped the moral
reasoning question might provide insight into how reactions might differ
among those for whom different moral logics proved salient.[5]
The following research questions are addressed in our analysis:
(1) As of 2002, did a spiral of silence exist in the general U.S.
population for biotechnology and its applications?
(2) If so, what opinion groups seemed most affected by this spiral? Were
spiral dynamics different among pro-biotech, anti-biotech and neutral
subgroups?
(3) How did self reports of knowledge of, interest in and understanding of
science appear to influence self reports of willingness to express opinions
in this area?
(4) Based on an open-ended question about the nature of moral reasoning in
this area, were any spiral effects more visible for those following some
lines of reasoning than others?
Did a spiral exist?
When does a spiral of silence exist, implying social dynamics that
actually induce suppression of dissent, and when does a lack of visible
dissent indicate only indifference or low salience? Moy et al. (2001), in
their analysis of spiral of silence dynamics for the issue of affirmative
action, tested whether perceptions of opinion among friends and family will
be more likely to influence willingness to speak out than perceptions of
opinion for society at large. Their reasoning here is consistent with the
original emphasis of spiral of silence theory on social ostracization.
Imagining oneself in a social situation, faced with the opportunity to
express an opinion (or not), the theory implies that a person would be more
concerned about social rejection from those to whom they are socially close
than with being rejected by an abstract general public. While the classic
scenario for spiral of silence research involved sitting next to a stranger
on a train, this is largely irrelevant to contemporary U.S. life for many
Americans. We therefore used a variant question adapted from that employed
by Moy et al., as follows:
Imagine that you're at some kind of social gathering where you don't know
anyone. You're talking to a group of people when someone brings up the
issue of biotechnology. How likely would you be to express your opinion in
a situation like this? Would you say that it is very likely, somewhat
likely, neither likely or not likely, or not at all likely that you would
express your opinion in a situation like this?
We also asked respondents the following two questions about their
perceptions of others' opinions:
Independent of how you personally feel about biotechnology, what percentage
of your close family and friends do you believe favors its use?
How about all U.S. citizens – what percentage do you believe is in favor?
The answers to these latter questions were reported in whole numbers
ranging from 1 to 100. The mean percentage of family and friends believed
to favor biotechnology's use was 48.0 (SD = 28.2). The mean percentage of
all U.S. citizens believed to favor biotechnology's use was 46.1 (SD =
18.1). While the difference between the two means is small, the difference
in the standard deviations is worth noting; there is more variance in
perceptions of family and friends' opinions than in perceptions of all
citizens' opinions. This is consistent with the assumption that data on all
citizens' opinions comes primarily from media sources, while data on family
and friends' opinions comes primarily from individualistic sources,
presumably interpersonal communication (i.e., direct contact).
Finally, our survey contained no global approval question; we therefore
constructed an index of biotechnology approval by summing answers to the
following question, asked separately for each of six applications tested
(i.e., using modern biotechnology in the production of foods, using genetic
testing to detect diseases, introducing human genes into animals to produce
organs for human transplants, taking genes from plant species and
transferring them into crops, cloning human cells or tissues to replace a
patient's diseased cells, and using genetically modified organisms in soaps
and detergents to make these products less damaging to the environment):
To what extent do you agree that this application is morally acceptable,
and to what extent do you agree that this application should be encouraged?[6]
Adoption of this index effectively reduced our sample size to 579, as we
were able to calculate such an index only for respondents who answered this
question for all six applications (no missing or "don't know" responses).
We were interested in testing the following hypotheses in this portion of
our analysis:
(a) People's willingness to speak out will be greater if they believe that
a majority of people share their opinion.
(b) This effect will be more pronounced when "people" are defined as "your
close family and friends" than when they are defined as "all U.S. citizens."
To test these hypotheses, we created an index of own-other incongruence by
using the index of biotechnology approval, which varied from a value of 6
to a value of 30, and the percentage estimates of others' opinions, which
varied from zero to 100 in each case. We converted values of all three
variables to standardized ("z") distribution scores to make them as
comparable as possible.
Finally, using the "z" scores for each of the three variables, we
constructed two new variables, with incongruence vis-à-vis family and
friends defined as the "z" score for family and friends perceived to be in
favor minus the "z" score for own encouragement, and incongruence vis-à-vis
all citizens defined as the "z" score for all citizens perceived to be in
favor minus the "z" score for own encouragement. Then, these differences
were converted to absolute values – according to our hypothesis, it would
not matter whether an individual were more "pro" or more "anti" than their
perceptions of others, only that they felt they were different. For
convenience, we refer to these differences as "incongruence with friends"
and "incongruence with citizens." The larger the value, the less the
congruence (greater arithmetic difference). We can now postulate that a
negative correlation would exist between these (absolute) incongruence
variables and willingness to speak out, and that this negative correlation
would be greater for incongruence with friends than for incongruence with
citizens.
Our results do show a statistically significant negative correlation
between incongruence with friends and willingness to speak out (-.093,
P=.038, N=504) but no significant correlation between incongruence with
citizens and willingness to speak out (.015, P=.737, N=502). This suggests
that a spiral could well exist by the criteria used by previous
researchers, although this correlation is certainly not a high one.
What opinion groups are more affected?
Common experience suggests that these spirals would not affect all
individuals equally. Those who hold strong opinions that they believe to be
well-founded might be willing to speak out regardless of others' opinions,
perhaps with less fear of consequences. Some of these individuals might
adopt a "crusader" role and seek to convert others to their point of view.
And here again, the dynamics could be different for a scientific or
technological issue than for other types of controversies; those who are
willing to speak out might more often be those who feel most comfortable
with their understanding of the technical material (see following section).
However, we can easily imagine these being either "pro" or "anti" voices.
Scientists convinced of the value of biotechnology, for example, certainly
might adopt a persuasive stance vis-à-vis others they believe could
disagree. But so might environmentalists or consumer advocates concerned
about biotechnology's perceived risks.
To further explore the relationship between opinion and spiral effects, we
divided the sample into quartiles on the basis of the biotechnology
encouragement index. We then calculated the mean willingness to speak out
(asked on a five point scale) for each of these groups when the projection
of friends in favor was 30% or less, 70% or more, or in between. As shown
in Table 1, those who see friends and family as disapproving are most
likely to speak out if they themselves disapprove, consistent with spiral
of silence theory. Interestingly, all the quartile groups are most likely
to speak out if they see their friends as approving. But those who see
their friends and family as approving and who are themselves in the lowest
approval quartile are an anomaly: they may constitute "crusaders" who feel
it is important to change others' opinions, and they are the most likely to
speak out of any group. With this small group (N=13) of those who are not
encouraging but see family and friends as generally encouraging are
removed, the correlation between willingness to speak and incongruity with
friends and family's opinions rises to -.126 (P=.005, N=491). Of course,
there may also be "crusaders" on the pro-biotechnology side.
[Table 1 here]
We then also carried out a parallel analysis using the quartile groups and
the projections of citizens' opinions (Table 2). Once again, all groups are
more willing to speak out if they project other citizens to be in favor of
biotechnology. Those in the low-approval quartile who see others as
approving are almost as likely to speak out as those in the high-approval
quartile who see others as approving, not inconsistent with results from
Table 1. This time, those in the least encouraging quartile who project
others to be low in approval are least likely to speak out; however, with a
relatively small N for this group (11) and generally low correlation
between congruence of opinion with all citizens and willingness to speak
out reported earlier, this observation has no clear explanation.
[Table 2 here]
This part of the analysis yielded intriguing clues but little solid
evidence of the nature of spiral dynamics for different opinion groups.
Results of exploratory regression analysis confirmed that whether friends
and family are seen as approving is a more powerful predictor of speaking
than any combination of own level of encouragement, whether all citizens
are seen as approving, or either of the two incongruence indexes calculated
above. The correlation between friends and family's encouragement of
biotechnology and own willingness to speak is .219 (P=.000, N=703) for all
respondents combined, regardless of congruence – a figure more impressive
than the level achieved above for the correlation with incongruence of
opinion.
Quite possibly, clearer results could be obtained by looking at the
dynamics of speaking out on particular applications of biotechnology;
however, our data set is not sufficient to support this kind of analysis,
so it must be left for a future project. Both encouragement levels for some
individual applications (with correlations ranging from .031 to .134) and
the global approval index (correlation .115, P=.006, N=579) do seem related
to our global measure of willingness to speak out, but none are not strong
predictors.
Perspectives on science and willingness to speak
Our third research question involved self-reported knowledge of, interest
in, and understanding of science as these might relate to spiral effects.
We observed a relationship between educational levels and willingness to
speak out (Table 3). This observation is consistent with our initial
speculation that those who feel less confident in their knowledge of the
scientific and technical aspects of biotechnology-related controversies may
be less willing to speak. In fact, the observation that those whose friends
and family are pro-biotechnology are also likely to express opinions may be
not be unrelated to education and knowledge levels.[7] We wanted to examine
this possibility further using other self-reported measures that appear
more directly related to perceptions of comfort with this type of subject.
Education levels would not be expected to fully predict concern or comfort
with science. The questions analyzed here are as follows:
I am interested in science and technology. Would you say that is most of
the time, some of the time, or hardly any of the time?
I feel well informed about science and technology. Would you say that is
most of the time, some of the time, or hardly any of the time?
I understand science stories in the news. Would you say that is most of the
time, some of the time, or hardly any of the time?
[Table 3 here]
Analysis of variance reveals that all three of these items make
independent contributions to willingness to speak, as do the interactions
among them, although the combined R-squared for the model is still only
.120 (adjusted = .093). Feeling well informed is the most significant
predictor and the only one achieving independent statistical significance
(Table 4). Adding projections of friends/family and all citizens' opinions
and the incongruence variable for each group as covariates improved the
model only slightly (R-squared .129, adjusted .087), with projections of
friends/family opinion having the only independently significant effect
(P=.001).
[Table 4 here]
It makes intuitive sense that people in our society are more willing to
speak out on a scientific issue when they are more confident of their
understanding of the science. However, biotechnology is not seen as only a
scientific issue, and it is often seen as an area in which the science is
uncertain. We next explore different ways of thinking about the morality of
biotechnology and their possible impact on spiral dynamics.
Moral frameworks and willingness to speak
The single open-ended question on the 2003 survey, inspired by the
observation that morality and encouragement appeared closely linked in
previous research but little information was available on what respondents
might mean by morality, was this one:
When thinking about the morality of these issues [after presenting the six
applications], what comes to mind?
While we had no theoretically driven reason to suppose that some forms of
moral reasoning would be more salient than others to our analysis or that
moral reasoning could even predict willingness to speak, given the weakness
of the other predictors we studied but strong suggestions that spiral of
silence effects might be important for at least some subgroups, we decided
to explore this possibility.
We began by coding the answers to this question, using a grounded theory
procedure, into 27 argument types and then collapsing these 27 categories
into 11 others, including a catch-all "don't know, no answer, other"
category. Grounded theory analysis (Glaser and Strauss 1967) is a
systematic method for inductively deriving analytical categories for use
with qualitative data. The willingness to speak means for each category we
derived are listed in Table 5 from highest to lowest. Those who equate
science with progress are the most willing to speak out, but those who
associate biotechnology's morality with health issues or misuse (or who see
it more generally as a matter of ongoing debate) are also willing. Those
who think of environment or nature, including animal welfare, along with
those who make explicit religious references, are among the least likely to
speak out. Those who associate biotechnology with cloning are the least
likely of all, quite possibly because this heavily publicized issue could
be the first association for many who do not have fully formed opinions.
[Table 5 here]
It is especially interesting that both religious and environmentalist
voices – voices that in U.S. culture often adopt similar rhetoric regarding
the inherent wrongness of altering the natural or God-given order – tend to
be quieted, especially in comparison to voices that make explicit reference
to science or to its use and effects, bad or good. Voices that raise
particular issue-specific concerns or that acknowledge the existence of
conflicting arguments or both risks and benefits are all somewhere in the
middle. These data are consistent with our other findings, that there is
some evidence of a spiral but also suggestions that explanations in terms
of social ostracism are not entirely adequate and that those who feel
especially well informed about science are more willing to speak out on
these science-related issues. (Note that this does not always mean they are
more positive about biotechnology.) While these results are based on
essentially qualitative, subjectively assigned categories based on
open-ended responses and would be difficult to incorporate into a
quantitative model, they are an intriguing form of triangulation that tends
to confirm some of the conclusions based more heavily on the measurement
data. The implication is that not all voices or forms of reasoning have
equal weight in this debate. Further, as Noelle-Neumann speculated that
spirals especially characterize those issues with a moral dimension, the
results suggest a fertile direction for further research.
Discussion
This analysis has illustrated that spiral of silence dynamics for
scientific issues may be more complex than has been fully appreciated. The
social power of scientific rhetoric in U.S. culture undoubtedly gives
special weight to those arguing from a scientific point of view and a sense
of confidence to those who feel they understand the science. Conversely,
those who frame their arguments in terms of the inherent wrongness (or
foolishness) of altering the biological world – that is, voices whose moral
reasoning is framed in non-utilitarian terms, whether religious or
environmentalist – may be less outspoken. These dynamics, along with
university and industry domination of news accounts in the early years,
help explain why dissent over biotechnology in the U.S. appeared to be
lower – and more different from levels of dissent in much of Europe – than
it actually was. It may also explain why U.S. levels of dissent are in fact
lower than in Europe, though they are not so much different as was at first
thought. Spiral of silence theory does not claim to predict opinion change,
but it is still reasonable to assume that those who are never exposed to
counterarguments or the existence of controversy will not be likely to form
strong opinions in opposition to a technological development, especially in
a culture that is generally pro-science and pro-technology. Quite simply
put, we may not think to question it.
The biotechnology debates represent significant challenges for
contemporary democracies. They perfectly illustrate the tension between
pure populism (which may result in policies that elite opinion, including
scientific opinion, may reject) and a more authoritarian approach (which
disempowers voices that dissent on grounds that are other than scientific
or utilitarian). The science literacy movement (see, e.g., Gregory and
Miller, 1998) tries to resolve this dilemma by better educating the public
about science, but to the extent arguments are based on scientific
uncertainties or more purely moral positions this approach will fail to
resolve the differences. Experiments with consensus conferences, "citizen
jury" formats, or other public forums that combine information
dissemination with debate are also attempts to reconcile populist sentiment
with expert opinion. In the end these are unsolved problems.
If the public rejects some genetically modified species, whether on the
basis of "sound science" or not, it may be that little harm is done (other
than to investors); it certainly may not hurt, in many cases, to lean
toward the side of caution. But where a clear benefit (medical or
agricultural) is believed to exist, it will be more difficult for the
scientific community to cede the decision to other hands. Is it wrong to
oppose a technology that might help save lives? Conversely, is it wrong to
argue on humanitarian grounds on behalf of technologies for which the
benefits and risks are less than certain? To underscore the existence of
(partially invisible) dissent where dissent was believed not to exist is
not to argue that the dissenters are necessarily correct. The suppression
of dissent has, however, utilitarian consequences of its own, both for the
general health of democratic governments and for the ultimate willingness
of publics to accept other new technologies in future.
Fortunately, it is not the purpose of this paper to resolve these
difficult issues, but to illustrate how spiral of silence theory can be
broadened to help explain the dynamics of scientific and technical
controversies involving a mix of scientific and non-scientific, utilitarian
and non-utilitarian, argumentation. Our evidence suggests that arguments
based on consequentialist reasoning (whether supportive, in the case of
equating science with progress, or critical, in the case of considering
health effects) is culturally privileged over arguments based on moral
absolutes (whether traditional, in the case of religious argumentation, or
contemporary, in the case of environmentalist argumentation). In addition,
those who feel competent to argue in scientific terms – that is, those who
feel they are informed about science and understand science news stories –
also feel more free to speak out on the issues. Whether this is problematic
or socially beneficial depends on one's position with respect to how such
decisions should be made – a matter of democratic theory. In a
multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society in which
instrumentalist thinking based on scientific rationality is often used as
an arbiter of social truth, however, it is useful to be reminded that this
is a form of social order that comes at a price, the repression of
non-utilitarian points of view.
We need to stress that the data presented here are not intended to "prove"
repression and are not adequate to do so. But they do help to illustrate
the challenges of engaging in "democratic" debate on "scientific" issues.
Issues of biotechnology policy are different from purely scientific issues
in that they are not really about scientific truth or falsehood (unlike,
say, the evolution-creation debate, arguments over the predictive power of
astrology, debate over the existence of global warming, or differences of
opinion over whether childhood vaccinations do more good than harm, which
are all cases in which there is a clearly defined scientific or medical
position from which dissenters depart). Rather, the issues involve the
application of science by a variety of actors pursuing particular goals and
under conditions of uncertainty. Dissent here is as much about how such
decisions should be made and which values should guide it as it is about
scientific truth or falsehood narrowly construed.
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Table 1. Willingness to speak out (mean on five point scale from less to
more likely) for each of four quartile encouragement index groups (ranging
from least to most encouraging) as a function of projected opinions of
friends and family.
________________________________________________________________________
Quartile Willingess to Speak if Friends/Family Projected at . . .
Group 30% approval or less Intermediate 70% approval or more
Least "pro" 3.73 3.92 4.54
Group 2 3.64 3.70 4.23
Group 3 3.62 3.89 4.12
Most "pro" 3.47 4.00 4.41
Total N 153 180 171
________________________________________________________________________
Table 2. Willingness to speak out (mean on five point scale from less to
more likely) for each of four quartile encouragement index groups (ranging
from least to most encouraging) as a function of projected opinions of all
U.S. citizens.
________________________________________________________________________
Quartile Willingess to Speak if All Citizens Projected at . . .
Group 30% approval or less Intermediate 70% approval or more
Least "pro" 3.55 3.92 4.36
Group 2 3.81 3.77 3.95
Group 3 3.80 3.93 4.38
Most "pro" 3.71 4.30 4.43
Total N 120 322 60
________________________________________________________________________
Table 3. Highest level of schooling and willingness to speak out (reported
on a five-point scale) for biotechnology issues ("no answer" excluded).
__________________________________________________________________
Highest level reported Mean willingness to speak N
Elementary/middle or less 2.50 2
Some high school 3.42 36
High school graduate 3.77 144
Vocational/technical college 3.81 86
Some university 4.00 208
Graduated from university 3.95 294
Postgraduate 4.16 79
__________________________________________________________________
Table 4. Analysis of variance results for self-reported interest in
science and technology, feeling well informed about science and technology,
and understanding science stories in the news as predictors of willingness
to speak out on biotechnology issues.
_______________________________________________________________________
Variable F value Significance
Main Effects:
Interest 2.213 .110
Being informed 5.000 .007
Understanding 1.764 .172
Interactions:
Interest X being informed 1.610 .170
Interest X understanding 0.116 .977
Being informed X understanding 2.076 .082
Three-way interaction 1.654 .117
Complete model R-squared = .120; adjusted R-squared = .093
_______________________________________________________________________
Table 5. Willingness to speak (five-point mean) for various moral
frameworks or associations articulated in response to open-ended question.
____________________________________________________________________
Category description Willingness N
Science as progress 4.42 19
Health issues 4.11 19
Matter of debate, choice, or uncertainty 4.08 132
Misuse of technology 4.05 37
Moral debate, other/unspecified 4.02 56
Specific medical-genetic applications 3.95 20
Risk/benefit arguments 3.89 126
No answer/don't know/other 3.85 112
Environment/nature 3.84 44
Religious references 3.83 115
Cloning, human or animal 3.76 108
_____________________________________________________________________
[1] Senior author to whom correspondence should be addressed, c/or the
address above or via email at [log in to unmask]
[2] Naturally, there is a powerful argument to be made that U.S. public
communication on this sequence of events was highly constrained during this
period; however, it is also reasonable to assert that this represents a
particular set of dynamics in that, in the normal course of events, public
communication in the U.S. is relatively unconstrained on most issues in
comparison to public communication in more fully authoritarian or
totalitarian societies (that is, in comparison to, say, Germany during
World War II or China during the Cultural Revolution).
[3] The figure is likely to be lower if the more generic (and arguably
less controversial) term "biotechnology" is used rather than "genetic
engineering."
[4] Professor George Gaskell is the coordinator of this project. The U.S.
component was funded by Texas A&M University and by the Ethics and Values
Studies program of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
[5] Due to space and funding limitations, the other cooperating countries
did not include these questions; all data in this paper refer to U.S.
results and dynamics only, based on a 2003 nationwide survey of 855 adult
respondents conducted by the Louisiana Population Data Center.
[6] The form of this compound question is regrettable; two different
questions have been collapsed into one, apparently due to error. However,
analysis of previous surveys in the series suggested that moral
acceptability and encouragement are highly correlated, so we nevertheless
felt comfortable using this question to construct our encouragement index.
Results were reported on five-point scales (although "neutral" or "neither"
was not offered as a choice in the initial reading, it was coded if offered
by respondents) and summed to produce a 30-point index of encouragement for
each respondent. Respondents who had no opinion about any application were
excluded.
[7] We do not have a specific question on the survey that pertains to
science education or to respondent profession; however, it appears that
general education level does improve the likelihood that friends and family
are seen as encouraging biotechnology, although the relationship may not be
linear.
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