Epistemic Uncertainty on the Current Health Crisis

When a pandemic reaches global dimensions, communication, truthfulness, and the agility with which data is shared become critical. In previous articles, we have discussed the danger of fake news and false information during the development of a health crisis. However, even if all the information is correct, expeditious, and clear, there is another problem in the cognitive and social area that complicates how we process these types of situations: epistemic uncertainty.

The term ‘epistemic uncertainty’ refers to that margin of error in scientific data or figures, a consequence of a lack of knowledge in the process model. This degree of inaccuracy is common when it comes to translating into numbers the progression of a virus that we had not faced before, whose patterns of progress cannot be easily predicted by numbers, percentages, statistics, or data that project certainty.

What are the effects of epistemic uncertainty?

Science and uncertainty go hand in hand. Any academician could explain without a problem that no matter what discipline is studied, uncertainty is an everyday companion on the path to knowledge and the collection of factual data. It could be said that uncertainty played a vital role in the development of the scientific method, designed for work based on the hypothesis, something that we believe but about which we do not have evidence, to arrive at a fact-checking and factual knowledge.

Ideally, it is through verification and factual knowledge that the scientific community and leaders from various spheres gain the trust of the public to whom they respond. Nevertheless, it gets complicated when it is not possible to produce factual knowledge at the same rate that people become contagious, suffer from the disease, and, in extreme cases, die. As a result, scientists, journalists, and public servants have become reluctant to provide information involving entering areas of epistemic uncertainty, something complicated to avoid when one is trying to report on the advance of a new epidemic.

Does transparency help?

Faced with a landscape that seemed to denote a fed-up public who lacked confidence towards experts, scientists at the Winton Center of Risks and Communication of Evidence at the University of Cambridge conducted a study to analyze the effects of communicating truths about epistemic uncertainty and their correlation with the trust of the public who receive these communications.

The researchers tested the public’s reaction to qualitative data, using terms such as “estimated that” or “approximately,” in addition to quantitatively presented data, in which the communicators focused on numbers, percentages, and numerical ranges. The reactions were very favorable to communications based on data and to the communicators when they tried to be accurate and honest.

Generating trust is not achieved based on the projection of infallibility, but rather honesty. In most cases, communicating half-truths or limiting information can be counterproductive, as this harms the perceived veracity of the information shared by a communicator, whether he or she is a political leader, scientist, or journalist.

There is a broad spectrum of things that we do not know and cannot accurately predict during a pandemic like this. However, this should not stop or scare the people responsible for sharing information; they must continue doing it to maintain a high level of trust among those who are in charge of the strategies to manage the health crisis and the general public.

“As a public, we should expect that scientific perspectives on the nature of the virus and how to combat it will change as more evidence is discovered, and we should be prepared to change our behavior accordingly.”

Trust is crucial, not only to maintain the credibility of those who communicate but also to bring peace of mind to those who receive information and maintain social order in communities, states, and countries affected by the pandemic. Just as this communication is necessary despite the epistemic uncertainty, this fragile balance between announcers of information and receivers depends on the flexibility of the public to adapt to new data and to understand the limits of uncertainty while receiving more information.

“As a public, we should expect that scientific perspectives on the nature of the virus and how to combat it will change as more evidence is discovered, and we should be prepared to change our behavior accordingly,” explains Lorraine Daston, a science historian at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Uncertainty during a pandemic is impossible to avoid, but this is not something intrinsically harmful, as long as it is considered that this opens a path to adaptability, analyses, critical thinking, practicality, and calm, not just to the possibility of fear or social disorder.

Sofía García-Bullé

Share

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0