We are a small team of scientists and textbook authors who are dismayed by the explosion in misinformation and the erosion of the public’s trust in science.
We wrote an essay — Why Trust Science? — to explain how the scientific community produces reliable knowledge and to offer guidance on how we can all enhance our ability to evaluate scientific claims and separate science fact from science fiction.
We hope that the essay, and this website, may serve as a guide to help educators—and all others interested in science—to foster discussion and deliberation about what makes science trustworthy.
Bruce Alberts is the Chancellor’s Leadership Chair in Biochemistry and Biophysics for Science and Education, Emeritus, University of California, San Francisco. He was the editor-in-chief of Science magazine from 2008–2013, and served as President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005.
Karen Hopkin received her PhD in biochemistry from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a science writer. She is co-author of the textbook Essential Cell Biology and a contributor to Scientific American’s daily podcast, Science, Quickly.
Keith Roberts received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia. He is a co-author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell.
See here for the longer, cell-biology focused original version of our article in a college science textbook >>