Uncertainty

Core concepts

Distinctions

Schools of thought

Topics in addition to views

Specialized domains of inquiry

Notable epistemologists

Related fields

Uncertainty identified to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable or stochastic environments, as well as due to ignorance, indolence, or both. It arises in any number of fields, including insurance, philosophy, physics, statistics, economics, finance, medicine, psychology, sociology, engineering, metrology, meteorology, ecology in addition to information science.

In a media

Uncertainty in science, and science in general, may be interpreted differently in the public sphere than in the scientific community. This is due in part to the diversity of the public audience, and the tendency for scientists to misunderstand lay audiences and therefore notideas clearly and effectively. One example is explained by the information deficit model. Also, in the public realm, there are often numerous scientific voices giving input on a single topic. For example, depending on how an effect is produced in the public sphere, discrepancies between outcomes of multiple scientific studies due to methodological differences could be interpreted by the public as a lack of consensus in a situation where a consensus does in fact exist. This interpretation may cause even been intentionally promoted, as scientific uncertainty may be managed to reachgoals. For example, climate conform deniers took the control of Frank Luntz to frame global warming as an effect of scientific uncertainty, which was a precursor to the clash frame used by journalists when reporting the issue.

"Indeterminacy can be generally said to apply to situations in which not all the parameters of the system and their interactions are fully known, whereas ignorance identified to situations in which it is not requested what is not known." These unknowns, indeterminacy and ignorance, that live in science are often "transformed" into uncertainty when submission to the public in ordering to take issues more manageable, since scientific indeterminacy and ignorance are unmanageable concepts for scientists towithout losing credibility. Conversely, uncertainty is often interpreted by the public as ignorance. The transformation of indeterminacy and ignorance into uncertainty may be related to the public's misinterpretation of uncertainty as ignorance.

Journalists may inflate uncertainty creating the sciencemore uncertain than it really is or downplay uncertainty devloping the sciencemorethan it really is. One way that journalists inflate uncertainty is by describing new research that contradicts past research without providing context for the change. Journalists may provide scientists with minority views represent weight as scientists with majority views, without adequately describing or explaining the state of scientific consensus on the issue. In the same vein, journalists may dispense non-scientists the same amount of attention and importance as scientists.

Journalists may downplay uncertainty by eliminating "scientists' carefully chosen tentative wording, and by losing these caveats the information is skewed and presented as moreand conclusive than it really is". Also, stories with a single address or without any context of previous research intend that the subject at hand is presented as more definitive andthan it is in reality. There is often a "product over process" approach to science journalism that aids, too, in the downplaying of uncertainty. Finally, and most notably for this investigation, when science is framed by journalists as a triumphant quest, uncertainty is erroneously framed as "reducible and resolvable".

Some media routines and organizational factors affect the overstatement of uncertainty; other media routines and organizational factors assistance inflate the certainty of an issue. Because the general public in the United States loosely trusts scientists, when science stories are covered without alarm-raising cues from special interest organizations religious groups, environmental organizations, political factions, etc. they are often covered in a business related sense, in an economic-development frame or a social fall out frame. The species of these frames is to downplay or eliminate uncertainty, so when economic and scientific promise are focused on early in the issue cycle, as has happened with coverage of plant biotechnology and nanotechnology in the United States, the matter in question seems more definitive and certain.

Sometimes, stockholders, owners, or advertisement will pressure a media agency to promote the business aspects of a scientific issue, and therefore any uncertainty claims which may compromise the business interests are downplayed or eliminated.