The first part of this episode is available to all listeners. To hear the whole thing, become a paid subscriber here.
Jessica Steier of The Unbiased Science Podcast joins us to discuss the need for empathy and bridge-building in science communication, why she’s critical of restrictive diets and other wellness trends while holding space for their proponents to evolve (and why she’s faced backlash for that), tribalism in the science community, our differing views on weight and why she’s open to learning about the weight-inclusive approach, and more.
Dr. Jessica Steier is an empathetic, passionate, and quirky public health scientist with expertise in chronic and infectious disease prevention. She hosts The Unbiased Science Podcast, which is devoted to objective, critical appraisal of available evidence on science and health-related topics relevant to listeners’ daily lives.
Dr. Steier has expertise in public health policy, research and evaluation design, biostatistics, and advanced analytics. She believes strongly in scientific education and health literacy, and the translation of research for the general public in a way that maximizes people’s ability to make informed and evidence-based decisions.
The goal of The Unbiased Science Podcast is to dispel misinformation and misconceptions across an array of science and public health topics (e.g., vaccines, GMOs, fad diets, supplements). With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the podcast initially dedicated most episodes to distilling the latest research about the ongoing pandemic in real time as the evidence unfolded. But the podcast has evolved over time and now tackles a variety of issues. Learn more about the podcast at unbiasedscipod.com.
Resources and References
Contains affiliate links to Amazon and Bookshop.org, where I earn a small commission for any purchases made.
Christy’s second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being
Subscribe on Substack for extended interviews and more
Jess’s piece about bridge building
Jess’s episode with Sarah Ballantyne
Our episode with Amanda Montell discussing additive solutions bias
Our episode with Eliza Wheeler on chronic Lyme / chronic illness
William Brady’s research on moral outrage
Christy’s online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals
Transcript
Disclaimer: The below transcription is primarily rendered by AI, so errors may have occurred. The original audio file is available above.
Christy Harrison: So, Jess, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk with you.
Jessica Steier: Thank you so much for having me, Christy. Excited to be here.
Christy Harrison: So you're a science communicator focused on addressing health and wellness misinformation. And you bring a lot of empathy and compassion into your work, which I really appreciate. And I wanna talk about how you got into doing that and specifically doing that work from that lens. But first, I'd love to know a bit about your personal history with wellness culture and whether you were ever into any of the things that you critique now, like alternative medicine, supplements, fad diets, or any of that stuff.
Jessica Steier: Yeah, that's a great question. I myself, personally, have never been too steeped in the wellness culture, although I do have many friends and family members who are so I've sort of seen that play out firsthand. But I will say, I'm someone who has taken some supplements over the years. This was based on a recommendation from a dear family member who I know had good intentions and we could talk more about this way of thinking, but who had encouraged me to get some elderberry vitamin gummies. I have taken multivitamins and supplements, and now I'm a lot better versed with the latest and greatest evidence or data, I should say, on supplements. And I'm not convinced by the studies that are out there on them.
But I will say, I just recorded an episode with world renowned chemist doctor Joe Schwarcz. He's based in Canada. And we were both saying, as scientists, we know there's not a whole lot of evidence that vitamin C or zinc, there's some evidence, but it's mixed. It's not super strong, super compelling, even less so for vitamin C than zinc. But occasionally, we might reach for it if we feel a tickle in our throat, because we know that it's unlikely to cause harm. And even though there's not a whole lot of scientific evidence of benefit, it's just something that we sometimes do. And I think it's important to sort of be honest about those things and understand why some people might gravitate towards them, especially based on all the information we're consuming on social media.
Christy Harrison: Totally. That's so helpful to hear, as well. I heard that episode, and I really appreciated that you both shared that, that there are these contradictions in how we approach things. And even science communicators who are very versed in the science will still be like, yeah, sometimes I do this, and maybe it's a placebo effect, or maybe it just feels like, well, what harm could it do? And maybe it has some benefit. There's a little bit of science on zinc, so maybe. Even though who knows what the actual quality of that data is, it just feels like you're doing something.
I talked to someone else, Amanda Montell, who wrote a book recently called The Age of Magical Overthinking. And in it, she addresses all these different cognitive biases we have and how they make us vulnerable to scams and misinformation and all of that. And one of them she talks about is the additive solutions bias, which is so fascinating, this idea that people think that adding something or doing something is going to be helpful, even though in some cases, subtracting or doing nothing is actually the most helpful. And I think about that a lot when I think about supplements, it just feels like this additive solutions bias that we're all sort of subject to, even those of us who really know the evidence.
Jessica Steier: I've never heard that phrase, but that's so spot on. And I've sort of discussed it in the context of control. I think we all want to feel like we're doing something, contributing in some meaningful way to the quantity and quality of our lives. And it's interesting, my husband's an ER doc and he says people will show up to the ER, and even if they're diagnosed with a viral illness or expected viral infection, non-bacterial infection, they still want to walk away with a script for antibiotics, even though, I know we all know this and have said till we're blue in the face that antibiotics do nothing for viral infections, and then you're concerned about things like antibiotic, antimicrobial resistance and all kinds of problems due to the over prescription of antibiotics.
But for sure, this is idea that we have to do something. There has to be some intervention where we're not so good at sitting and waiting and letting our immune system kind of do its thing. That inaction causes a lot of anxiety and stress for many of us.
Christy Harrison: Curious about your background as a public health scientist and how that relates to your work now doing science communication.
Jessica Steier: Yeah. So my background, I have a doctorate in public health with a concentration in health policy. But all my training has really been focused on data science. So using data to evaluate the impact of different programs and policies and interventions on different health outcomes. So has quality of care improved quality of life? Have we reduced the number of hospital visits or ER visits? Have we brought down costs of care? Things like that. So using data, or, as we like to say, turning data into meaningful information. Did this thing that we did, this intervention, did it achieve what it intended to?
So that's what I was doing up until just about, well, March of 2020, which I know we all know what happened around then. The whole world basically stopped. And people had a lot of questions about the pandemic and what everything they were reading and the headlines meant all these pre-prints were coming out and being taken out of context. And people with no scientific background, they were taking these pre-prints or very preliminary studies or early data and just putting it out there into the universe. And it sort of changed the way that the public consumes health and science information.
Like most of the time prior to March of 2020, those types of studies were really exclusive to the scientific community and behind this peer review curtain. And I think Covid really changed all that. So, anyway, people were asking a lot of questions, and that's really how Unbiased Science was born. It started out as a weekly podcast that I thought only my mom and her friends would listen to, but it's turned into a lot more. Also have a large social media presence where we share daily infographics, and it's all about helping people make sense of complex scientific and health related concepts, making information more accessible, improving science and health literacy.
And just on a personal note, I got into public health because I watched my father really struggle for over a decade with COPD advanced emphysema as a result of a lifetime of heavy smoking. And so I was attracted to the field of public health. I worked in tobacco policy for years, really inspired by him and his struggles, wanting to help people quit smoking or prevent people from picking up their first cigarette. And that was sort of my foray into public health. And I'm sure we'll talk about this, but I've sort of only recently felt that I've come into my own as a science communicator. And my style and approach has really changed over time. And I've really started leaning into understanding, looking through the lens of my father, who he didn't have any higher education. We're not entirely certain he actually graduated from high school. He was a self proclaimed street kid from South Brooklyn. He never picked up a book. He didn't know the first thing about science or health.
And I remember seeing his face when he received that diagnosis and watched him sort of navigate all of this health and science and medical information. And I try to ground myself or remind myself that we all just want the best for ourselves, for our loved ones. We're juggling a ton of information being hurled at us. We're just trying to do our best. And so rather than judging people for maybe falling prey to misinformation for a variety of reasons, maybe just hearing them out, understanding where they're coming from and sharing some good information with them, and hopefully challenging some of their preconceived notions. So that was a long winded answer.
Christy Harrison: No, that's really helpful. And I think it leads in well to what I want to talk about most today, which is focusing on that sort of style of communication and evolving our approaches to science communication. I was really interested to talk to you because I've been listening to your podcast for a while, and I really like the work you do, and I think we have a lot of crossover in terms of the fad diet stuff and some of the other nutrition and supplement stuff that we cover.
But I think I was pushed over the edge to talk to you and reach out and take you off my long list of people to reach out to and have you actually, as a guest when you wrote this great piece recently about the need for bridge building and science communication and empathy, rather than approaching it in polarizing ways. And I've had some similar revelations in my work and have spoken on this podcast and to my audience here about the ways in which I feel like I was pushed to be more strident and black and white and less nuanced in my framing of critiques of diet culture and wellness culture than I would like to be. And I think I am a very compassionate person by nature and sort of a nuanced thinker by nature. But I think I was pushed into this very extreme sort of way of not totally extreme, because I don't think I ever went so far, but I think further than that really makes sense to me. And it really is in line with my values in terms of my stridency and my sort of hard hitting ness or removing nuance words and feeling like I needed to really be crystal clear and punchy and sort of removed some of the language that actually could make a nicer sort of less polarizing discourse, I guess.
And you and I have some different perspectives on weight science, which I'd love to talk about later, but I think we're doing a lot of similar work overall, and I really appreciate your perspective on the importance of bridging divides. So I think to start this part of the conversation, I'd love to hear how your work in science communication has evolved over time and what led you to the awareness that you wanted to be a bridge builder in this way.
Jessica Steier: I think similar to you and how you just described yourself, I'm sort of naturally a very empathetic and compassionate person. But I'd say during the height of COVID, and when I say during COVID of course, I'm talking about the height of the pandemic, we really had the attention of the public. We had a captive audience as science communicators. And it was sort of this weird silver lining was that it shined a light on public health and on science in general. But I think that as we've come out of that acute stage of the pandemic, we've lost that audience and a lot of us are frustrated. We feel like we're fighting to keep the attention of people.
And sometimes it's easy to sort of fall back on what's comfortable and speak to those who are already accepting of science. I don't know how else to say this. It's like the low hanging fruit. Those people are easy. It's easy to rally the troops and sort of put out information that you know is going to be very well received by the scientific community. And I know we're not recording video, but it's like a battle cry. You're rallying the troops. It's harder, though, to reach those who are skeptical.
It's downright impossible to reach certain groups who have certain strongly held political beliefs or cultural identities or have been steeped in the wellness world or have this belief that natural is inherently better. So many people do the, quote unquote, crunchy, what is it? Granola. And it's kind of easy to get frustrated with those people because you want to shake them and, "Can't you see there's no evidence for X, Y, or Z!" That is just simply not effective. So I started taking a step back and realizing, this is great. And for a while, it was really incredibly effective. But once the dust of COVID and the height of the pandemic kind of settled, it was turning into a little bit of an echo chamber.
And I found myself only speaking to the people who already were like minded. And really, my main goal with all of this is to help educate and improve science literacy among those people who need it most. There was a great piece, and I'm struggling to think where it was published and who authored it. But I reshared it just yesterday on Threads about how combating misinformation is about so much more than just fact checking. That ain't gonna cut it. Because first you have to connect. First of all, you have to have access to those communities who already, it's so difficult to get their trust, to earn their trust, because they think that we're all kind of brainwashed by the medical and scientific establishment. They automatically assume that we have ties to industry or we're getting paid to say things.
We have to figure out better ways to access those communities. And I think a good way to do that, if not directly, is through bridge building with people who do have access to those communities. And Christy, I love that you just said, it would be hard pressed to find a person with whom I agree 100% of the time on all issues. And you and I, it sounds like while we do agree on many things, there might be certain things that we hold different beliefs or understandings, and I'm happy to talk through those. There's not going to be anyone who matches 100%. And this idea that we should shut out people because they hold different beliefs, that is something I strongly push back against.
And I want to make the differentiation, or the distinction, I should say, between people who are intentionally putting out disinformation. And there are peddlers of disinformation who are grifters, who they know that they're putting out bad information, they're just doing it to make a buck. But I'd say the majority of people putting out misinformation, they actually believe that what they're putting out is accurate. I don't think it's intentional. And I think we have to do a better job of meeting those people with empathy, having conversations with those people, and not taking this top down, ivory tower approach of you're wrong, and this is why you're wrong. We have to build those bridges and have those conversations without judgment.
Christy Harrison: Yeah. What does that look like for you in practice? How do you feel like that's changed your approach?
Jessica Steier: Yeah. So just recently, I was a guest on a podcast. It's a wellness podcast. And I don't know if they'd label themselves as a wellness podcast. They might. I honestly, I don't know. But the founders, the hosts, they're talking to a community of people who take supplements and are very likely to purchase organic produce versus conventional, or seek out naturopaths or homeopathy and chiropractors and stuff like that. And I was a little nervous at first to go on the podcast because I didn't know. Is this going to be a gotcha moment? Are they going to kind of attack me because I'm one person? And actually, this was a panel of three or four people, and then, of course, you have a larger audience of people actually tuning in.
But it was honestly one of the most rewarding conversations I ever had because they did not. This was not a gotcha moment. They did not gang up on me. We were listening to each other, and it was a very honest conversation. And I walked away feeling like it was probably one of the more impactful podcast interviews I've ever done, because I'm speaking to an audience of people that was challenged by what I was saying. And the hosts were so welcoming and allowed me to share the evidence, and I pat myself on my back. At no point did I say you're foolish to believe this or anything like that.
I acknowledged that there are many shortcomings of our healthcare system, for example, and people wait a long time to get in with a physician, and then when you do, it's a quick, rushed appointment just because of the way that our healthcare system is set up. Not typically the provider's fault. It's just we have a system that is rewarding the number of patients seen and this and that. So I get why people are frustrated with conventional medicine and with our healthcare system and why they seek out those alternatives. So by acknowledging and recognizing people's experiences, especially people who have chronic issues or in chronic pain, they're the most vulnerable to misinformation. So, anyway, sorry, I'm going off on a tangent here, but I think, you know, going on that podcast was a big deal for me. I actually was welcomed back. I just did a live Q and A with them again in their audience, and it was great.
I did have a couple of people right off the bat say, oh, do you have ties to the food industry? Because I was talking about things like, no aspartame. There's no data that aspartame causes cancer in humans at the levels to which we're exposed and all these other things, and I addressed that. I said, no, I do not. So there's that. I also recently, and I'm happy to talk more about this, but I partnered with doctor Sarah Ballantyne, who is previously known as the Paleo Mom. I brought her up. We discussed her on a podcast episode. It must have been from a year or two ago at this point, actually criticizing her for her stance on the AIP, the autoimmune protocol diet, was quite critical of that diet and other diet restrictive diets like that.
So I was critical of Sarah. But Sarah has done a complete 180 and has admitted that she was unknowingly spreading misinformation and has apologized for her missteps and completely rebranded herself and now puts out really good evidence based information, a very positive and inclusive approach to nutrition, which I think is really great and very different from what she was previously involved with. And so we partnered on a post, and I actually just had her on the podcast. The episode aired today. Today's Wednesday, May 8, that we're recording, and I'm happy to talk more about that.
But it was a really raw and honest conversation about her journey. And we were talking about how obviously she did get a ton of pushback from her previous community in the audience that she had cultivated when she was in this wellness culture and promoting this non evidence based diet. But many of those people have stuck around and continue to follow her, and now they're exposed to her really good information. And so I don't know, more of this. More communication with people who are maybe outside the, quote unquote, science community, who are in this wellness and other sort of science skeptics communities and having those conversations. I think that's how we can put this bridge building into practice.
Christy Harrison: Yeah. I am also really interested in people who've made a shift and come out of something. For my book, The Wellness Trap, I interviewed some people who were former anti-vaxxers who now have embraced vaccines and sort of talked about their journey in that way. I talked to people also who had been devotees of different wellness culture protocols and practices and stuff. People who were on autoimmune protocols, or people who were taking all kinds of supplements, or who thought they had toxic mold, thought they had adrenal fatigue or leaky gut, chronic Lyme.
I had a whole section that was going to be a whole chapter on chronic Lyme that ended up cutting because that science is so tricky, and talking about it in a way that's empathetic and compassionate and sort of honors the messiness of the evolving nature of that evidence, because now, with the data we have on long Covid, I feel like people are starting to look at post treatment Lyme disease syndrome in a new way. But then there's also all the totally wacky stuff and people being preyed upon by probably disinformationists in some cases, and also just people spreading, spreading misinformation about the existence of so called chronic Lyme and being put on ridiculous antibiotic protocols and all that.
Anyway, I ended up not using that part, but I interviewed someone who I think did a really great job of speaking to those nuances and who was diagnosed with chronic Lyme, but questions it, but does have some sort of chronic illness that she's still figuring out. And the way that that was also tangled up for her with disordered eating, which I think is the case for a lot of people, that was a really interesting conversation. It was with Eliza Wheeler. I'll have to link to that in the show notes.
But anyway, I'm so interested in people who've had a pivot like that, and I myself did, too. I was a dietitian in the traditional sense, bought into diets and weight loss, and was pushing that, and then ended up starting to specialize in disordered eating, and came across all this evidence about the harms of most diets and the fact that intentional weight loss really doesn't last for the vast majority of people, and the harms of weight stigma and weight cycling and all of that. And so I made a shift myself into a more non-diet or anti-diet direction. I don't even love the term anti diet anymore, because I feel like that's a little polarizing. I just love that idea of talking to people as they're coming out of or after they have made this sort of shift and holding space for people to make those shifts.
And I will say, with regard to Sarah Ballantyne, I've looked at her newer stuff, and it still feels a little triggering for people with any sort of tendency toward disordered eating. It still feels a little diety. Yes, there's evidence, I'm sure, behind a lot of what she says are healthy foods and whatever, but also it might be overstating it a little bit. But I also think from where she came from, as the Paleo Mom and autoimmune protocol and all that, to get to this place of much more evidence based and much more embracing science is a huge step. And you never know how people are going to evolve. And so I think holding space for people's evolution is so important.
Jessica Steier: Yeah. And actually, you're bringing up some really great points. And in our conversation, I brought up one of the things that stood out to me about her new diet, which is she's calling nutrivore. And she focuses on nutrient density in foods versus calories and all kinds of other things. Which does just on its face, it makes sense to me. We want to increase the nutrients that we're consuming. And the thing that I liked about what she's doing now is there's no blanket vilification, there's no good or bad food, which I think leads to a lot of food anxiety and potentially disordered eating, like you said.
But the one thing that I struggle with, and we had a really open conversation about, and it sounds like she's thinking through how to potentially reframe or clarify, is there is still a score associated with the diet. And I've been very vocal about that. That concerns me. And to her point, it's not a scoring system that will then classify foods as being, again, good or bad. It's more just to place some quantification on the nutrient density. But again, I think there's potentially room for improvement. But as you said, she's come a very long way. And I think that that should be acknowledged and raised because I know it's not easy to make a shift like that.
Christy Harrison: Totally. And I think, yeah, if people can be acknowledged for making those kinds of shifts and not just left out in the cold, I think that's the problem with our culture these days and with the Internet and sort of the perfectionism people demand of conversations online sometimes is that it's going to be black and white, it's not going to be messy. People aren't going to have room for growth, that it's sort of like, "Well, you're not in. You're not in the in crowd." You've written about this a little bit, right? That it's like there's this in group versus out group dynamic. And if people aren't using all the exact right language for the in group, or they're not quite where they need to be, quote unquote, for the in group to accept them, then they're in the out group. And I think that just makes it really hard to ever bridge divides and help people evolve the way that we all do and the way that I know we all can.
Jessica Steier: Oh, my goodness. Does that resonate with me, this idea of the in group and the out group. And something that I've noticed is that the science communicator community can be a bit judgmental and quite exclusive, actually. And the blowback that I've received for collaborating with Sarah or even having a conversation with her, these people say I'm, quote unquote, platforming someone who has spread misinformation. It's been brutal. I've been really inundated with quite a bit of feedback, and that feedback is coming mainly, I keep saying the call is coming from inside the house, it's the scientific communicator community.
And it's so interesting to me. It confuses me, because at the end of the day, maybe the goals are different for people, but for me, it's like, aren't we trying to get through to people who need our information most? And can't we celebrate or acknowledge people who have sort of crossed over from the dark side? I don't mean to be that polarizing, but who have really acknowledged some past mistakes and have attempted to right those wrongs. I don't understand why we wouldn't encourage that, applaud it, and hope that more people would make that switch, because isn't that the goal?
So this pushback for me, really, it's hard for me to really make sense of it because I can't understand it. It's like we're not allowing people room to learn and grow, which I would think is sort of the goal of what we're doing. You know what I mean? I don't know if making myself clear. It's just, I don't get it.
Christy Harrison: I know. It's so interesting, and I think it speaks to something you wrote in that piece, which is the idea of tribalism, and that it's so easy for everyone, including science communicators, to fall into tribalism. "Passion for a subject can drive a desire to rally like minded individuals, creating an enthusiastic in group. While this has benefits for fostering community and support for science, it also has potential downsides." And I really see that what you're experiencing and talking about, I've seen it in the communities that im a part of as well, that theres this strong in group/out group dynamic and sort of a demand for increasing rhetorical perfection from people who are communicating about various topics in science or nutrition and health.
And I wonder how much of that is related to social media and how social media thrives on and amplifies divisions. It makes it really hard to have nuanced conversations. There's evidence that social media amplifies moral outrage and that moral outrage gets more attention on social media, that expressions with more words of moral outrage make them go farther, they spread farther, faster and more deeply. And theres a researcher named William Brady, whos doing really interesting work on this area. I quoted him a little bit in some of his papers, in my book. And I find that really interesting for this discourse. I mean, what I've found personally is, I think that social media, my participation in it, did have that effect on me, that it sort of amplified my expressions of moral outrage. And I felt that that was what was being rewarded by the algorithm. And so I did more of that without really thinking about it, without it being intentional. I just sort of gravitated in that direction.
And I wonder how much of that is at play here. Not that this is all necessarily happening on social media, but I think social media has changed the way we communicate in a lot of ways and maybe pushed us even in our non social media communications online, to be less nuanced and to sort of speak in these more moral, outrage filled kind of ways.
Jessica Steier: Oh, my gosh, yes. Everything you're saying, I'm just sitting over here just nodding. You can't see me right now. But, no, you're right. Ever since I've made this shift, which it's interesting to me that people do seem to notice the shift in sort of the tone of the content that I'm putting out on the page. It's more empathetic, there's more context. I'd say I was previously hypocritical in that I would say, beware of people who make blanket all or none, black and white statements. But then, as you said, it's sort of like the algorithm rewards that.
So I'd find myself making some of those statements. It's like, well, hold on a second. You have to practice, is what you preach. But ever since I've made this shift, my engagement, it's in the pits. There's no engagement. It's unbelievable. People just don't like the nuance. I get now, firsthand why the media kind of resorts to clickbait, because otherwise it's so difficult to capture people's attention. And that's so frustrating and disheartening because, as you said, that nuance is just so important, and without it, it's just not scientifically accurate, actually. And so how do we navigate continuing this kind of work online when the algorithm seems to be working against us? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
Christy Harrison: I don't either. I mean, I've thought about a couple of things. I think Substack has been a really interesting place to test some of this, and I've found that nuance does seem to play better on Substack in some ways. Also, I think I've been toying with the idea of writing headlines. I mean, I do still use a headline tester, and I play around with headlines and see what's going to have the most impact and stuff. But I always do it with a lens of what is accurate about this piece. How can I say this accurately and not sensationalize? But I also am like, it would be so interesting to do a piece or a series where I come up with the click baitiest headlines and then spend the whole piece unpacking why this is problematic or nuancing the headline or something and just modeling in some way how attention is garnered in this information economy and why it's problematic and how it results in less nuance and less accuracy in scientific reporting.
Jessica Steier: I love that. And PS, I'd be totally down to collab on something like that. I've done something similar to that. I'm actually scrolling my Instagram feed right now. I'll have to send some examples. I attempt to lean into, I don't want to say snark sometimes, but using some. I have like a cognitive dissonance series, so I'm just looking at one. "Hold my martini while I Google whether aspartame causes cancer." Things like that that basically lean into, we're so concerned about this one thing causes cancer while we know alcohol is a carcinogen and all that good stuff.
But there's another post, "Swipe for non-toxic swaps for common household products." I mean, how many have you seen? How many posts have you seen like that? And then when you scroll through, it just says in huge letters, anything can be toxic at a certain dosage. And then it goes on to sort of explain this idea of the dose makes the poison and explains the science and how this is just a marketing ploy. But I think you're right. I think it's interesting to sort of help people understand that we're kind of trying to counter very, very clever marketing tactics that employ very smart psychological, gonna use the word tactics again. Very difficult for us to counter that with the facts and just helping people become aware of some of those marketing traps and ploys. I don't know. I think that that's an interesting concept to explore further. I love that idea.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, to use the marketing ploys in service of getting attention to something that's actually deconstructing them. I think that's a really interesting sort of project. Let's talk offline about a collab. That could be interesting. So I'm curious to hear a little bit more from you in this sort of tribalism that you've seen show up. What are some of the pitfalls and downsides of that and just sort of some of the cognitive biases and distortions that you've seen the science communication community perhaps fall prey to in terms of creating more division and not holding so much space for evolution.
Jessica Steier: Yeah, I really think you just kind of hit the nail on the head. They don't hold space. I think there's a lack of empathy and I think sometimes in science and sometimes I guess people who maybe gravitate towards science, I don't know if this is true, I might just be pulling this out of who knows where. But like sometimes the people who gravitate towards science perhaps like that more concrete fact based approach to information. Whereas I would say science communication is a science, but it's also an art. And there's a major, major emotional and psychological component. And if you think about it, we were just talking about it. People who knowingly or unknowingly or spread misinformation, they've got that on lock. They know how to play off people's emotions and prey on fear and play into the appeal to nature fallacy and all of these other fallacies and logical traps.
Scientists, we have to take note. We have to understand that when people are reading information, it's not just what you're saying, it's how you're saying it. So many of us who are doing the science communication now, I mean I could only speak about myself. I have no formal communication training. I don't have any background in marketing, any real training in psychology aside from some undergrad courses I took and some research I did on my own on behavioral theories and stuff like that, drivers of behavioral change. We just don't have that training.
And we think that just regurgitating science is going to cut it. It's not going to cut it. You have to realize people are bringing their backgrounds, their experiences, their personal encounters all the things, their fears, their hopes, their dreams, all of those things. Not to get too cheesy, but unless we factor those things in, we're going to fail and we'll just continue to get trampled by the misinformation space. They're doing a lot better job communicating effectively.
Christy Harrison: Yeah. And providing space and empathy for people who might feel rejected or disillusioned or something by the conventional system.
Jessica Steier: A hundred percent. They lead with that. "Has a doctor told you it's all in your head?" Of course. I mean, right then and there, now you validated their emotions, their experiences. They feel like it's a safe place. Like this person understands them. There you go. They're bought in. There's trust that has been established there, whereas we come in with our facts and we're telling people, "Oh, I don't care about your experiences. This is what the science says. This is what the studies say." People don't always care about that. I know we know that anecdotes are not science but to the people who are experiencing them, that's all that matters. And we can't just dismiss those things. We have to acknowledge them.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, it's been interesting to see. So I sort of got exposed to, not really involved in, but like, tangentially related to the skeptical movement back in like the early two thousands, 2004, 2005, knew some people who were involved in that. And I saw so much sort of emphasis on science based medicine and stuff that I really appreciate now and resonate with. But also at the time was like, really turned off by. Because I was struggling myself dealing with, I had undiagnosed disordered eating. I had a bunch of chronic illnesses that were emerging or had emerged and was trying to figure out how to manage them or get diagnosed for them and sort of bopping around from doctor to doctor and not feeling like I was getting anywhere with that.
And so it felt very off putting to me to have this sort of rationalist approach being pushed by people around me. And then also, interestingly, at the time, the questioning of weight science was part of that skeptical community. At least the few people that I knew within it, again, were questioning traditional weight science and approaches to body size and all of that. And over the years, I've seen that piece drop away from traditional scientific skepticism or rationalism, and it's become a lot more wedded to kind of traditional weight management and all of that which has been interesting.
But just in terms of what you were saying about the tone and sort of the approach and how people say things, I think it wasn't appealing to me then when I could have used it, I would have really needed it at the time, and it just didn't capture my attention. Whereas I think this approach that you're talking about and that I'm trying to engage in as well is a more compassionate, I say compassionate skepticism, trying to understand and acknowledge why people do the things they do and where they're coming from, and using my own past experience to empathize and thinking about, of course, there are so many good reasons why people buy into these things, and yet here are the harms and let's talk about them, and let's talk about what the evidence says and also critically unpack the evidence so that we can make informed decisions and really choose the thing that's best for us rather than and maybe getting pulled along by influencers who dont necessarily have our best interests at heart or really out for themselves or just looking to make a buck or whatever.
So let's get into the weight science stuff because you and I, as we've said, we have different views on it. And in our first offline conversation when we first met, we talked a little bit about how we both come to these views. And I think that was a really lovely discussion. And it's sort of an interesting thing to do to maybe model as best we can that the kind of open dialogue that we're trying to have and that we want to see more of in science communication.
Jessica Steier: I love that. And Christy, I'll just right off the bat for listeners,
