Thread by @meganakpeters

i have been mulling whether/how to say something this since the press releases started coming out 4 days ago, but feel i need to say something now.

i am deeply disappointed in how the media has covered recent findings in consciousness science.
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first, it is really unfortunate that @Nature has misconstrued the bet made between @davidchalmers and Christof Koch in this article , which was the first media coverage to appear.nature.com/articles/d4158…

the tagline - and the article - falsely describe the bet as searching for the *cause* of C in the brain.

"Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn *how* the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues." [emphasis mine]

and

"In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the *mechanism by which* the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023." [emphasis mine]

*neither of these is true*, based on the bet as described directly in the public event and the 25-year-old recorded audio of Dave describing that bet played there.

the bet, as described by Dave and Christof themselves at the event, was about the neural *correlates* of consciousness. host @heather_berlin was *very careful* to clarify repeatedly with them that it was about *correlates*. not causes, not mechanisms. not explanations.

as scientists we make a really big deal about saying that correlation is not causation, right? xkcd.com/552/

this is part of a bigger problem, though, with press/media coverage of this project, a microcosm of how C-science is covered in general. as one of the neutral labs conducting studies as part of TWO other adversarial collaborations very generously funded by @TempletonWorld,

i am dismayed by the way the press have portrayed IIT and GNWT as the only 2 theories of C out there. the purpose of TWCF's Accelerating Research on Consciousness grant mechanism is to *collectively* make progress on arbitrating theories of C-science, 2 or 3 theories at a time.

nowhere in any of the press releases, @Nature, @ScienceMagazine, @TheEconomist articles i've seen is there any mention that GNW and IIT aren't the only two (empirically supported!) theories of C except brief mention in the Science article of "dozens of theories" of consciousness

and that GNW and IIT are the two that are discussed the most (true, see this nice paper here ... but this doesn't mean they're the only 'real' theories!!!), andnature.com/articles/s4156…

TWCF's mention in their email announcement that there are 4 more adversarial collaborations currently ongoing.

but the presence of other *empirically-supported* theories substantively changes the landscape of how the @ArcCogitate results (peer reviewed or not) should be interpreted. that ONE theory "lost" (& didn't even really lose tbh) doesn't mean the other one is true, for chrissake!

(btw this has nothing to do with my endorsement -- or not -- of either IIT or GNW, or any other theory of C. this is also not about which of these two theories has been supported by the results or not, or which other theories should have been discussed in the media coverage.)

i see this as a *really disappointing failing* of the press releases and general public articles written about this project. oversimplification driving false conclusions.

at @ASSC26nyc, @BrianOdegaard2, @noraabradford and i ran a tutorial on how to communicate consciousness science to granting agencies and the general public. we also ran an independent workshop last year to talk about just how hard this is. fundconsciousness.socsci.uci.edu

our message was: this is *really, really hard*. C-science it is so easily sensationalized and misinterpreted by whoever your audience is, simply by its nature. consciousness captures imaginations -- wild imaginations -- in a way few other fields do.

and as a result there is an even *higher* bar we must clear! we C-scientists must strive to *always* communicate with precise language, clear conceptual and operational definitions, and avoidance of unwarranted causal language.

and we really need the media to do the same.

the press/media surrounding these results and the 'bet' event has done consciousness science a disservice. i say this as a proud consciousness researcher, a member of the @theASSC board of directors, & a member of the @CIFAR_News Brain Mind Consciousness program.

i do not speak for these associations, of course. this concern is mine, not endorsed by any organization; i mention the orgs to show that i am deeply involved in -- and indebted to -- this field and fully intend to continue in this vein for many years to come.

my deep involvement in this field has made me acutely aware of just how hard it is to get C-science communication right.

i know we can do better.

late-breaking addition: today's @nytimes article at least says "Those experiments fostered an explosion of new theories. To winnow them down, [TWCF] has begun supporting large-scale studies that put different pairs of theories in a head-to-head test,

in a process called adversarial collaboration."

the article also doesn't misconstrue the bet as being about causes/explanations, using language like "is associated with" & "neural marker" & "neural correlate of consciousness".

a bit better than others, NYT. but still should've pointed out that other theories in the big TWCF adversarial collab project also have *empirical support* (& cited @ItayYaron & @Liad_Mudrik's lovely paper/database on the subject, )

nature.com/articles/s4156…
nytimes.com/2023/07/01/sci…

adding a link to my "op-ed" style letter about this here so all y'all who have been reading this thread can see and let me know your thoughts if you like. thinking about where it should find a permanent home -- suggestions welcome. 🙏

psyarxiv.com/34txs