Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms

In 2019, journalist Sam Kean published an article in Science magazine titled “Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade.” Rae Wynn-Grant, who speaks frequently about her experiences as a Black female wildlife ecologist, responded with an impassioned critique on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “The language in this piece is irresponsible and it hurts.” 

The article quoted a science historian who said, “There’s a tendency to think about the history of science in this … progressive way, that it’s always a force for good. We tend to forget the ways in which that isn’t the case.” Wynn-Grant countered: “Who is ‘we’?” She pointed out that Black and Brown people never forgot these facts, and “we are scientists too.” The article quoted another historian who commented on the connection between science and slavery, saying, “This is a hard story for us to deal with.” Again, Wynn-Grant retorted, “This ‘us’ refers to Europeans and descendants of Europeans!” thus erasing the perspectives of scientists whose ancestors were enslaved. 

Without more backstory, we can’t know whether the author or his sources were intentionally excluding anyone. But the fact that Kean and all but one of the people he quotes in an article about transatlantic slavery present as White should have set off a parade of red flags in the minds of Kean and his editors. 

That’s because, as anthropologists know, all humans have subconscious (and conscious) attitudes and assumptions that influence the ways they think and feel about others. These unconscious biases can show up as knee-jerk stereotyping or a lack of awareness that what seems “normal” and “universal” is in fact a specific lens based on their life experiences. Using “we” can reveal the writer’s lens and intended audience (whether conscious or unconscious). 

In public writing, using “we” can make readers feel outright excluded or make them distrust your perspective. So when you’re inclined to write “we,” ask yourself: Who specifically am I talking about? Who do I think I’m talking to? Is anyone excluded from that audience?

Of course, there are times when saying “we” is perfectly acceptable. It’s fine, for example, if you’re writing about when “we” as a species started making fire, and “we” means “all of humanity.” It’s fine if you state that “we” means the co-authors of the essay you’re writing.

These training modules use “we” because we think it’s clear it means “we the editors at SAPIENS.” And if you’re writing from your perspective as a member of a certain community, you might need to consider each sentence individually. Sometimes “we” might apply to the entire community, but sometimes your views may differ from others’ opinions.

Writing sensitively about issues such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, and disability is an enormous and incredibly nuanced topic. We can’t do it justice in this chapter. We also recognize that you may already be up to speed with addressing your own stereotypes, biases, and position in relation to the communities and places you’re writing about. But remember that many people who will engage with your articles may not be. So it’s critical to take a step back to consider who you are writing for and how those readers’ biases may influence their interpretation of your writing. We hope this section will help you see things from that telescopic view.

In the sidebar below, we’re going to link to numerous resources that can help when you’re writing about a specific community or topic. Before that, though, we’ll zoom out and highlight how unconscious bias can impact writing across various topics.

First, it’s important to note that what you don’t include can perpetuate stereotypes and misrepresentations just as much as what you do include. For example, a writer might state, “In 1920, the 19th Amendment granted U.S. women the right to vote.” If the writer doesn’t provide further context, that statement erases the experiences of many Native American, Asian American, Latina, African American, and other women of color. Many of these women remained disenfranchised long after the 19th Amendment was ratified, either because they were denied citizenship or because state laws deliberately prevented them from voting.

It can be easy to slip into problems of omission because you don’t know what you don’t know or because you might assume readers know as much as you do about a topic. Some ways to avoid this are rigorous fact-checking, constant self-questioning, continuous learning and unlearning, and an openness to engage on these questions with your editor and colleagues.

Another issue that can influence writing across topics is the concept of “defaults.” You’ve no doubt read many articles that take a heteronormative perspective—based on the assumption that cisgender, heterosexual relationships are the default. As another example, some people object to the term “people of color” because black, brown, and white are all colors, and they say that referring only to Black and Brown people as “people of color” could imply that Whiteness is the default. (Note that this term may be perfectly fine to use as long as the individuals you’re writing about use it to describe themselves.)

It’s important to become aware of default biases in the information you’re consuming, citing, and discussing, so you can avoid perpetuating false or oversimplified norms. While anthropological research tends to encompass a wide variety of demographics, anthropologist writers often reference research from across the behavioral sciences. In these fields, the vast majority of studies are conducted with participants who fall into the category WEIRD: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. Therefore, WEIRD people’s thoughts and behaviors are often considered the default, even though such people represent only a small fraction of humanity. In various scientific fields, there’s also a shortage of research involving people who identify as LGBTQ+, disabled, and neurodiverse, which also influences people’s notions of norms and defaults.

In addition, anthropologists who are writing for the public may assume that their audience is WEIRD. This may influence how they present information, including what they assume their audience knows, thinks, and perceives as “normal” or “different.”

How, then, can you present a more inclusive and complete picture of people in your public writing?

Pay attention to who is writing the studies you’re reading and citing. For example, scholars launched the “Cite Black Women” campaign to encourage researchers to read and reference Black women’s work and let such authors’ ideas shape their worldview.

In addition, check the study or studies you’re citing to see how diverse they are—or aren’t. It’s very common to read news articles that say something like, “According to scientific research, humans tend to do X behavior and think in Y way.” But when you delve into the research, you find that the humans studied were mostly, say, 20-year-old White, heterosexual males attending a university in southern California. If that’s the case, mention the shortcomings of the research in your article or, ideally, try to find papers that include a variety of demographics.

In one instance, the SAPIENS editors worked with an author to develop a story based on research showing that men with low voices are more likely to be perceived as attractive and respectable. We wanted to make sure this was true for a variety of people across the planet. So the article cited studies involving homosexual men, trans men, Hadza hunter-gatherers, and students of varying sexualities and identities at a U.S. university. Doing so made the story more inclusive and strengthened the essay’s premise.

Another potential problem is “writing about” a community rather than “writing with” a community. Articles “about” a community feel like they were written by an outsider from a distance. These articles tend to use generalities rather than specifics. They often reinforce stereotypes, and they usually stick to the surface rather than delve into the nuanced causes of cultural phenomena. As a result, they can portray the community as “Other.”

By contrast, articles written “with” a community tend to include specifics like quotes and real people’s unique experiences. They are rich with context and the nuances of differing viewpoints. The writers of these stories have gained the community’s permission to describe cultural practices and beliefs, and they’ve confirmed the details with their interviewees. These articles present a truer, more respectful, and more empowering picture of communities.

Sometimes unclear language isn’t just bad writing, it’s a social justice issue. Political scientist William Schneider coined the term “past exonerative tense” to describe when passive voice lets people off the hook or diminishes culpability. This sentence structure—and other vague, euphemistic, and circular language—may be rooted in cognitive biases. Or it may be carefully crafted to avoid taking blame, as in the phrase, “mistakes were made.” Either way, exonerative language can reinforce systemic racism, misogyny, victim-blaming, and various forms of prejudice.

Let’s explore how the exonerative tense showed up in news items about the George Floyd case. In plain language, police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd by jamming his knee into Floyd’s neck and suffocating him. Yet the initial statement from the Minneapolis Police Department is so whitewashed it bears no resemblance to the murder: “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.”

Several outlets, including CNN, reported that Chauvin “knelt” on Floyd—a euphemistic word that evokes humility and prayer. That’s a totally misleading way to describe a murder. In one tweet, the Associated Press mentioned kneeling but glossed over the killing: “Minnesota authorities say the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck has been arrested.”

One New York Times’ tweet combined passive voice and verbal gymnastics that made it seem like nobody was culpable, except possibly a disembodied knee: “Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis tweeted Tuesday afternoon that 4 officers involved in the arrest of a man who died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by an officer’s knee had been fired.”

The exonerative tense distorts people’s perspectives. In one study, researchers looked at news stories about cases of violence against women. They examined the effect of passive voice (i.e., “The woman was abused by the man”) versus active voice (i.e., “The man abused the woman”) on readers’ views. They found that when writers used passive voice, men and women were more accepting of violence against women, and men (but not women) attributed less harm to the victim and less blame to the perpetrator.

Another study investigated the exonerative tense in television news broadcasts about police killings, including the common phrase “officer-involved shooting.” They found that the more obfuscatory the language, the less likely study participants were to believe the police were morally responsible and should be punished.

The exonerative tense has also infected coverage of Israel and Palestine. In numerous instances, articles about Israeli attacks on Palestinians use passive sentence structure to erase the Israeli culprits from the picture. Take the Associated Press headline “Two Palestinians Killed in Separate Episodes in Latest West Bank Violence” and The New York Times headline “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup.” One study analyzed more than 33,000 New York Times articles and found that the paper “referred to Palestinians in the passive voice more than twice as often as they did Israelis.”

Because passive voice is so common in academic writing, and the exonerative tense is so widespread in journalism, it’s important to be aware of—and avoid—this linguistic cop-out. But remember that, in many cases, clearly laying blame on someone for a crime before they’ve had a fair trial is also unjust and could constitute libel. So it’s essential to say that a person “allegedly” perpetrated some action or “is accused of” committing some crime, and to cite the organization or individual making the accusation, if that information is available.

Both in the past and today, “Western” scientific communities and English-language media have often not respected the validity of Indigenous science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), which consists of Indigenous communities’ accumulated knowledge of their lands, ecologies, biodiversity, material culture, and more. Thankfully, that’s changing.

Indigenous writers around the world often point out that their communities possess a breadth and depth of knowledge about local ecologies that has sometimes eluded “Western” science. Writers are also spotlighting collaborations between Indigenous and Western researchers that incorporate TEK.

Still, this is a challenging topic to navigate for a few reasons.

One is language. Many people debate what to call “Western” science, since the term is misleading because it has absolutely nothing to do with location in the Western hemisphere. But simply saying “science” erases Indigenous scientific approaches, and using “non-Indigenous science” could imply that Indigenous peoples don’t practice so-called Western science, which is obviously untrue.

Another reason is that “Indigenous” encompasses incredibly nuanced and heterogeneous populations. Writers have sometimes erroneously used the singular terms “Indigenous culture” or “Native American culture,” portraying these cultures as monolithic instead of extremely varied and historically unrelated. Some individuals and communities also prefer not to be called Indigenous, and this term can be problematic in certain contexts. However, it’s sometimes necessary to discuss the similarities that exist across a wide range of Indigenous peoples.

At SAPIENS, we navigated this issue in an article about Indigenous perspectives on psychedelic plant medicines. One of the papers the article referenced, which was written by several Indigenous researchers, encouraged incorporating Indigenous ethics into “Western” scientific research. The authors noted that there are numerous commonalities across cultures in the ways Indigenous societies worldwide view plant medicines and the ethics surrounding them. So we carefully chose phrasing and qualifying words that painted a picture of broad similarities and local differences.

Another hurdle is that, while you may be knowledgeable and experienced in this topic, your editors at media publications may not be. Journalistic editors are often not well-versed in best practices for writing about TEK and Indigenous sciences. And the idea often persists that Western science is neutral, unbiased, and universal, and that anything Western science hasn’t investigated is, by default, unscientific. All of that is untrue. And, again, it’s changing. However, be prepared to have conversations with your editors when it comes to sensitive, accurate word choice and content.

If you’d like to become better informed about this topic, this article in The Open Notebook by journalist Debra Utacia Krol, an enrolled member of the Xolon Salinan Tribe, is a good starting point. It provides examples of exemplary reporting on TEK and lists organizations that can provide referrals for interviewing Indigenous scientists and other experts.

Sometimes when you’re writing, an absolutely inspired sentence drops into your head, and you think, “Wow, that’s good stuff. Where did that brilliant idea come from?” And only later do you realize it came from you, and you wrote it in another paper. Or worse: You realize it came from someone else, and you internalized it so much you thought it was your idea.

In rare instances, plagiarism is egregious, and it’s clear the writer highlighted huge swaths of a paper and clicked “copy” and “paste.” More often, though, it’s either unintentional, or the writer is plagiarizing themselves and thinks that’s OK. Self-plagiarism in popular writing is actually not OK.

If you’ve written a lot about a topic or you’re writing about your own research, check what you’ve previously written and make sure you’re not saying the exact same thing. Changing one or two words in a paragraph is still self-plagiarism. And if you’re phrasing something the same way you phrased it in an academic paper, it’s probably not appropriate for public writing anyway. Find a more creative, straightforward way of making your points.