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The Comet We Choose Not to See

Remember Don't Look Up? Scientists desperately warning about an approaching comet, dismissed as alarmist, politicized, ignored—until it's too late. The film's dark comedy hits uncomfortably close to home because we're living versions of this dynamic with climate change, pandemic preparedness, antimicrobial resistance, biodiversity collapse. The question isn't whether we have robust evidence—we do. The question is: Why does inconvenient evidence so often fail to translate into action, and what can Science for Policy do about it?

This was the provocation I brought to a conversation table during our recent Community of Practice gathering. What unfolded over two rounds of discussion revealed both the depth of the challenge and some unexpected pathways forward.

What Makes Evidence "Inconvenient"?

Before diving into what we discovered, let me clarify what I mean by "inconvenience." The term comes from Latin convenientia meaning 'agreement, harmony,' which derives from convenire—to come together, to assemble, to suit. When evidence is inconvenient, two things fail to come together: the fact itself and a collective acceptance of that fact, or, to be more precise, a collective acceptance of the long-term effects of the fact.

This failure has at least two distinct sources. First, we might doubt the source or givenness of the evidence—questioning whether it's actually true, reliable, or applicable. Second, even if we believe the evidence is true, it may threaten the lifeworld we inhabit—the taken-for-granted patterns of work, tradition, and solidarity that structure our collective existence.

Think of tobacco science, fossil fuel economics, dietary guidelines, or policies affecting traditional industries. The evidence doesn't just challenge behavior—it challenges entire ways of life, livelihoods, and the social worlds we inhabit. This triggers what psychologists call "motivated reasoning," or we might also call the Anti-realism of feeling (A. Kluge): we become remarkably creative at dismissing what we don't want to hear. Societal resistance to inconvenient evidence isn't primarily about information deficits—it's about protecting lifeworlds.

Two Rounds, Two Different Conversations

I structured the conversation around two questions that participants explored in small groups:

1. How do we as knowledge brokers help others navigate inconvenient evidence?
2. As a so-called 'moral emotion,' inconvenience caused by evidence is a collective phenomenon. How can policymakers address it?

The first round struggled with the concept itself. Some participants interpreted "inconvenience" as a type of alternative facts promoted by populist movements. Others understood it as uncertainty or contested science. What surprised me—though perhaps shouldn't have—is how instinctively we retreated to epistemological categories (facts vs. falsehoods, certainty vs. uncertainty) rather than sitting with the affective dimension I was trying to foreground.

This struggle revealed something important: we lack established practices in Science for Policy for working with feelings about evidence as distinct from correcting misunderstandings about evidence. We're uncomfortable addressing moral emotions as legitimate elements of evidence reception because they don't fit neatly into our professional toolbox. We know how to handle contested facts; we're much less sure how to handle the visceral discomfort when facts and our collective way of life fail to "come together."

The second round opened up more philosophical territory, and here's where further insights emerged.

Four Key Insights: Beyond "Better Communication"

1. Helplessness as Diagnostic Information

One of the most striking insights from our discussion was recognizing that when inconvenient evidence elicits helplessness, this isn't just an obstacle to overcome—it's diagnostic information pointing to something missing in how we're framing the problem or the solutions.

If people feel helpless in the face of evidence, it may indicate:

• The problem feels too large or abstract to act upon
• Available actions don't match people's sphere of agency
• The framing emphasizes doom without pathways to meaningful response
• Trade-offs haven't been honestly acknowledged

Rather than treating helplessness as resistance to be overcome with more persuasive messaging, we might treat it as a signal that our evidence framing isn't yet adequate to the democratic and practical challenge at hand.

2. Partiality: The Partial Picture Problem

Another crucial insight: inconvenient evidence often represents only part of the picture, and the feeling of inconvenience may be pointing precisely to what's been excluded or inadequately weighted.

Consider the classic examples we discussed:

• CO2 reduction vs. impact on families: Climate policy that doesn't account for energy poverty or job displacement
• Vaccination: Risk of vaccine vs. risk of disease—but also vs. risk of social exclusion, economic disruption, institutional distrust
• Biodiversity vs. growth: The real conflict many communities experience between conservation and economic survival

When communities experience evidence as inconvenient, they may be registering—often implicitly—that important values, timeframes, or lived realities aren't adequately represented in how the evidence is being framed or translated into policy. The emotion becomes an indicator that something legitimate is missing from the analysis, not just that someone is being irrational.

3. Temporality: Short-Term Survival vs. Long-Term Projections

A third dimension emerged around time. Inconvenient evidence isn't usually about denying specific facts—it's about the tension between lived time (immediate needs, short-term survival, tangible present concerns) and abstract time (long-term projections, future generations, statistical probabilities).

As one participant noted, conflicts often arise around different timelines: short-term needs vs. long-term damages. A smoker knows cigarettes cause cancer decades hence, but needs stress relief now. A community knows fossil fuels drive climate change, but needs jobs today. A politician knows pension reform is necessary, but faces election next year.

The standard Science for Policy response—"the evidence is clear about long-term consequences"—can't bridge this temporal divide on its own. We need institutional designs and communication strategies that help translate abstract future harms into present-tense concerns, or that create mechanisms for sustained attention across electoral and budget cycles.

4. The Art and Ethics of Reframing

The fourth insight centered on strategic framing—and here we touched on both its power and its ethical complexity.

A striking real-world example emerged from the discussion: the introduction of non-fossil fuels in a European country. The exact same policy, supported by the same evidence base, could be framed either as climate protection (which might trigger inconvenience for those worried about economic costs, energy security, or industrial jobs) or as national security and self-sufficiency (which speaks to sovereignty, resilience, and patriotic values).

Framing isn't manipulation—it's recognizing that evidence never speaks for itself. It always speaks through frames that determine whether the "coming together" (convenire) between fact and acceptance can happen. The challenge is to reframe around the values and goals of those experiencing inconvenience without misrepresenting the underlying evidence.

But this raises uncomfortable questions about the boundaries between honest brokering and advocacy—questions that surfaced repeatedly in our conversation.

A Productive Tension: Whose Inconvenience?

An unexpected dimension emerged when some participants interpreted my framing not as "How do we as knowledge brokers help others navigate inconvenient evidence?" but rather as "How do I as a knowledge broker navigate evidence that is inconvenient to my own political stance?"

This self-reflexive interpretation—drawing on Roger Pielke Jr.'s framework of the "honest broker" versus "issue advocate"—raised legitimate questions:

• Where's the line between legitimate framing and shadow advocacy?
• Can knowledge brokers maintain professional neutrality when evidence challenges their own values?
• Should they acknowledge, or even declare their own motivated reasoning?
• When is "the option of quitting" the ethically appropriate choice?

While this wasn't the societal-scale challenge I intended to explore, the tension is worth acknowledging. It reveals how the term "inconvenience" can operate at multiple levels—individual ethics and collective dynamics—and both matter, even if they require different analytical approaches.

The Puzzle of Sustained Attention

What continues to puzzle me most is this: Inconvenient evidence has a systemic tendency to fade from public attention, even when the underlying problem persists or worsens.

Why does this happen?

Media logic prioritizes novelty—yesterday's crisis becomes today's old news. Psychological relief sets in when immediate catastrophe doesn't materialize. Political cycles incentivize moving to new issues. Institutional memory dissipates through personnel turnover and budget shifts. And sometimes, well-resourced interests actively work to muddy, delay, or distract.

Addressing the issues behind inconvenient evidence—climate breakdown, antibiotic resistance, biodiversity collapse, unsustainable pension systems—requires long-term institutional engagement across electoral cycles. But our democratic and media systems are designed for responsiveness (quick reaction to immediate concerns), not persistence (decade-spanning commitment to slow-moving crises).

As Caspar Hirschi explores in Skandalexperten, Expertenskandale, the relationship between science, policy, and media is fraught with structural tensions. The media system operates according to values fundamentally different from science (truth, peer validation) or policy (effectiveness, legitimacy): media content must be new, they must generate engagement, they thrive on conflict. Media can strengthen trust in science and democratic institutions, but they can just as easily fuel conflicts between them or allow inconvenient evidence to simply... disappear from the news cycle.

About the author: Christian works at the Austrian School of Government (Bundeskanzleramt) on evidence-informed policymaking and is completing a PhD at the University of Vienna on collaborative knowledge production.