Truth, expertise, and expert advice are under increasing scrutiny.

Sources of this scrutiny are both internal and external to the scientific enterprise.  Internal pressures include increasing doubts about the reproducibility of even highly structured experiments.  An increase in retractions in the academic literature is the overt symptom.  External pressures include the effects of social media, partisan politics, raising expectation by the public in concert with often raising stakes and complexities. 

A normal reaction to the threat of declining trust is to respond with competence and determination.  These measures include science communications, greater penetration of politics by actors with scientific credentials, improved quality control in-house, and so forth.  It would be a normal urge of science advisors to “combat fire with fire” by attempting to best every token of apparent misinformation with a more impressive token of fact. 

The idea of humility as an accompanying trust-building stratagem should make sense to science advisors also.  For instance, a recent study in Nature Human Behaviour demonstrated humility as leading to increased perceived public trustworthiness across medical, psychological, and climate science topics (Koetke et al., 2025).

I want to argue here for another form of humility for the role of scientific advisors: the sincere and nuanced attitude of humility. The clue comes from The Future of Scientific Advice to the United Nations, a report by the Science Advisory Board of UNESCO (UNESCO, 2016). The board states “Science should be characterized by independence, diligence, prudence, and humility.”  In this list of four virtues, I see a pragmatic and nuanced version of humility as the most foundational.  Humility also a very useful gateway to further knowledge and understanding (a spiritual interpretation of this point is provided by Templeton, 1981), to team collaboration and to social and political competence, especially in applied science and engineering (Jasanoff, 2007; Allenby & Sarewitz, 2011).

Let me define ‘humility’ in the context of science advice. Science advisors should not use humility as a self-abasing excuse for non-action and failure. Nor should they respond to success with humblebrag. Instead, they should strive for an accurate view of oneself, and one’s role combined with an appropriate respect for the power and limitations of science and technology. This foundational attitude can be translated into clear, pragmatic guidelines by differentiating three different applications, competence, motive, and role (loosely inspired by Morris, Brotheridge & Urbanski, 2005).

Humility of Competence

Humility of Competence entails that science advisors respect the limits of knowledge and understanding. Be open to new ways of knowing, to interdisciplinary knowledge, and the need to learn from others. Embrace diversity of discipline, tradition, age, gender, or geopolitical perspective. Science is a pluralistic enterprise. In addressing complexity, it cannot and should not speak with a unitary voice. Accept that uncomfortable knowledge is rampant. Search for options by engaging science and policy communities and do not hesitate to make the scope and options complex. Even complex issues can be communicated with clarity. Seek absolute honesty in reporting uncertainties, knowns and unknowns. Explain the scope and provide the means to discuss what is outside this scope, such as “unknown unknowns”. Accept that uncertainty in predictions will be exploited and discussed in a political arena using political arguments. Respect the difficulty of policy selection and the pervasive risk for harm no matter which decision is selected.  The benefits of acting in this diligent, inclusive, and prudent way is an increase in transparency, credibility, and earned trust. 

Humility of Motive

Humility of Motive entails that science advisors respect that that they are persons complete with history, culture, and political motives.  Bias and conflict of interest are inescapable. This is especially acute if advice on “science for policy” vs. “policy for science” are not clearly separated (Gluckman 2014). For individual advisors, this demands transparency. For committees, it also demands representativeness. All science is value-laden starting with the selection of a research direction and ending with the choice on how to communicate results. But the goal is not to eliminate values.  On the contrary, selecting a good research goal is a necessary, valuable, value-laden activity. Instead, the goal is to avoid any form of stealth issue advocacy, real or perceived. To this end, advise not only on what is known and what is not, but report also what has been valued and what has not been considered. The benefit of acting in this way is to earn a reputation of integrity and impartiality.

Humility of Role

Humility of Role entails that science advisors respect that the division of labor in decision-making is legitimate and that the process is non-linear. Technical input is often essential but rarely sufficient for complex, high-stakes decisions. Inform policy, don’t make it. Don’t confuse science-illiteracy with a lack of competence or intelligence. Instead, become process-literate, empathetic, and respectful of political knowledge. Knowledge and advice need to be carefully situated with respect to timing, place, and social setting. See yourself as an important member of a knowledge team. This position entails responsibility and accountability for both commission and omission of advice, but not for the ultimate decision.  The position also entails openness to quality assurance and review. Those who pay for science and for science advice are justified in expecting relevancy and value. In sum, embrace empathy for other viewpoints and care not only for truth, but also for results.  The benefits of acting in this way are improved transparency, clearer accountabilities, better teamwork, and increased effectiveness. 

In summary, the “trifecta” of the humilities of competence, motive and role will improve trust, uptake, and teamwork to the benefit of both the advisor and the advised. Ironically, if we want to fight misinformation boldly, then we have to adopt a nuanced version of humility.

References

Allenby, B.R. & Sarewitz, D. (2011). The Techno-Human Condition. Cambridge USA: MIT Press.

Gluckman, P. (2014). Policy: The art of science advice to government. Nature 507, 163-165. https://doi.org/10.1038/507163a

Koetke, J., Schumann, K., Bowes, S.M. & Nina Vaupotič (2025). The effect of seeing scientists as intellectually humble on trust in scientists and their research. Nat Hum Behav 9, 331–344 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02060-x

Jasanoff, S. (2007). Technologies of humility. Nature 450, 33 https://doi.org/10.1038/450033a

Morris, J. A., Brotheridge, C. M., & Urbanski, J. C. (2005). Bringing humility to leadership: Antecedents and consequences of leader humility. Human Relations 58(10), 1323–1350. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726705059929

Templeton, J. (1981). The Humble Approach: Scientists Discover God. Philadelphia and London: Templeton Foundation Press.

UNESCO (2016). The Future of scientific advice to the United Nations. A summary report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations from the Scientific Advisory Board. Paris, UNESCO, 32 pages. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245801