Dr. Moran has essentially written one big justification for intellectual laziness in his post “Lessons from Science Communication Training,” where he rationalizes and credentializes away any social responsibility scientists have to educate and persuade the public.
I can understand the political naivety I’m reading in this article; after all, natural scientists are notoriously out of touch with the social sciences, like Politics, which most of them don’t consider real science anyway. We can take the highly egocentric, feel-good stance that scientists have explained things well because we understand it ourselves, and make that the end of story, as Dr. Moran does, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are pathetically ineffective at winning the culture war.
Now, I don’t want to be accused of claiming that all scientists are excellent communicators but as far as I can tell they don’t do such a bad job. After all, communicating is extremely important in science whether it be writing a scientific paper or lecturing to undergraduates. It’s not at all clear to me that we scientists are doing such a bad job of communicating science.
Okay, here’s where my humanities background comes in useful. Moran is saying that scientists communicate well because they communicate well with other scientists and people who want to be scientists. This is like saying 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry did a great job of communicating because Democrats understood his nuanced opinions and they genuinely liked him. This doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t get elected; and, therefore, was not really as a good communicator as he should have been.
It’s really very simple. Stem Cell research doesn’t get Federal funding because scientists working with stem cells haven’t communicated the issue successfully so that people know the difference between a viable fetus attached to a uterine wall and cluster of undifferentiated cells preserved in liquid nitrogen. Most people reject evolutionary theory, because Richard Dawkins and all the other brilliant evolutionary theorists have failed to persuade them. If we were really communicating science to the best of our abilities, then we would be winning the war of ideas.
We aren’t winning the war of ideas, and therefore we are losers. We can shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh well, I guess science is just too good for most people,” but that doesn’t change the fact that we are still losers. Everyone please take your thumb and forefinger and make an “L” symbol on your forehead. Now let’s go ponder ourselves in a mirror.
The issue is the fixation of some people on the idea that scientists need special training in order to communicate to the general public.
That’s probably because they do need such training. Scientists aren’t even very good at communicating with each other. Old Dominion University had to start requiring a writing aptitude test before students working in the sciences could graduate because scientists were so pathetically awful at writing (Two ODU Professors are my source on this). You would be surprised at the number of students who have to either struggle through this requirement or forsake getting their degree altogether.
Whenever we write, we need to consider our audience. This is something we learned Freshman year in Creative Writing 101, and something pompous brainiacs never seem to grasp. It may feel good to think you know something that only other experts know and can communicate, but the end result is that you scare the average mind away to huddle around the comfort of their radio or TV, where Rush Dimbulb assures them that it isn’t anything wrong with them, it’s the scientists, who are just a bunch of elitist academic nimrods who are still upset over all the wedgies they got in high school.
Framing science has to do with making science appealing to others, to make it inclusive. It’s about making more people want to be scientists and bringing more minds into the fold. Yes, there are some fantastic science writers, and we love to read them, but their books sales are dwarfed by anti-science pundits like Ann Coulter, who wrote in one of her many best-selling books:
Professors are the most cosseted, pussified, subsidized group of people in the U.S. workforce. They have concocted a system to preemptively protect themselves for not doing their jobs, known as “tenure.” They make a lot of money, have health plans that would make New York City municipal workers’ jaws drop, and work — at most — fifteen hours a week. (from the book “Godless: The Church of Liberalism)
If you’re comfortable with having most of the world consider you “pussified,” then please give no further thought to how you frame your arguments. If your hunky-dory with Ann Skeletor mocking evolutionary theory virtually unchallenged, then please go back to your books, research, and students. Maybe you could stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and go “La! La! La! La! La! La! La!” when you walk around outside just to be safe too.
What makes a good science writer? It’s not having a Doctorate in a single field. Carl Sagan is one of the greatest, most persuasive science writer’s who ever lived, but much of his exposition dealt with science outside of his personal realm of expertise, Astronomy. Richard Dawkins is a fine science writer, but he preaches to the masses. He is utterly unconvincing for people who don’t already believe in science and evolution. Every non-scientist I have given a Dawkins book, has given it back to me unread saying “That guy is a prick.”
Natalie Angier’s recent book, The Cannon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, frames science in terms of everyday average human experiences, putting the natural sciences in contexts the 99% of the world who doesn’t work in a lab or classroom can appreciate and make an emotional connection to. Angier is a journalist, a self-described “Science Debutant,” and Dr. Moran disapproves of the journalistic approach to communicating science that professionals like Angier utilize:
I’m not sure that scientists should be taking lessons on how to communicate to the general public from a group that doesn’t seem to be very good at it. I think that press relations offices are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I can’t help but wonder what are Dr. Moran’s criteria for successful public communications? I see newspapers selling everywhere, journalists filling their pages with text. I see journalists filling the radio and television mediums with their reports. Scientists are few and far between in these mediums. I don’t see people gathering around the water-cooler on Monday mornings to discuss the latest articles in the journal Nature.
Journalists are demonstrably and undisputedly superior at communicating with the public than scientists, and it’s silly and dishonest to excuse your poor communication skills by rationalizing that it’s everyone else who’s too stupid to understand you.
Clearly the goal here is not to focus on good science communication—it’s how to spin good science to conform to what the newspapers want to print. We know what that is. Shave your head, commit a crime, exaggerate your claims. Is this really what we want our graduate students to learn?
One word to characterize this bit of logical fallacy: HYPERBOLE. If we start down this slippery-slope of “framing science” then we’ll all be throwing chairs at one another and cross-dressing on the Jerry Springer show! (BTW, that should be “We know what that is: Shave your head…” (Just a tip from an English Major))
The children!!! Won’t somebody please think of the children???
I call shenanigans. This is pure poppycock, balderdash, nonsense, and flimflammery. When Alfred Kinsey researched human sexual relations, he had to teach his surveyors to use the slang terms for genitals and sexual acts vice their medical terms, which intimidated people (according to the movie “Kinsey“). Scientific Culture didn’t collapse from scientists using crude slang. Quite the contrary, it benefited from it, and brought more people into the world of scientific ideas (by selling them scientific research laden with sex).
The group that needs lessons here is the reporters, not the scientists. That ain’t gonna happen but it’s no reason for us to lower ourselves to their standards.
Here I believe a great big sticker with the word “elitist” gets slapped firmly onto Dr. Moran’s forehead. Science communicators shouldn’t “lower ourselves to their standards,” standards that journalists must adhere to because they are communicating to audiences of average intelligence. In other words, Dr. Moran doesn’t think we should be modifying how we communicate science so that average people (ie. the most people) can understand it. Instead he advocates making Journalists be as incommunicably erudite as the scientific experts.
Instead of a headline that reads, “Walking Upright May Have Started in Trees,” maybe it should instead read “Researchers Hypothesize Erect Gait in Primate Morphology Originated in Dendrological Environments.” Gee, that’ll sell a lot of newspapers and advertising (and yes, I know “Dendrological” isn’t a word, but I couldn’t find a sufficiently obtuse substitute for “Trees.” Sometimes science must bend to the needs of a punchline.).
It’s easy for someone with tenure at a University to insulate themselves from political reality, while blue-collar scientists working in the field are losing their funding, non-scientists are being appointed to federal positions, and EPA libraries are closed for political reasons. You have the freedom to shirk your social responsibility to your fields, rationalizing that you’ve done your best, but don’t criticize the rest of us for continuing to fight.
Maybe the academics could climb down from their ivory towers for a few minutes and realize there’s a world outside their exclusive club of credentialism. If you think learning to communicate your subject to the 99-something-odd-percent of the populace who doesn’t work in your field is bringing yourselves down to their level, then please do stay impotent in your laboratories and classrooms. Just stay out of the way of the rest of us who are working to gain mindshare for scientific thinking in our entire society.
Anyone who has read The Selfish Gene is aware of the importance of memes in humanity’s evolutionary fitness. Politics is the science of exploiting human cognitive schemas to ensure certain memes take root in our social mindshare (Yes, I know that sentence was erudite, but it was to persuade the scientists. Bite me.). Any scientist who thinks politics isn’t their business is a scientist who undervalues the importance of teaching science to the masses.
I volunteer at a children’s science center that tries to make science fun for young minds. You guys remember fun right? Fun is good. People like fun. Fun is a way to frame science so that people don’t think we’re just a bunch of aloof eggheads.
Scientists who refuse to communicate science in plainer, more charismatic language remind me of my Computer Science peers who were outraged when computers and the Internet opened up to everyone. “These people don’t know anything about computers,” one friend prophetically griped, “They’re going to clutter up the whole Internet!”
It was a true statement, non-computer people did overtake the World Wide Web and junk it all up, but it ended up being a good thing. It ushered in the Information Age. Maybe by bringing Science down to a level everyone can appreciate, we might usher in a honest-to-goodness “Age of Science?”
06/01/2007 8:00 PM EST: Changed the title of this post from “Dr. Laurence A. Moran is a Poopy Pants” to “Dr. Laurence A. Moran’s Exclusive Scientists Club.” As my initial sense of outrage at his post fades, I’ll probably renege on some of my more inflamatory statements rashly made here. : )
06/10/2007: Changed the title back to “Dr. Laurence A. Moran is a Poopy Pants,” because that’s a cooler title, even if he really isn’t a poopy pants.