Slashdot Mirror
Do Scientists Understand the Public?
Mab_Mass writes "The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has an interesting article on the relationship between scientists and the public. [Here's the paper itself, as a PDF.] Rather than point the finger at an 'ignorant' public, this article chastises the scientists for a poor understanding of how to communicate with non-technical people. With a look at the issues of climate change, nuclear waste disposal, genetics, and the future of the Internet, the article provides examples of how the experts in these fields are failing to present their message in a way that encourages public discussion and support."
While it would certainly be nice if scientists, as a class, were better at public communication, I think that this consideration misses an important point:
If somebody happens to be the best available information source on a given issue, failure to communicate with them is a major failing on your part.
All men may be created equal; but only some of them are worth consulting for advice.
The Media already has a monopoly on informing the public, scientific discoveries included.
Scientists strive to be factual and complete. Media strives to be sensational and give people what they expect, or want, to hear.
Some of the most exciting discoveries are those that indicate existing beliefs are incorrect. That doesn't jive with...well, you can see where I'm going with this: insert faith here.
and what's with this metric system. Why can't scientists use standard measurements like football fields, ping-pong balls, "around the Earth," and "to the moon and back," like our brilliant news media?
my father (who is a scientist) subscribed to Science; the AAAS journal among others. Weekly in my youth I was required to read the Abstract on every article. "I do not care if you understand it, just read it." was his instructions. One thing I learned was: Command of a discipline was seldom accompanied by a ability to communicate it in simple English sentences. The reason Sagan and people like him were popular was that they had such an ability. It is so rare among scientists that having it becomes noteworthy.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Absolutely right.
Form a hypotenuse and experiment the danged thing.
What's all this subjective shit?
Thank you very much. Science is hard. If you're not willing to work at it, you won't understand it. If you're not willing to work at it, you won't. That's not the scientist's fault.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Science had a *huge* positive mind-share during the 20th Century, and the participants basically didn't have much problem with trickle-down to an eager public.
What has changed is that religions out of synch with reality and corporations that don't want to spend the money it takes to deal with reality have been running huge propaganda campaigns to cast doubt on many of the major findings of science, if not on the potential of science itself.
What scientists have to realize is that the nest of little chicks with hungry mouths turned up has been partly replaced with a nest of well-funded vipers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The public doesn't necessarily have to understand science. It's not their job.
The median US citizen goes to school for 12 years. During that time, they all have to take at least one course on science. If after spending an entire course studying science (and probably many more than one class) they don't have an understanding of what science is and how it works, then I'd say the average US citizen has failed in their duty to become a rational and thinking being.
Science is one of the most basic and important mental tools for forming opinions based upon reason instead of irrational methods. Everyone should understand science, as well as some other, basic, tools for reasoning such as mathematics, logic, and critical evaluation. These should be core elements of every education.
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
That said, I'm having a hard time figuring out how one would explain Special Relativity - or, in my case, SVD-decompositions and unsupervised machine learning - to a six-year old.
Of course, that could simply mean I don't, in fact, understand either one.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
Oh, you mean Occam's Razor? It won't complicate things too much if I agree with your philosophy that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, will it?
See, the problem is that 'people' want a quick answer. What causes global warming? Well, carbon dioxide traps infrared radiation (aka heat) that is produced when visible light hits the earth and transfers that energy into the matter it hits.
Got that out in a single sentence but I lost everyone at carbon dioxide. All it would take to throw me off is some git saying CO2 is the breath of life or that it snowed last winter.
So, yeah, we understand 'people' and we fucking hate them. They're perfectly fine eating our GM crops, using the internet to communicate near instantly across the planet, taking our drugs and undergoing procedures to save their lives, and living in buildings that are safer and more comfortable than anything built before it. But to try to comprehend the efforts behind it? To show the slightest fucking bit of intellectual curiosity in how things work?
SCIENCE IS COMPLICATED. THE WORLD IS COMPLICATED. We can't help you understand if you don't have the patience. I don't think any scientist would have a problem working backwards from any topic, breaking down all the concepts involved, to help someone with an honest interest in the subject. But who has time for that when Real Housewives is on?!
I think the key here is that people want a translation of the science into terms they understand.
Exactly! When explaining science to the public my aim is not so much to "dumb it down" as to not use technical jargon and to avoid worrying about unnecessary details. A large fraction of the public can generally understand the basic concepts once they are explained without the technical vocabulary and without all the unnecessary details.
The big problem with talking to the public is that we scientists have developed highly technical vocabularies with precise meanings in order to be able to communicate complex concepts very precisely to each other. Even if we remember not to use this vocabulary there is the strong urge to fill in all the details which less precise, "everyday" vocabulary does not specify.
Scientist: "we should study this to find out if its true."
Public: "Absolutely right. Form a hypotenuse and experiment the danged thing. What's all this subjective shit?"
Scientist: "Perhaps after you construct a right-angled triangle you might want to form a hypothesis."
Public: "Whooosh!"
Scientist: "I believe that was the joke ;)"
Public: "Doh!"
That was bit mean.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."