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Lawrence Krauss On Scientists As Celebrities: Good For Science?
Lasrick writes: Lawrence Krauss explores the reasons why scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Neil deGrasse Tyson became celebrities, and he shares his own experience as a best selling author and frequent guest on television programs like Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Krauss describes how public acclaim is often uncorrelated to scientific accomplishment and depends more on communication skills and personality traits. Nevertheless, he argues that the entire scientific community benefits when credible scientists gain a wider audience, and that celebrity is an opportunity that should not be squandered. Scientists who become recognizable have a chance and perhaps even a responsibility, which they have often exploited, to promote science literacy, combat scientific nonsense, motivate young people, and steer public policy discussions toward sound decision making wherever they can.
Yes, anything that puts science to a face and makes it approachable, normal and something to be admired or respected is always a good thing. In the US, so much emphasis is put on wealth that we have seen an astronomical rise in MBAs and JDs while STEM programs have languished by comparison.
I would put communication onto a list of activities that move the science enterprise forward, but tend to be undervalued compared with producing new research results. Great popularizers like Sagan, and great writers like Arthur Clarke, have done an enormous amount to inspire and motivate people.
Another group of undervalued people are the tools builders. Things like ArXiv, Mathematica, and so on improve the effectiveness of every researcher by a little bit, and their cumulative impact is enormous but we tend not to recognize them.
Scientists become celebrities than celebrities becoming scientists (Jenny McCarthy for one)...
XDInd
I'd rather people listen to Carl Sagan or Niel deGrasse Tyson for their scientific advice than Dr. Oz, Jenny McCarthy, Michele Bachmann, or any of the shockingly large numbers of anti-science politicians.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The problem is that too many people think "science" is whatever a person credentialed by some authority professes.
That's wrong.
"Science" is more properly a way of thinking. A "scientist" should be anyone willing to put the evidence offered by reality above intuitions, guesses, dogma, culture, and any other authority while also being open-minded to all possible explanations consistent with reality. It's a skepticism, even skepticism of one's own theories -- "a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" as Feynman put it.
Sometimes even credentialed scientists forget that.
Einstein and Feynman were both nobel prize winners and Hawkins has Sir Isaac Newton's mathematics chair - we probably shouldn't downplay their achievements!
Carl Sagan was on the slippery slope. He certainly did some good science - but he's hardly up there with the previous three. Tyson has a few decent papers to his name, and his career isn't over yet - but I don't think he's coming close to the others in terms of science achievements.
Einstein was the world's worst communicator. Feynman and Hawkins are better - Sagan was astounding and Tyson may be yet better.
I suppose we might be concerned that there is a pattern here. We're taking people who are better communicators in preference to those who really know their stuff.
But honestly, does it matter? The presenter of a show reads from a script - (s)he is basically an actor. If the author of the script sticks to an accurate portrayal of what's written by the hard-core scientists - then why not pick an engaging personality to present it to us?
The critical part of the cycle is the person who decides WHICH science gets discussed. De Grasse Tyson is often talking about tacheons, wormholes and white holes and other claptrap that's horribly speculative, wildly unusupported, and very probably untrue. As an astrophysicist, he should know better - but as a TV presenter, he does a reasonable job of reading the script.
I'd prefer to have a complete non-scientist who is a supreme communicator be given a script written by good script writers from material handed to them by the hard core scientists behind the scenes - than to rely on a lower-tier scientist (or a high-tier scientist with poor communications skills) to do the entire job.
-- Steve
www.sjbaker.org
No, as in Carl Sagan and Niel deGrasse Tyson doing more harm than good ...
Umm . . . How so? Sagan was melodramatic, but at least he gave mundanes the idea that people should get excited about complicated ideas. Tyson explains things well, speaks well, shows that one can be a science geek and entertaining all at the same time, and is a living poster child for rational thought (not to mention being a poster child against various forms of prejudice). What do you not like here?
Unfortunately, when scientist and engineers say things like "science is never anything but a best guess", meaning to be modest about how humans can at best asymptotically approach the truths about reality, anti-science and religionists pounce and say "See? They admit they don't know for certain. WE know for certain, so WE have a better answer." Besides, it's a lot better than a "best guess", it's a carefully researched and analyzed best fit solution. Plus, XKCD. http://xkcd.com/54/
That's twice you've gotten it wrong, now. "Star stuff". And, of course, we are. With the exception of the hydrongen atoms, almost every atom in our bodies was forged in the heart of an exploding star. Maybe you already knew that--but a lot of people don't, and many more never really stopped to think about. It really is amazing, you know.
Let's see here:
Albert Einstein - Nobel-winning physicist
Richard Feynman - Nobel-winning physicist, later used his celebrity power to popularize physics through his books
Carl Sagan - Astrophysicist (PhD thesis was "Physical Study of Planets", much of his work involved determining environmental conditions on other planets and moons), simultaneously was a television host and science celebrity
Stephen Hawking - Physicist (PhD thesis was on singularities in spacetime), author, and occasionally played himself on TV.
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist (PhD thesis was on star distribution in the galactic bulge), author, television host and science celebrity.
Well, Einstein's the only one who (AFAIK) was not a major pop writer. Tyson's the only one with a Twitter feed. Hawking's the only one with a physical disability, and Feynman was the only one to do engineering as well as science. So I'm actually not sure who you think is different from all the others.
Scientist have political opinions too and they are just as entitled to express them as anyone else. I don't see why you would want to limit people's right to politically express themselves. Some are reasonable to limit like police and military in uniform, especially when armed are not entitled to express their political opinions and must first remove the uniform and weapons and express their political opinion as an individual and not as a military or police group.
In fact what we really do need is more scientists expressing their political opinions and backing them up with hard facts and of course working to dismantle the lies put out by professional politicians.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Scientist have political opinions too and they are just as entitled to express them as anyone else. I don't see why you would want to limit people's right to politically express themselves.
One really big reason that scientists should express themselves is that many understand that without a basic scientific aptitude by the citzenry, an entire nation can fall behind. That's part one
The other part is that people keep trying to inject politics into science
Injecting religion into science classes is politics, certainly as long as they are trying to do it by force of law. Oklahoma would probably be teaching us about Jesus Puppies (dinosaurs) and variable speed of light so they could fit time into the 4004 B.C.E dates their science book demands, if those cacahead scientists hadn't interfered, like those pesky kids in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, they might have gotten away with it.
AGW denialism is heavily politically based.
And yes, it would make life a lot easier for deniers if the asshole scientists would just shut up and learn their place, and stay out of the way of the politicians. But golly gosh, some of these Scientists care and have big mouths.
We'll have to deal with it them, until we make science illegal, and eliminate freedom of speech.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Your mistake is not being alarmed by the facts.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.