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Towards Public-Friendly Open Science: YouTube Alongside Journal Articles?
Jace Harker writes: The public has often a hard time understanding research and its relevance to society. One of the reasons for this is that scientists do not spend enough time communicating their findings outside their own scientific community," writes Authorea Chief Scientist Matteo Cantiello. "It's ironic and somewhat frightening that the discoveries and recommendations for which society invests substantial economic and human capital, are not directly disseminated by the people who really understand them." Cantiello goes on to propose a "Public-Friendly Open Science bundle": scientists who publish a paper should also draft and publish a press release, layperson's summary, and/or YouTube video. Should scientists be more responsible for communicating their results directly to the public? Or should this role be left to science journalists?
Science is hard too. I would argue that most scientists don't have both skills. Some do, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but I don't believe most do. I know on my development team there's about two of six people who can clearly communicate their ideas to the outside world. And one of those I wouldn't trust to tell someone who didn't have some knowledge of code.
Most good journals already publish a lay summary, and often a description of significance aimed at a wider audience. Sometimes even a video. That leaves us with the recommendation to either force the scientist to draft a press release OR let science journalists communicate the discovery. This is not helpful.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Indeed we need to get the politics out of science, and science in politics.