Communicating science

[daneeka]

I consider effective communication to be a fundamental component of good science. However, I can't help but feel that the communication of science is becoming almost elitist in nature: it seems we spend much of our time communicating such that only a small percentage of people actually understand what is actually being stated. Scholarly reporting is obviously important but is too much emphasis placed on such authoring?

[DV8 2XL]

Your probably right, but scholarly reporting and public communications are two separate things.

 

The issue isn't helped by the fact that the public is constantly bombarded by reports of studies apparently showing one thing and a month later another saying the exact opposite. This generates a lot of scar tissue in the public mind. Makes the job of talking to them a lot harder.

[swansont]

Emphasis is on scholarly papers because that's one way of justifying getting more money to do additional research.

 

The research part of science is a system in which you spend several years studying and doing research to get your degree, and then several more as a postdoc, and then you go off and do more research. The best and brightest usually end up doing the best research. Of course it's elitist. Educational ventures tend to be.

 

Perhaps what you meant was that it isn't very acessible. In that regard, part of the problem is that there is often little motivation for scientists to explain their work in lay terms, but also some of the problem is that the people who don't understand the science don't understand any science. If the advanced research takes 12 years of study to get to the point of doing the research, it's really hard to explain the work to someone who has never bothered to acquire any math or science skills.

[badchad]

As swanson said, with all the educatoin and effort put into publishing a paper it is somewhat "elitist".

 

Also, consider that peer-reviewd publications are NOT meant to be read by the general public. That is not their purpose; rather they are meant to convey information to other researchers in the area. If you were to "dumb down" a scholarly research paper so eeryone could read it, you would risk the loss of information.

[scicop]

Another problem with science communication is public williness to understand! No doubt that conceptually, science topics are often difficult to comprehend, however not un-attainable. Anyone can understand science, its just that understanding science means putting in a little work, and that is something the general public does not do.

 

Science is now readly accessible to the general public in lay terms. Sure they may not understand a journal article, but there are magazines, websites, and public advocasy groups that help bring science to to general public. However, even when science is watered down into lay terms, it still needs certain amount of thinking to fully comprehend what is being communicated. Far too many times, people read a "lay" article with out thinking, which leads to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and incorrect assertions. Most evident on this forum!!! I would say well over 90% of posts on this forum are not worth responding to since most of the posters here tend really not to get science.

 

The burden of communicating science not only falls on science itself, but also the public. Understanding science is within anyone's grasp, its just putting the effort to understand..that's were the problem lies.

 

and thats my opinion..so Pssstttt!!!

[sophster]

I think one of the issues with communicating science to the layperson is they often have in their head that science is dull/boring so they are often inclined to ignore the science pages in the newspaper or science documentary on TV.

 

Another problem is that as many people don't understand any scientific concepts they aren't equipped to understand any scientific contraversies that they might come across in the main news headlines and will generally go with the overhyped scare story rather than being able to come to their own conclusions about the research (the MMR scandal in the UK is a prime example). This tends to lead to a serious mistrust of science and scientists which makes them even more inclined to avoid understanding science properly for themselves.

[swansont]

Anyone can understand science' date=' its just that understanding science means putting in a little work, and that is something the general public does not do.

[/quote']

 

And unfortunately the response of "take a science class" is viewed as scientists being elitist and unapproachable. Yet, if it were an athletic event, saying, "You need to practice if you want to play this sport" would be accepted by a much, much larger fraction of people. Research that gets done by PhD's and written up in journals represents the professional sports level. You can play sports at a lower level, but almost nobody expects to be good the first time they try to play.

[ecoli]

And unfortunately the response of "take a science class" is viewed as scientists being elitist and unapproachable. Yet, if it were an athletic event, saying, "You need to practice if you want to play this sport" would be accepted by a much, much larger fraction of people. Research that gets done by PhD's and written up in journals represents the professional sports level. You can play sports at a lower level, but almost nobody expects to be good the first time they try to play.

 

yet, anybody can catch a game on TV... and people are willing to spend lots of money to see games. Obviously, one should expect the same attitude about science (it's not a form of entertainment), but it still shows which people find more accessable.

[the tree]

it's not a form of entertainment

That is the wrong attitude.

[ecoli]

That[/i'] is the wrong attitude.

 

Well, I enjoy learning about science, but it's an active process. Sometimes, people would rather sit back and watch a game... there's less work invovled.

[daneeka]

Emphasis is on scholarly papers because that's one way of justifying getting more money to do additional research.

 

The research part of science is a system in which you spend several years studying and doing research to get your degree' date=' and then several more as a postdoc, and then you go off and do more research. The best and brightest usually end up doing the best research. Of course it's elitist. Educational ventures tend to be.[/quote']

 

Yeah I can see how that works; I guess elitism is almost an inherent aspect of specialist study. However, I just think it a bit odd that, in most cases, we rely on third parties to interpret (perhaps 'translate' would be more apt) scholarly writing; and this perhaps leads to a bias regarding what actually gets presented to the general public. I mean, all too often I hear comments about the ignorance of the general public...I just wonder whether such apparent ignorance is partly to do with the communication barrier caused by unwillingness within the science community to communicate in layterms.

 

I just think that we've become somewhat apathetic in that we simply accept that only an elite few will actually comprehend the majority of scientific publication. Is it not important to maintain an informed society?

[swansont]

Yeah I can see how that works; I guess elitism is almost an inherent aspect of specialist study. However, I just think it a bit odd that, in most cases, we rely on third parties to interpret (perhaps 'translate' would be more apt) scholarly writing; and this perhaps leads to a bias regarding what actually gets presented to the general public. I mean, all too often I hear comments about the ignorance of the general public...I just wonder whether such apparent ignorance is partly to do with the communication barrier caused by unwillingness within the science community to communicate in layterms.

 

From that aspect we have many components in society that are elitist. Mechanics are elitist because they know how to fix my car, which is now too complicated for me to fix.

 

I just think that we've become somewhat apathetic in that we simply accept that only an elite few will actually comprehend the majority of scientific publication. Is it not important to maintain an informed society?

 

But where is the burden? In an apathetic society, you are putting too much on the shoulders of the scientists and not enough on the rest. I think a lot of scientists are willing to explain what they do, but they are not willing to grind the information into mush and spoon-feed.

[DV8 2XL]

From that aspect we have many components in society that are elitist. Mechanics are elitist because they know how to fix my car' date=' which is now too complicated for me to fix.

 

But where is the burden? In an apathetic society, you are putting too much on the shoulders of the scientists and not enough on the rest. I think a lot of scientists are willing to explain what they do, but they are not willing to grind the information into mush and spoon-feed.[/quote']

 

The problem is not so much spoon-feeding as it is the level of complexity that makes it an almost impossible (or at least a highly time consuming task) to bring the non-specialist up to speed.

 

I recall 35 years ago at the end of my freshman chemistry course, the prof telling the class, "Now you covered all the chemistry required to earn a masters degree here at McGill - if this was the year 1900."

 

Now when somebody asks me how my handheld beta-backscatter unit works, I have to answer that it PFM - Pure Frelling Magic, because nether of us have all day.

[scicop]

Yeah I can see how that works; I guess elitism is almost an inherent aspect of specialist study. However' date=' I just think it a bit odd that, in most cases, we rely on third parties to interpret (perhaps 'translate' would be more apt) scholarly writing; and this perhaps leads to a bias regarding what actually gets presented to the general public. I mean, all too often I hear comments about the ignorance of the general public...I just wonder whether such apparent ignorance is partly to do with the communication barrier caused by unwillingness within the science community to communicate in layterms.

 

I just think that we've become somewhat apathetic in that we simply accept that only an elite few will actually comprehend the majority of scientific publication. Is it not important to maintain an informed society?[/quote']

 

 

There is an entire field (or fields) devoted to such third party distribution of scientific information and pharmaceutical companies pay big money for this!!

Interestingly the majority of people who perform these jobs to not have a science background, but obviously they put effort into understanding the science and medicine so that they can best communicate it. Medical communications is changing a bit, as now they are employing more physcians and scientist to help convey science information.

 

With respect to bias! well, since a number of these companies are being paid by pharma to distribute information, there is "messaging" involved in activies that should be fair and balanced (such as CME), but often it is quite evident at CME functions who the supporting pharm company (drug manufacturer) is. So yeah, science can be and DEFINATELY IS transmitted with bias with the goal of bringing in some $$ for pharma! See commercials for Zoloft, think that nice MOA acurate diagram/cartoon of SSRI action was coincidental?!

[swansont]

The problem is not so much spoon-feeding as it is the level of complexity that makes it an almost impossible (or at least a highly time consuming task) to bring the non-specialist up to speed.

 

I recall 35 years ago at the end of my freshman chemistry course' date=' the prof telling the class, "Now you covered all the chemistry required to earn a masters degree here at McGill - if this was the year 1900."

 

Now when somebody asks me how my handheld beta-backscatter unit works, I have to answer that it PFM - Pure Frelling Magic, because nether of us have all day.[/quote']

 

But if the public hasn't even bothered to take Chemistry 101, the job is even harder. And that's a big part of the problem. Math and science are often electives, or the requirements are amazingly feeble. When I was in school, there was a whole set of elementary physics classes that were designed for the non-science major ("physics for poets") and I could not have gotten credit for taking any of them. Yet, when I was taking e.g. Introduction to Sociology, it was the introductory course for sociology majors, too. I think that's common in universities and colleges.

[DV8 2XL]

Well the mechanic you alluded too above probably thinks the world is full of idiots because most haven't bothered to find out where the dipstick for the transmission in their cars is. My sister-in-law the accountant can't believe how clueless everyone she deals with is about personal finances. My MD, who I've known since we were kids, tells me 80% of his patents are killing themselves with their forks. And I could go on. He tells me the only thing he knows about cars is, "when I step on the slanty pedal it goes;" and guess who does his taxes?

 

We all have holes because it's gotten impossible to know enough about everything anymore and cover your own field in detail as well.

 

This bunch here, probably is as close as it comes.

[daneeka]

From that aspect we have many components in society that are elitist. Mechanics are elitist because they know how to fix my car, which is now too complicated for me to fix.

 

Yes but a mechanic doesn't fix your car without explaining the problem.

 

Perhaps I was a bit vague in starting this thread. I'm not suggesting that people need to understand the grounds behind research (e.g. how the car works). I'm just saying that maybe a little more attention needs to be paid to ensure people understand what the problem is, so that an informed decision can be made.

 

But where is the burden? In an apathetic society, you are putting too much on the shoulders of the scientists and not enough on the rest. I think a lot of scientists are willing to explain what they do, but they are not willing to grind the information into mush and spoon-feed.

 

I would have thought the burden quite apparent: misinformation, bias representation of information and inaccessible information essentially equates to a poorly informed society.

 

So who influences governmental decision making (assuming a democracy that is)? It's not the scientific community that's for sure.

[swansont]

Yes but a mechanic doesn't fix your car without explaining the problem.

 

But of you don't understand cars, you can't differentiate between a legit answer and a bogus one. That's another danger of not being even minimially informed, or learning to think critically: you leave yourself open to being conned by being forced to trust specialists.