VOX DEI-BATE #14: COMMUNICATION GAP

In my previous post, I waxed at length about why I felt that Vox's impression of how the scientific community actually operates missed the boat. A lot of his sympathetic readership felt my post missed the boat, and felt it was largely bloviated excuse-making. To those folk, I would say this: if you think the distinctions I raised in that post are irrelevant, I invite you to explain why you feel that way here. Of, if you don't understand why scientists might feel those distinctions matter, then you need to try harder, frankly. I'm just saying.

Now, on to the exchange. I don't see any purpose in belaboring Vox's admission that he misread the Lejeune example that we've been discussing. It is a mark of his intellectual integrity that he would acknowledge his momentary misstep, and that he would take steps to get up to speed. Many of my critics referenced in the above paragraph could learn from his example.

I also want to say that Vox is one-hundred percent dead-on right when he notes: ".... that if scientists wish to be understood by anyone but other scientists, they have simply got to stop saying the equivalent of "I predicted the results would be A, the results were X, so therefore my prediction was correct", ESPECIALLY when trying to explain things to those who can't possibly be expected to know the jargon."

Well, right on. Science, and particularly biology, has become more complex by orders of magnitude since the genetic code was determined. The requisite level of technical expertise now needed to parse even general review articles in the literature is often beyond the ability of non-specialists to absorb without serious research. The truth is, scientists increasingly struggle to communicate with each other, much less the general public.

It might interest Vox and his readership to know that real scientists are aware of the problem. Scientists like Ken Miller, whose presentation on this topic featured heavily in a previous post, has gone on the record with this blunt assessment:

Speaking on what specifically the scientific community could do to fight this, Miller said it must change its attitude, particularly paying attention to public issues such as that in Cobb County and helping to educate the general public. "Frankly, we suck at popularizing science," he said.

That, in a nutshell, is why I think it is important for science educators to engage the public in non-traditional fora such as this. That is why people like me should seek out well-spoken folk outside of the scientific community, including (gasp!) those with religious convictions, and engage them on the science. I'm going to continue to do that, because I think for those of you who are on the fence, there is much to be gained by considering the views of others.

In my next post, I'll discuss the question Vox raises as to the number of genomic predictions and the nature of those predictions, which in the main are eliminative. The failure of scientists to communicate the fact that much of science is eliminative in character can be shown in that only a very small percentage of high school science students can evaluate a hypothesis, so we will discuss that, as well.