There are times when talk is the only way to communicate. We need to learn to do it effectively. Many scientists have had the experience of giving a lecture for a general audience. And some of those scientists are brilliant to listen to. Members of the audience congratulate the speaker at the end, and say how marvelous the talk was. And then, they often add, "of course, I didn't understand anything you said, but it was wonderful." Dazzling people is not the same as communicating. It is helpful to start with something from everyday experience to begin with. And it is helpful to convey the context in which particular research falls and from which it gains significance. Often we speak of what interests us, but not what interests the listeners. Often we only begin speaking when a crisis looms; our efforts at communicating should be continual. Often we think that national exposure on television or major newspapers is what matters most; but efforts in cities and towns all over the country will bring science home to the people who count. We can talk about how science has promoted local industry, and along the way get the science across. We can talk about how science has allowed modern communication, transportation, even the things that are on the supermarket shelves. Very few people have any idea that our whole modern life is based on scientific advances.
Another thing we could do is to stop speaking with certainty about uncertain things. Scientists do not do that among themselves; it is both disrespectful and dumb to do it when speaking to nonscientists. True, the idea of probabilities is not broadly understood. But it could be, if we spoke of it and made the effort to explain. If the public does not understand probability and thus risk, it is our job to teach, not to wring our hands over public ignorance. This is especially pertinent when issues of health and safety and environmental degradation are at issue ... as with mad cow disease. Bill Carey wrote in a Science editorial in 1983 of the "surpassing importance of trust, in the contract between science and government in an open society."
In the face of uncertainty, we have to be honest and outspoken. Too many people have experienced science only in classes that are dogmatic about science, and present it as a body of unassailable facts. We know better. Everyone should. When the pertinent available scientific facts are insufficient to support a firm conclusion and policy must nevertheless be made, we should stop presenting opposing views as either/or options and stop waffling about holes in scientific knowledge. We should point out that substantial scientific disagreements indicate uncertainty and that in the end, neither view may be correct, or perhaps even both will be. We should not permit political pressures to back us into scientifically indefensible corners.
Still, there are some challenges that really seem impossible. We have very difficult problems when a scientific conclusion is relatively firm, but is contrary to desired political ends. What can we do to make the scientific conclusion the desired political end? Rather than slinking off disgruntled, that should become the challenge. Otherwise, we are acquiescing in the continuation of a process that leads to irrational public policy. We have to begin to think that it is our fault, not theirs, whoever they may be. In politics, there is always a spectrum of views. We should work with those who oppose a scientifically bad policy. Rather than worrying about the effects of such opposition on our own funding, we should speak out whenever wrongheaded ideas are headed for success. ( A recent example is the funding of research on Alternative Medicine.)
If we are to improve the communication of science to those behind the frontier, the scientific community probably needs to recapture access to the public. Public information about science is now, to a large extent, in the hands of institutional public relations departments, the science policy establishment ... that is, yourselves, and the media. We need a more direct line. We need to show that we are real, actually quite ordinary people. Perhaps we could even avoid the tendency, apparent even in the scientific press, to present everything in an adversarial mode; the public is certainly engaged by conflict, but people are also engaged by their self-interest, and that is always served by straight-forward information.
If we can get a direct line, we will probably have to clean up our act. Too often these days, when scientists are given an opportunity to speak about their work, they are more interested in advancing the cause of their next grant, or their company's financial status, than in conveying information to the public in a meaningful way. There is too much hype. Every gene that is discovered will lead to a cure for some disease ... maybe, but not for a long time. Even the superconducting super collider was said to have important implications for improving human health.
We have not used well our wits and talents to convey the extraordinary scientific enterprise and the amazing things we have learned about the world. The ignorance behind the frontier is our responsibility as scientists; no one will know what we are doing if we don't find ways to tell them, ways that can be heard because they connect to the everyday world in which people live.
Some months ago, the New York Times Magazine ran a photo essay highlighting outstanding women in all fields that contribute importantly to our nation's welfare. There was not one scientist in the group. The same thing often happens when men are listed for similarly important contributions. Scientists are left out of the reckoning. We can change that if we find new ways to talk about science, ways to talk so we are heard, and listened to.
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Dr. Maxine Singer is president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Excerpted from her William Carey Lecture to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, April 17, 1996. The entire paper will appear in AAAS Science and Technology Yearbook, 1996 (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1996). Reprinted with permission.