18 May

The Science Communication Deficit: who cares?

It’s been a while since my last post because a number of things have been buzzing in my head.

First, was my disappointment at the first French final of Fame lab, a few weeks ago. I had heard of Fame Lab through the grapevine and was thrilled that it had come to Paris as this was my opportunity to see for myself what it was really all about. I was looking forward to an entertaining show.

Entertaining it was but scientifically rather poor. Indeed, whilst “My thesis in 180 seconds” is the opportunity for PhD students to explain in layman terms what they are working on, Fame lab is accessible to anyone wanting to explain a scientific concept. The result of this is, that when asked follow up questions, the candidates are less knowledgeable of the subject in depth. Whilst the politically correct people will say to you, “Fame lab is fab!”, I actually sat there thinking “is that what science communication is reduced to?”

And that got me thinking about the status of science communicators. There are two types of science communicators:

Those who work in the Museum and Science Center world, who at best have a Masters Degree in Science, but sometimes end up being total layman people who through the years of working in Science Museums develop a passion for Science.
Those of us who do a PhD and realise postdocing all their life isn’t for them and resolve to a Science Communicator’s career.

In both those cases, science communicators are viewed as failures to the “real” scientific community.

I was recently discussing science career options, outside of the postdoc route, with a PhD student and even though 6 years separate our two PhD graduation years, nothing has changed. PI’s for the majority won’t support you in pursuing a career outside of research because, after all, what good will it have been to them, investing three to six years in you becoming a Doctor, if you are not going to pursue research.

So really, in the eyes of the scientific community, being a science communicator is being a failure.

How then, can we really be successful in science communication and convey to the rest of the world that science is worth knowing about when we are stuck between scientists who don’t see the point and politicians who couldn't care less.

The result is: the European debate that took place last week. 5 candidates for the European Presidency of the Commission met to exchange in front of millions their vision of Europe. Now you would have thought that Europe had come along well recently in terms of science with the appointment of a Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the Commission and the establishment a few years ago of the European Research Council. With such positive developments in favour of science, you would have thought that science had gained legitimacy in the eyes of politicians.... Well no! Not a word. The 5 candidates debated for 1h30min over politics, economics, finance... but not a word about science.

Yet there are currently many issues at stake worth discussing... the gain of function debate is roaring in the scientific community: Should scientists be allowed to manipulate viruses thereby creating potentially lethal viruses which, if they were to get out, could annihilate the whole of humanity. Over 50 scientists recently sent a letter to the President of the Commission about this but none of the 5 candidates thought it important enough to discuss.

The creation of a European Foundation to support philanthropy across Europe and rid ourselves of 28 different fiscal systems is another hot topic currently in the Scientific Community and neither that nor the usual topics genetically modified organisms, funding for scientists, the brain drain etc were addressed. Not a word.

Politicians are terrific at telling you how they are going to boost growth and foster employment opportunities, but evidently, despite the fact that all growth stems from innovation and science, none of this was even broached.

The elections are in a week...who cares about science?

Commenter cet article

Godefroy

19/05/2014 22:49

Hi, Thanks for this thought-provoking post. I wonder whether the (bad) judgements on science mediation/curation you summarize is something that is specifically strong in your disciplinary field. In social sciences, porosity between academia and policy-making is much stronger and it would probably not be accurate to emphasise so strongly the divide (I don't say it does not exist, but it's subtler and at least, despise goes both ways!) Also, reading you, I kind of wonder what is your definition of "science" (a term you seem to use equivalently as "research" or "academic community", which is debatable). What did you want the 5 debaters to say? That they love science (which one best? As positivists or in a more prudent way (it's a Beckian world after all)) ? That they would base their decisions on the best available results of research (by academics? by their favorite think tank?) ? That they would support innovation (something that is connected to, but in no way similar to academic research, as you well know)? All of that, maybe? What would have made the FameLabs contestants legitimate in your eyes? A PhD? Published articles? To achieve what to what audience? Oreskes and Conway's Merchants of Doubt show well that legitimacy in a field does not easily translate into legitimacy to impact public debate (or that, at the least, one should question the reasons one would want to become a popularizer for -- the recent nanotech debate in France, heavily supported by CEA, proves that popularization can be quite politically-loaded...) Thanks again, G.

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