Knowledge is
next to useless if it’s not shared. Knowledge is created by sharing and
standing on the shoulders of the proverbial giants who came before. From town
criers proclaiming a monarch’s decisions and clans and tribes sharing knowledge
through song and poems to the advent of the printing press and the development
of the world wide web, people have a thirst for knowledge and an urge to share
it with others, be they friends or opponents, colleagues or competitors.
Emerging from
the shadows of alchemy through the works of Aristotle and Archimedes and
onwards through the Enlightenment to the modern day, science has developed an
extensive body of knowledge and various means to communicate, both within
science and to the general public.
The
scientific method is the accepted way in which science is conducted — a
question is posed or an observation is made and a scientist will then develop a
hypothesis to find general patterns that underlie the question. Through
experiment and further observation, they will refine their hypotheses and so
become more confident in their outcomes.
A major part
of this process — indeed the main way in which to further develop the
hypotheses and build towards the more robust ‘theory’ — is communicating the
findings.
There are several
ways this can be done. One is to take part in conferences where peers can ask
questions about methods used when conducting an investigation and their
outcomes. Often these presentations can be used to test early parts of work —
is the work well received, or are people picking lots of holes in it? The
feedback can send a scientist off in different directions — perhaps their
methods have been flawed or their statistics do not support their work. Further
revisions and presentations can lead to the work being readied for publication
for the wider scientific community to study.
The general
process of getting a paper published is regulated by the major journals and
through peer review. A paper will be sent out to reviewers who will scrutinise the
paper and decide whether it’s fit for publication.
Whether
another scientist can or cannot replicate the findings will lend weight to the
hypothesis or result in refinements of the hypothesis. Later studies
replicating the original investigation may include errors in replicating the
experiments, in which case these findings must be published too. In science,
negative results are every bit as important as positive results. A good example
of this was the recent search for the Higgs boson — a negative result would have
meant scientists having to revise their hypotheses and models, which in itself
is a continuation of the process of building knowledge.
The most
important part of a paper is not the conclusions, but the methods. This is
where a scientist demonstrates how they went about answering their question.
It’s this part of the paper that allows other scientists to attempt to
replicate the experiments and observations conducted. It’s important to note
that most scientists work in teams and collaborate within their institutions
and with colleagues across the globe, and that published papers often represent
the work of many people.
There’s a
tension between new discoveries and building on previous knowledge. Scientists must
be familiar with the current thinking and all that has gone before in their
field.
John James
Audubon is well-known for his work in the early 19th century as a field
ornithologist and artist. To test whether the turkey vulture had a good sense
of smell he put out hidden carcasses, and concluded when the birds didn’t find
the meat that they did not have a well-developed sense of smell. Unfortunately
for him, his experiment was flawed, because if he had known more about these
birds he would know that they prefer fresh carcasses rather than putrefying
flesh, and it turned out that the birds he was observing were in fact another
species which have a poorer sense of smell than the turkey vulture. He was also under the mistaken belief that
animals can only have one well-developed sense; in other words, if a bird has a
good sense of sight they cannot have a good sense of smell.
Much science
is highly specialised and only of interest to other scientists, but enough is
of potential interest to the general public or considered ground-breaking or to
have real-world applications that could solve urgent problems facing humanity
and the world today. These papers are picked up and summarised first by popular
science magazines which will present as much of the science as possible but for
a non-specialist but highly interested and educated audience.
Next up are
newspapers and the media — they’ll often simplify the findings, bringing out
the practical applications of the science or demonstrating in what way the
findings may or may not have revolutionised our knowledge about a particular
topic. They’ll often put the science in context with what came before and what
the science could lead to in the future.
This is where
science communication to the public becomes really important. Science thrives
on using precise and specialised language, often underpinned by difficult
mathematics or conceptual ideas. The News at Ten is not going to devote time to
talking about the intricacies of quantum mechanics: to properly understand such
a topic a person really does need an education covering the basics — in this
case physics — what an atom is, what it is composed of and how they interact
with each other and the transfers of energy.
I have such a
lot of respect for many of the science correspondents who can convey complex
ideas in the few minutes they get, usually at the tail-end of news programmes.
What they do is explain what the science means through using analogies or how
the findings are going to find practical uses in the future. Are the results of
the findings going to result in faster computers and better communications
technologies, are they going to enable effective medical treatments to be
created? Most people’s lives have been enriched by the work of scientists:
indeed many people are still living due to research, so this is often where the
excitement of ‘big science’ is really conveyed.
As much as
the general media help to shape public interest in science they also have a
responsibility to present it accurately. It’s all too easy to oversimplify the
science to make it seem as if a study is something that has a ‘common sense’
answer, something the social sciences are particularly vulnerable to. They
could misrepresent the science, leading to confusion and misunderstanding,
perhaps undermining public confidence in scientists.
The media can
also suggest that ideas are contentious and that there are dissenting voices
out there when really there is none within science itself. This is common with
climate science where the media, in a mistaken sense of balance and fair play, will
allow sceptics or deniers lots of airtime, potentially giving the impression
that the scientific consensus is undecided. The BBC has come under particular
criticism for this, highlighted in a report by Steve
Jones. Many of the sceptics or deniers are not scientists, but are opposed
to the idea of what the science represents, either through ideological,
political or economic beliefs, and they are particularly concerned with how
countries will respond politically or economically to putting in mechanisms to
slow down human-caused global warming.
Andrew
Wakefield’s now discredited work on the link between the MMR vaccine and autism
is a prime example of how irresponsible communication can lead to health
scares, and ultimately to deaths. Parents honestly think they're behaving in
their children’s' best interests, and often talk about making informed choices
for their children, but when the findings of science is misrepresented it can
have dire consequences. Many people do not have the scientific education to
make truly informed decisions on matters like these and so the media has a
responsibility to present findings accurately. This is an example where the
peer review process had failed: it should have never have been published in the
first case.
As such, I’d
like to see scientific communication be a part of all science undergraduate
training. Many scientists like to distance themselves from the media and the
general public, enclosing themselves in their labs and ivory towers and working
in the pursuit of pure science. However, with much science being publicly
funded and ultimately having practical applications, scientists should be able
to communicate to the press and media. Not everyone can be a Richard Feynman or
Carl Sagan, but the ability to communicate clearly to a wide audience is
something that should be nurtured. Science has many ideas and words that are
used in a specialised way — theory and uncertainty are two examples which the
general public do not understand — but scientists should be able to clearly
explain what they mean in the context of their work. Often critics say things
like ‘it's only a theory’ to shed doubt on evolution, or the public take
uncertainty to mean that scientists aren’t sure about their results. These
ideas and indeed all science must be clearly communicated.
There are
many other mechanisms of science communication. These include popular science
books, sometimes written by journalists or historians of science who bring
together whole fields and present the science in context, but often by working
scientists themselves. Textbooks find their place in university libraries and are
only really read by students and other scientists.
Radio is
where the voice of scientists is often heard by the general public, rather than
their work being interpreted by correspondents as on TV. It’s this medium where
they get more time to explain their ideas to the general public, and it’s here
that the really good communicators excel.
Some
excellent communicators and working scientists, such as Brian Cox and Alice
Roberts, are able to work across all media and they really engage the public,
often enthusing about science and encouraging the next generation of
scientists. They present big ideas that are exciting — normally little
knowledge is expected of the audience, although sometimes, like Jim Al-Khalili,
they’ll present more difficult concepts, expecting the audience to keep up.
All of these
examples show just how wide and varied science communication is. Science is
incredibly important to our societies — its developments enable our way of life
to be possible — we live longer, we can access information on any topic at any
time in just a few seconds, we can travel hundreds of kilometres in a few
hours, we can talk to our friends and families instantly living on the opposite
side of the planet, and in the developed world we have more leisure time due to
developments in technology, often derived from pure science.
We’ve put men
on the Moon and to the bottom of the oceans, we’ve sent probes to other
planets, one has just left the Solar System, and a rover is sending back
information from another planet. We know how old our Solar System is and how
long it’s expected to last.
All of this
science has had an amazing impact and it will continue for as long as we keep
asking questions and enquiring about how the world and the Universe works, with
communication being at the heart of the process.
