What we've got here is a failure to communicate

     Because this blog was created as a component of a seminar course on effective communication of science to the public, it stands to reason that I should be reflecting on this topic regularly. Now, defining "the public" is not always easy, and I've used Joe T. Public as my all-encompassing stand in, but it seems that I often consider myself to be one of the public. If the public are simply people who are not experts (or nowhere near experts) on a subject, then when it comes to new-fangled CMSB (cellular, molecular, and structural biology), I consider myself one of the public. Sure, I've had a few introductory biology courses that do a brief survey of these fields, but I've never had an advanced course, and I certainly don't read the literature. So, when I go to see a talk by a professional scientist doing this kind of research, I take on the role of the public with whom the speaker should be effectively communicating.

     At the last CMSB talk I attended, I think I understood three of the presenter's slides. There were probably fifty or so presented in total. Included in the three I think I understood are the intro slide (Hi, this is my name and where I work) and the closing slide (Thanks for listening, here's the people who helped me). That leaves one actual slide that I think I understood. Isn't this a major problem?

     I've already prefaced this with my admitted ignorance on the entire field of biology in which this presentation fit, but does that mean that the speaker should avoid making any effort to communicate effectively with me? This talk was not given at a special gathering of experts in the field, but rather to an entire department that is (unfortunately) labeled "zoology". We've grappled in seminar about the importance of casting your talk at the right level for your audience, so why is it that this talk (and CMSB talks in general) fail to do so?

     My two guesses: 1) scientists trained in this field are never taught [i]how[/i] to communicate effectively with the public, and 2) the science in this field cannot be effectively communicated to the public. I've left out the cynical third guess that assumes the scientists just don't care, but this may be the case. If the problem is that there is no training for communication in this field, one has to wonder why that is the case. Surely all science deserves to be communicated to the public. Most of the CMSB talks I've been to relate fairly directly to human health in some way, so it would seem that these scientists would have much to gain from communicating with the public. They'll never have a hostile crowd at their lab door, wielding pitchforks and torches, demanding justification for the work being done there. Perhaps it is this very issue that makes them such poor communicators: their work relates so directly to human health, they only have to state as much to satisfy Joe T. Public. When that level of communication is the extent to which you flex your communication muscles, it's no wonder you fail so spectacularly when someone wants to know more than the superficial about your research.

     The second guess is obviously an exaggeration, but I think there is some truth to it. In my areas of interest (behavior and ecology), most concepts are fairly intuitive. Of course females will be more choosy than males when selecting mates, they (typically) invest far more in their offspring than the males. Is anyone confused about this? Doesn't it make sense that prey would change the kind of food they eat when predators are around? They should eat food that gives them more bang for their buck, since wasting time eating less nutritious food exposes them to risk of predation. Simple, right? Finally, a topic that ecologists often describe as "complex" is the trophic cascade. But here it is, plain and simple: If you eliminate bears, you get more deer, and more deer means fewer plants. Do I need to repeat that?

     I think one of the main challenges a CMSB scientist faces is that the concepts in their field do not clearly apply to intuitive relationships that the public can see in their daily lives. We pay zero attention to transcription, cell signaling, gene regulation, and ATP synthesis even though these things are going on inside the cells that compose our bodies all the time. The inner workings of the cell are more abstract that the inner workings of an ecosystem, though both can be complex. However, I do not think all complexity is created equal. Compare these diagrams:



On the top is a food web; each sphere represents an organism, and lines between spheres represent the fact that things eat each other. On the bottom is a diagram of signaling pathways within a cell, linking all the different molecules that interact with one another. Sure, both of these diagrams have a lot going on and would probably intimidate Joe T. Public. The point is that one of these can be effectively explained to anyone in a few sentences, and the other one takes an advanced degree to approach intellectually.

Naturally, my viewpoint is biased, but I have yet to attend a CMSB talk that effectively communicated with me (the public).

P.S. There is a curious lack of CMSB students in this seminar...