Why should it be hard for scientists to get science across？ Some scientists， including somevery good ones， tell me they’d love to popularize， but feel they lack talent in this area. Knowing and explaining， they say， are not the same thing. What’s the secret？
There’s only one， I think： don’t talk to the general audience as you would to your scientific colleagues. There are terms that convey yourmeaning instantly and accurately to fellow experts. You may parse these phrases every day in your professional work. But they do no more than mystify an audience of non-specialists. Use the simplest possible language. Above all， remember how it was before you yourself grasped whatever it is you’re explaining. Remember the misunderstandings that you almost fell into， and note them explicitly. Keep firmly in mind that there was a time when you didn’t understand any of this either. Recapitulate the first steps that ied you from ignorance to knowledge. Never forget that native intelligence is widely distributed in our species. Indeed， it is the secret of our success.
The effort involved is slight， the benefits great. Among the potential pitfalls are oversimplification， the need to be sparing with qualifications （and quantifications）， inadequate credit given to the many scientists involved， and insufficient distinctions drawn between helpful analogy and reality. Doubtless， compromises must be made.
The more you make such presentations， the clearer it is which approaches work and which do not. There is a natural selection of metaphors， images， analogies， anecdotes. After a while you find that you can get almost anywhere you want to go， walking on consumer-tested stepping-stones. You can then fine-tune your presentations for the needs of a given audience.
Like some editors and television producers， some scientists believe the public is too ignorant or too stupid to understand science， that the enterprise of popularization is fundamentally a lost cause， or even that it’s tantamount to fraternization， if not outright cohabitation， with the enemy. Among the many criticisms that could be made of this judgement-along with its insufferable arrogance and its neglect of a host of examples of highly successful science popularizations— is that it is self-confirming. And also， for the scientists involved，self-defeating.
Large-scale government support for science is fairly new， dating back only to World War Two—although patronage of a few scientists by the rich and powerful is much older. With the end of the Cold War，the national defence trump card that provided support for all sorts of fundamental science became virtually unplayable. Only partly for this reason， most scientists， I think， are now comfortable with the idea of popularizing science. （Since nearly all support for science comes from the public coffers， it would be an odd flirtation with suicide for scientists to oppose competent popularization.） What the public understands and appreciates， it is more likely to support. I don’t mean writing articles for Scientific American， say， that are read by science enthusiasts and scientists in other fields. I’m not just talking about teaching introductory courses for undergraduates. I’m talking about efforts to communicate the substance and approach of science in newspapers， magazines， on radio and television， in lectures for the general public， and in elementary， middle and high school textbooks.
Of course there are judgement calls to be made in popularizing. It’s important neither to mystify nor to patronize. In attempting to prod public interest， scientists have on occasion gone too far—for example， in drawing unjustified religious conclusions. Astronomer George Smoot described his discovery of small irregularities in the ratio radiation left over from the Big Bang as ‘seeing God face-to-face’. Physics Nobel laureate Leon Lederman described the Higgs boson， a hypothetical building block of matter， as ‘the God particle’， and so titled a book. （In my opinion， they’re all God particles.） If the Higgs boson doesn’t exist， is the God hypothesis； disproved？ Physicist Frank Tipler proposes that computers in the remote future will prove the existence of God and work our bodily resurrection.
Periodicals and television can strike sparks as they give us a glimpse of science， and this is very important. But—apart from apprenticeship or well-structured classes and seminars—the best way to popularize science is through textbooks， popular books， CD-ROMs and laser discs. You can mull things over， go at your own pace， revisit the hard parts， compare texts， dig deep. It has to be done right， though， and in the schools especially it generally isn’t. There， as the philosopher John Passmore comments， science is often presented as a matter of learning principlesand applying them by routine procedures. It is learned from textbooks， not by reading the works of great scientists or even the day-to-day contributions to the scientific literature... The beginning scientist， unlike the beginning humanist， does not have an immediate contact with genius. Indeed...school courses can attract quite the wrong sort of person into science-unimaginative boys and girls who like routine.
