I recently found myself spending a lot of time thinking about science outreach and so was particularly tickled by an article in The Onion about the dumbing down of science. The Onion, of course, is “America’s finest [satirical] news source.” Included in the piece:
Sources pointed to a number of proposed shows they’ve abandoned in recent weeks, including [...] Atom Smashers, a series that was was roundly rejected by focus groups as being “too technical” and “not awesome enough.” “People liked that the particle accelerators were really huge, but apparently the show didn’t have enough smashing to hold their interest,” said a former employee.
I don’t own a television (is that weird?) so I don’t really know what programming is like on the Science Channel, but as a particle physicist I am often confronted with the question of how to explain my research to the public in a way that does not speak down to either the audience or the subject.
It is true that high energy physics isn’t a field which most people have everyday contact with, but this doesn’t mean that the material needs to be “dumbed down.” While the material might be unfamiliar to the audience, it is [very] wrong to assume that the audience is somehow incapable of understanding the material. In fact, it is the fault of the scientist if the audience unable to understand the material since it is part of the scientist’s responsibility to translate their technical work into something accessible to a broad audience without compromising scientific integrity.
This is not easy (though we here at US LHC are doing our best!) and there is a delicate balance between
- Conveying a sense of scientifically-established ‘truth’ rather than facts that people should take on faith (very unscientific!)
- Tailoring this argument to the interests, background, and patience of the audience
- Simultaneously conveying one’s personal excitement for the field.
The joke that I always keep in the back of my mind before presenting ideas to a non-technical audience is the story of an old man talking to the engineer of a steam locomotive.
The engineer does a very good job of explaining how coal is burned to boil water into steam which is then used power a system of pistons that cause the wheels to turn and the train to move forward. He explains the conversion of chemical energy to kinetic energy and the mechanics of the various valves and rods.
Eventually, the old man interrupts him and says, “Yes, yes, I understand all that. What I want you to explain is where you hide the horses.”
-Flip, US LHC Blog
We only get basic cable, which doesn’t include the “science” and “discovery” and “history” type channels. But, from what I have seen (while at family and friend’s houses), the shows are INCREDIBLY stupid. To say they are dumbed down is inaccurate actually, because this assumes that there is some nugget of education behind the show and that generally isn’t true. The shows that I have seen ARE as dumb as “let’s see what happens when we drop heavy things off of high places” – that’s it, thats the whole show. Any time I have seen the “history” channel, its been about attempts to build medieval catapults or figure out how the pyramids were built… which I guess is kind of history, but not really. So The Onion piece is actually pretty dead-on satire. A show about particle accelerators would only stay on air if the particles where pumpkins or banana cream pies; high ratings would only be ensured if contestants could then walk back and forth in the stream and risk being pasted by the particles. You aren’t missing anything without the TV, other than the ability to converse at the water cooler in the states (don’t know what its like over there).
Thanks for the comment, Jeff! It’s very sad that this is the case. I remember growing up watching shows like Beakmann’s World and Bill Nye the Science Guy and I thought those were rather good. I think PBS also has a good track record with many of their specials.
I should also probably say that I’m a big fan of Alton Brown’s Good Eats show on the Food Network, which I try to watch whenever I go visit friends for our regular cooking get-togethers. The show has a really nice “how to cook for science nerds” feel to it. Alton Brown not only explains how one should prepare food, but also *why* (chemically and biologically) this is the way to get the desired final result and often shows the consequences of doing something else.
Finally, I had high hopes for Mythbusters. I think they do a good job promoting the “here’s a hypothesis, let’s test it” mantra, though I got a little bored of things blowing up all the time. (I think there were also a few episodes where I didn’t agree with their data analysis.)
I think the bottom line is that a ‘good’ science show needn’t “sell” science as a discipline, it just has to show the scientific method ‘in action’.
Hi Flip, I’m a science communicator in the State’s tasked with the responsibility of making rare isotope research interesting to the general public, which seems even harder than high energy particle physics because we don’t have the cool, giant detectors or the God particle (I hate that term!)
A slight deviation from the conversation above; there are some good science shows out there on Discovery, Nature, History, etc., but none of them ever will be on prime time television, which seems to be the time slot/channels Jeff was lamenting.
But to my point, an entire series of shows dedicated to one subject – such as particle physics – will never happen, but it is what would be necessary to do the topic justice. Science communicators – especially writers – are often forced to “dumb it down,” due to time and space constraints.
Your typical newspaper piece is 500 words, a magazine feature maybe 2,000 and a TV spot maybe 90 seconds tops. How can you possibly create something completely technically accurate with no simplifications for a general audience consisting mostly of people who don’t even know what a neutron or proton is, let alone the quarks and gluons holding them together.
Striking the balance between using a piece to teach, explain the science, make it understandable, and do it in few words, is a struggle I deal with daily.
Thanks for the comment, Ken. I agree that the constraints for science outreach are rough. Your point did remind me, however, of Symmetry Magazine’s “Explain it in 60 seconds” column:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000253
Cheers,
Flip