More from the BCCE: Atkins and Harpp on talking chemistry with the people.

It was another full day at the BCCE, starting with an excellent plenary address by Peter Atkins (who wrote my p-chem text, plus dozens of other books) and David Harpp (of the Office of Science and Society). Each of them spoke about the best ways to talk about science with people who are not scientists, science teachers, or science students. Some highlights after the jump.

Atkins, it turns out, is not just a scientist and author, but also an accomplished artist. So, it's probably not surprising that he sees the most promising route for spreading chemical understanding as a visual route. A big barrier to chemistry, he said, is the abstraction of the subject -- the lines chemists draw on the page to represent molecules and their transformation into other molecules. How do we overcome the abstraction of our subject? He recommended pointing out the chemistry in the everyday experience of people (in food, glass, wine, textiles) ... in combination with computer graphics.

Atkins said the general public wants the bottom line -- the image the chemist has in her head of the chemical things she's studying. The best way to communicate that bottom line, he said, is images without words, images without symbols, images of how chemists "see" solid structure, molecular graphics of biological materials or of single molecules.

You don't need symbols, just images, to convey how the world is working.

Atkins punctuated his talk, naturally, with lots of beautiful images. He brought up an image of the molecules that make up the polymer polyethylene, showing a surface so tighly packed and smooth that it seemed self-evident water would be unable to get through it. Next he showed a representation of the molecules in Teflon. Teflon must be non-stick; you can practically see the armor on its surface.

The chemist, according to Atkins, should encourage people to look at everyday object with the "secondary eye" you get from some degree of chemical education (presumably, this very visual chemical education he was advocating). He compared this to the added appreciation even the non-musician can get of music with some understanding of the structure of the music.

He also showed some visuals suggestive of the second law of thermodynamics. The heart of it is simple, he said: the direction of natural change is toward disorder. With some effort (and cunning), we can build order from disorder. For people to go to their graves without understanding the second law is deeply disheartening, Atkins opined. "Shout it into the ear of those on the way out!"

Ultimately, Atkins said, we are trying to make people enjoy the world more deeply than they did before we started to teach them. To know why a rose is red deepens our delight.

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David Harpp spoke of the need to help the public get right with science. In a free society where the public has all sorts of decisions to make, the public needs information, and needs to understand that life is a risk. There is a great need, Harpp said, to dispel misinformation, since the selling of nostrums with no particular value has been around for centuries -- and is still happening on the internet. (Had you folks heard?)

Harpp gave a run-down of much internet nonsense. For example: Water pumped at right angles gets lazy (??), making its bond angles smaller (!!), reducing them from the desirable 120 degrees to the unhealthy 101 degrees (?!?!). But we can sell you a new piping system that will help! (It must be true, since another online company verifies that in the past several decades, the bond angle in water has decreased from 108 to 104, and that this explains the corresponding increase in the frequency of cancer.)

As well, surveys indicate that 30% of Europeans believe that only genetically modified tomatoes contain genes. (Before you get all gloaty, so do 43% of Americans and 41% of Canadians.)

This looks like a place where some modicum of science education could help. So Harpp and his posse at the Office of Science and Society have spent years doing public outreach with exhibits and demos, public lectures, and continuing education courses. They have focused on developing visual materials and demonstrations, as well as on making things as relevant as possible. (Their lectures and courses on food-related science have been wildly popular.) At present, it sounds like they are pulling things together to broaden their reach, putting whole courses together on CD or DVD, and make materials available online.

I wonder if they read the blogs.

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There was also a session today on the plethora of online resources hosted by the Journal of Chemical Education. I'll put up a post with pointers to some of the cooler links tomorrow morning.