In a guest-post at Asymptotia, Sabine Hossenfelder suggests some really good reasons for scientists to communicate with non-scientists -- and not just to say, "Give us more research funding and we'll give you an even smaller iPod." She really gets to the heart of what's at stake:
I find it kind of ironic that during the last decades this ancient desire of men to just understand had to be more and more justified by the prospect of material output. Nowadays, governmental funding goes primarily into applied sciences, ideally into military applications, many of which fulfill the only purpose to blow up other people's efforts to build the cities of the future. What a progress! Have we struggled so hard to make room for basic research just to question its relevance now that we have the opportunity to pursue it? Its like one of these confused moments when I eventually get up and drag myself into the kitchen. Just to find that I've forgotten what I wanted to do when I get there (see: woking).
Of course I do agree that fundamental research is the door towards technological progress, but that's an argument you've heard so often I don't want to elaborate on it. It just makes me sad that we theoretical physicists need to justify our relevance through the prospect of patents, the claim that our search might eventually result in something you could order at futureshop.com. And then go ask yourself what's the economical relevance of knowing that the stars are not holes in the celestial sphere, and that there are incredibly many solar systems just like our own. It's not a cellphone with a ringtone melody from Robbie Williams that changes our view of the world.
If I ask myself how that has happened, I've largely to blame the scientific community itself. Being supported by the taxpayers, by those that provide the basis for our survival, we have neglected to share our insights with the society that we are part of. It is only now that we begin to feel the outcome of this missing communication that we remember our task. But what I find equally bad as leaving unclear what we do, is leaving unclear how we do it.
Shouldn't a worldview stretch farther than the bottom line? Isn't there still room to value wonder?
You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.
After reading the "whole thing", I bumped into a few things that sparked some thoughts. I'll share them. =D
She had pointed out that if an individual was born many years prior than life would be much different in terms of perspective, value system, etc. because survival was a full time job. Understandable, but isn't that still our jobs? Before anything else, it is to survive, and with that in our back pocket (at least we like to think so), what is next? Supposedly we have life that we can make choices, and put effort towards in order to create something with. This is an understandable perspective, its one that I have as well, but being in an industrial nation like the U.S. doesn't mean survival should be something we think we've got it beat. Not to compare myself to an abandoned child in a 3rd world country in terms of who has to deal with the reality of survival, but survival should still be our goal. It should be our full time job, because as much as we enjoy our Starbucks, annihilation is still a real threat. If it isn't disease or war, it'll be something else that comes along, but before people start pulling our their "The End is Near" picket sign, we have options. People read your blog, and many other science related blogs because we find answers in those who constantly question. Survival should be our focus, because honestly, at this point the threats are more advanced than what you might of faced if you were born 100 or 1000 years ago. We still have to eat, sleep, and protect ourselves, but how we go about doing that, plus a million other variables, go into what we have to consider. Survival should still be a primary focus, and I don't think I need to go into how science can address that focus.
As for the issue of funding being applied to that in which can be applied quickly, or that would produce the best possible profit for the fiscal year, is obviously a problem. My take on it is that humans have a horrible time looking forward for any considerable amount of time. If you don't believe me, asking a teenager what they are doing tomorrow, next week, next year. Our goals at this point aren't focused on what would get us to the next hurdle in human development, and areas of development that will help us way down the road seem get the short end of the stick.
In response to a post last summer by Pedro Beltrao, I started a 'research blog' (link with this post, I think), where I write just about the research my lab does. It's mostly about what and how we do what we do, but I hope it also gives a flavour of why.
Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I adore her for that Liff reference! :D
I am not sure why it is that the basic scientist has to communicate to the public why he/she is doing what he/she does, while the engineer, the rocket scientist, or the clinician does not. All these professionals, including the basic scientist, invest much toward their education and then, even more toward being awarded the competitive job they are intersted in. Children, starting in kindergarten and all the way to highschool, are being taught the value of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. We all are aware and proud of the top scientists among us who receive the highest honors, and we celebrate these honors even if we do not understand what and how they do what they do.
I believe the blame for the problem resides more with the people who oversee the administration of higher education institutions than with the scientists employed by them. The bottom line is nowaday the requirement of the university administration, a group of people that find it easier to apply the balanced budget measuring stick, than to understand the scientist's science and promote the new knowledge this science will create, without predicting its benefits, benefits that will emerge in due time (as the history of science has proved over and over again). The problem is exacerbated by the loss of power that faculty members of academic institutions have suffered over the past 25 years. Academic freedom (in terms of choosing one's scientific interests) is now limited to those "interests" that can satisfy the demand for a quick and useful, and preferrably profitable, application. The tenure system is under attack and in danger of being eliminated. The most successful scientist today is the richest one (grant dollars), not the most intelligent or the smartest and with the best chance of expanding our knowledge. Materialism, I think, is the downfall of science.
@S. Rivlin
I could not disagree more with your statement that "Children, starting in kindergarten and all the way to high school, are being taught the value of knowledge for the sake of knowledge." That is exactly what they are NOT being taught, due to a lack of vision generally and standardized testing specifically. That leads to my second disagreement. Because of this lack of foundation the vast majority of people could give a rat's ass about whoever the Scientist of the Day is. In fact it is my experience that most people are contemptuous of scientists as celebrities.
I think it is less important to have scientists talking to people and much more important to give people the means to understand and appreciate a scientist first. This means good science programs starting in kindergarten. Without this everything else is moot.
It won't work. I am referring to the latest post that is, by @S.Rivlin.
Even thought I do have to agree with you in all aspects you mention, I am compelled to say it won't work, for the simple fact that in the close to 21 years I have spent in/out of classes, from primary school to my second post-graduate course I can say I have but met two - probably three - truly astounding teachers. People honestly devoted to teaching - science or otherwise. Those that have the "magic glow" in their eyes, whether they talk about the simplest salt crystal or the most complex plant tricome, or why do plants have bigger genomes.
In the role of the experienced student I would be tempted to say that I do prefer the teacher who actively works in the lab 24/7 and has the "latest paper" in his research field, to the dull academic that teaches for a living but is outdated some 100 years. But the true - blunt - fact is, and this is where I would agree with you if it did happen, whoever is the "vector" of knowledge, from kindergarten to Ph.D. mentorship, it has to be an active "vector", someone who teaches you science with a passion in his/her eyes.
I personally had the rather fascinating experience of teaching my own friends things I would never would have think possible, between a beer or two in a relaxation moment in a bar, only because I had the patience of choosing the right examples and the time to choose the right "everyday life examples" no one has ever remembered to mention in their Biology classes.
Their usual words in the end of the "lecture" are always something like: "Oh, so that's why so and so is so important.", or, "Ah... now I see why this and that happens".
(I am starting to be very fond of this blog as is seems)
I find it hard to disagree with her point that scientists need to take their message to the people. We live in an era where we trust that science can figure out what we want to know. The challenge is figuring out what we want to know. As Hossenfelder writes, meaningful physics no longer occurs waiting for apples to fall from trees. Instead, supercolliders so expensive that only a government could fund them are needed. Without public understanding, the public's advocacy for billions of dollars in search of the "Higgs boson" is unlikely. A simple appeal to our innate curiosity is needed... "Did you know that the Higgs boson is the last unobserved particle predicted by physicists' Standard Model?" This builds drama, a storyline, that is critical to enlisting broader support for research dollars. What, besides public curiosity, could ever compete with the bottom line?
One of the most important books I've read recently was for an excellent class on the historiography of science; the book was That Noble Dream by Peter Novick about the scientific pursuit of objectivity. We've historically thought of science as the objective pursuit of some a priori truth, but the history shows how deeply and essentially science is an activity of a society, and is subject to a variety of embarrassingly human forces, like ideology, economy, credibility and trust, etc.
We scientists are in relationship with the society we practice science in, and not working alone in a bell jar. While science has been able to cruise on its successes and assume its importance to the society which underwrites it, I think the time has passed when we could continue to assume this. We need to convince society of the importance of our work and, sad to say, it has been simpler to do that when there's a valuable material reward to be won. The harder task for us in the future will be to make a convincing case for science-for-science's-sake. In the United States, where science is sometimes painted as an enemy of faith and moral values, we have a lot of work to do.
Maybe it is the fact that I receive all my education. including the scientific one, not in the US. I fell in love with science thank to a chemistry teacher I had in highschool. He did not practice his science in the lab and he hardly performed any experiment in the class. He used the blackboard, the chalk and his enthusiasm. I am sure that most scientists have turned to science due to the influence of an effective science teacher. One does not need a science teacher in grammar school of highschool who practices science in the lab in order to understand the importance of knowledge. This is not different from the importance of knowing one's history or any other knowledge, especially the knowledge that you have a brain and that it is OK to use it to ask and answer questions. Where I came from, the greatest celebrities are the Nobel Prize winners, the scientists, and authors, the poets and the learned. The importance of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is being taught in America at all levels, however, neither parents nor society today consider it important, unless you can measure it with $$$. This is the problem that scientists face today - unless they can affix a $$$ value to their research outcome in the short term, their research is doomed.
When Crick and Watson were working on the structure of DNA in 1950-2, they would not be able to persuade even the smartest business guru, let alone themselves, that their research will lead to the gold mine that applied molecular biology is today.
I have just discovered the following:
In the new issue of Science (feb 2, 2007), their is an add on the 2nd inside page by Shimadzu that quotes - "Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world."
Albert Einstein
Scientist (1867-1934)
It would be much more effective if Shimadzu corporation would not imagined Einstein's birth and death dates, but rather demonstrated a bit of knowledge, as the Nobel physicist was born in 1879 and died in 1955.
"Without the limited knowledge, your imagination may lead you to believe in Intelligent Design."
Solomon Rivlin
Scientist (1941- )