My hope for 2023 is that the term “dumbing down” is actively discouraged within the STEM community to the point of extinction.
The use of this term perpetuates an outdated view in the STEM sector that making complex information more accessible is inherently bad. With the pressing urgency of climate change, we need global engagement and the general public pushing our politicians for fast and lasting change.
Being elitist about how information is communicated harms discovery as much as it damages the public perception of science.
If scientists only communicate with people at their level of expertise or from a similar background, how will they change the world? How will they shift from providing knowledge to helping society create solutions? And how will they attract the brightest minds if they are not aware of their fields of research or discover it too late to choose it as a study or career path?
To tackle climate change and realise the full and equitable potential of technology and scientific advancements, we need a diverse range of people from various backgrounds, cultures, and experiences working in STEM. This diversity will bring unique insights and perspectives that may have been overlooked in the past.
And it is crucial to have a science-literate society that is confident enough to engage in discussions on complex topics. This is essential to prevent misinformation and the influence of bad actors from derailing progress in these important areas.
Peer pressure
At my company STEM Matters, we hear from some scientists that they fear that if they don’t convey all the nuanced detail of their research, then they’ll be accused of being inaccurate by their peers and it will impact their reputation.
This peer pressure can paralyse communication, particularly in younger scientists. They need an environment that recognises that mass communication is a positive not a negative, where experimentation in communication is as welcome as it is in research and where success in communication is rewarded.
And to create an environment like that needs sector-wide recognition that communication is a different skill, not a lesser skill.
My challenge to those who use the term “dumbing down”, is to calculate how many years it has taken you to become an expert in this topic. Just think of how brilliant it is that, in an article, video, podcast, piece of poetry, comedy, or artwork, someone has been able to engage people with this complicated subject.
Great storytelling is a different skill from scientific research, but it is not ‘dumbing down.’ It’s patronising to both creatives and the general public to say this.
The lack of communication training is harming science
Competitions such as the Three Minute Thesis and Fame Lab exist, in part, because scientists and researchers aren’t trained to communicate their work effectively and engagingly. The lack of training in undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and across researchers’ professional lives, actually undermines their careers, funding, and impact. Communication skills are vital for funding applications, convincing colleagues and superiors to support their work, pitching to industry, and engaging donors and communities.
The lack of training also sends a very strong message to the research community that communication isn’t an important part of science.
As Sir Mark Walport, the former Chief Scientist of the UK, said to a gathering of scientists back in 2013, “You need to communicate effectively. This isn’t something just for government chief scientists; it is something for the scientific community. Science isn’t finished until it’s communicated. The communication to wider audiences is part of the job of being a scientist, and so how you communicate is absolutely vital.”
The myth that the public aren’t interested in science
There is a common misconception that the public is not interested in science because there is little coverage of it in the media. However, this is a false assumption. The media does not represent the public’s interests, but rather reflects the interests of the media owners, who are often from arts, business, and law backgrounds and have their own business goals. The reason for more political coverage versus science coverage is due to a desire to influence political outcomes.
When I was publishing COSMOS Magazine, I frequently spoke with our readers, who came from diverse backgrounds and educational levels. What did they love? Complex physics stories.The general public is not uninterested in science, but rather there is a mismatch between the public’s interest in science and the number of science stories in the media. Additionally, as I have argued in an earlier opinion piece, universities are not effectively filling this gap with engaging and audience-focused science content on their websites
Understand who you are engaging with
It is also important that science meets people where they are and not assume that everyone experiences the world in the same way. In 2021, I interviewed science communicator and ornithologist Corina Newsome and she made the compelling argument that scientists and science communicators need to overcome a lack of intersectionality, where those who are communicating do not understand the discrimination and marginalisation faced by the communities they are trying to engage.
“I think it’s one of the root causes for why we see the pattern that we do as far as who’s communicating science, who’s hearing that communication, who’s receptive to it,” she says.
Newsome gives vaccine hesitancy as an example. “Simply telling people, ‘You need to get vaccinated because this could happen to you,’ is not enough.” She points to the infamous four-decade long Tuskegee syphilis study begun by the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1930s, where Black men infected with syphilis were left untreated, so researchers could study the course of the disease – despite the fact a cure was available. It’s this kind of medical exploitation, along with the ongoing hurdles that Black patients are often forced to navigate when interacting with medical professionals, that has resulted in rightful hesitancies to engage with the US medical system today, says Newsome.
Climate change and conservation are other issues where communicators need to better understand their audience. Newsome says when she talks about climate change, she often centres people in the conversation, rather than wildlife.
“In communities like mine, ones that are often forced into the margins of society – Black and Indigenous and Brown communities – wildlife impacts are not always the first priority because survival is the first priority,” she says, adding that while they absolutely care about the environment, Black and Indigenous people have also been exploited in the guise of conservation.
“The government will literally strip people of their land. Flood people out to create the habitat for endangered wildlife,” she says.
Perspective is everything!
So next time someone around you uses the expression “dumbing down”, challenge them to rethink their own biases and to engage with people who aren’t mirrors of themselves.
Opinion by Kylie Ahern, Publisher of The Brilliant and CEO of STEM Matters