 |
| via the NPR article from 2009 |
I have been writing reviews of books on goodreads as I go along, though, and just finished Don't Be Such A Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style by Randy Olson, and it seems relevant to post it here since I covered his first documentary four years ago. Post is copied below:
This has been on my to-read list for ages, and now that it's semi-relevant to grad school goals, finally took it off my amazon wishlist. I watched Flock of Dodos during Darwin Week 2010; my review of that is here. Curiously, my opinions of his other work reflect what I got four years later in his book.
Dr. Olson argues that since we live in a world of short-attention spans, scientists need to learn to let go of some of the jargon and embrace subjective emotional/sexual/whatever appeal. Arouse the audience, pique their interest, and they'll follow you to your message. It's important for science communication, and here, nearly five years later there's a proliferation of science communication workshops, courses, etc. (I wonder if Randy ever goes to ScienceOnline in Raleigh?)
While his ideas are good, I'm not going to give it a full 4-5 stars because a good portion seemed to be writing out his disappointment in the blogger community on rejecting Sizzle (which I have yet to see). Science blogs are what drew me towards the world of SciComm, and while there are those who are considerably abrasive (PZ Myers, for example), there are many excellent writers out there (Carl Zimmer, Brian Switek, the Deep Sea News team, etc.) who talk about cool things in the science world without getting condescending (I would definitely have a beer with any of them).
Still, readers should take away from this that it's not just what you say, but how you say it that matters. One of Randy's points from Flock of Dodos is that the Intelligent Design movement is full of buzzwords and as I put it at the time, "shiny wrappers" that make it seem like a palatable product. When Bill Nye debated the legitimacy of Intelligent Design with Ken Ham last month, a sizable number in the science community felt it would be validating a worthless idea by even showing up. However, it was watched by millions, and brought Bill's joy in the scientific method to households that would otherwise never be exposed to critical thinking. Sure, Bill's an engineer and didn't have all the technical details right, but he's insanely relatable and easily communicates these big ideas. The reboot of Cosmos by Neil deGrasse Tyson also shares this enthusiasm over science without talking down to the audience. Get rid of the Ivory Tower, and share what you love!
