An Open Letter to the NIH, NSF, and College Administrators: A Quick Read
We need more trained, nuanced science communicators. We need more science generalists. We need funded scholarships and funded career tracks to get them.
- This should resonate with thousands of scientists with advanced degrees, who have been trained as specialists. What we need are more generalists, and we need more creative synthesis that is thoroughly grounded in critical thinking and empirical facts. and experiments.
- What matters for solving global problems and for global prosperity is the big picture. The minutiae of science are fine in certain contexts. But there is little reward and even less funding offered to scientific pioneers who spend at least as much time asking the right questions as they do answering them.
- Scientific institutional hierarchies and tribalism discourage independent thought, and instead encourage selfish goals of advancing one's own school of thought, attacking others, and in general, failing to recognize that there is more than one complementary conceptual piece to most scientific puzzles.
- Scientific institutions have done a terrible job of communicating the wonders of science, the scientific method, critical thinking, and nuanced distinctions to the general public.
- The solution: create and fund broad, formal training programs that include courses in journalism, natural science, psychology, history, digital media, logic, writing, and other communication skills. Fund government grants for long-term careers in science communication, and recruit creative generalists and multipotentialites to build long-term stable careers, and encourage senior experienced members to train each new generation of generalist science communicators.
- Develop professional standards that reject commercialism, advertising, click-bait and dumbed-down sound bites as legitimate work products. Build a community of science communicators with high ethical standards, empathy for non-scientific audiences, and a strong desire to make the world a better place.
Copyright (c) 2019 by Gene Levinson PhD. All rights reserved. May be freely shared as a complete post/article without modification, and with proper attribution.
Lecturer at UNSW | Polymathy, Creativity & Innovative Entrepreneurship
5 年Hi Gene Levinson! Great post! Super relevant, especially #5. As I have been saying in Conferences, people want "out-of-the-box" solutions, but funding always goes into predetermined (and very traditional) boxes. It is really a challenge. Even to talk about that in a major outlet is challenging. It is always the same voices with the same discourses and little actual change. By the way, there is only a minor thing I would like to mention, which is the use of the term multipotentialite. I really do not like this term because it has become void of a real meaning. A famous communicator (whose fame was obtained through a TEDx talk) did a very good job of draining any precision out of the term so that she could sell more of her products to a larger public. That is one reason I am avoiding this term, which was already confusing and problematic in academia before her. The other reason is that "polymathic", "trait polymathy" or "having polymathic traits" are better defined, do the job and it is difficult to beat polymathy when it comes to seniority, as polymathy is a 2500-year-old term. Anyway, that is just a minor comment within a super important and relevant general message that?I totally agree!
Regional Business Writer at Pennsylvania Business Central and Marcellus Business Central
5 年Penn State has a General Science option of the B.S. Science degree allows for the most flexibility. https://bulletins.psu.edu/undergraduate/colleges/eberly-science/science-bs/ When Levinson mentioned specialists, I thought of the Penn State researcher who spent 30 years studying the human eye blink (at 1/300th of a second, I guess it's hard to study :-). The flip side is that our school system has done a poor job teaching scientific literacy. Or at least that was the case when I was in grade school, perhaps it's different today. I had to learn a lot of science on my own. My 8th grade science teacher had a copy of The New Intelligent Men's Guide to Science by Isaac Asimov. I cut grass and earned some extra money, so I could buy a copy.? Later I bought a newer edition--Asimov's New Guide to Science (I guess the publisher realized that women might want to read the book too!). I still have both books.
Writer/editor in science, higher education, business, and PR/marketing
5 年Four and 5 especially resonate with me. Science needs to be communicated, frequently and engagingly, with clarity and passion, and with language gauged to the knowledge level of the audience.
Commercial and Animation Voice Over Actor at KleinVoices.com. Creative Fiction and Essays.
5 年Excellent points! I also agree especially with point 6. And as a General Specialist myself, it’s so often so obvious that when HR is searching for specialist candidates, what they really need are generalists.
Retired, open to part time work/ Contract Crop Insurance Adjuster
5 年Six points that deliver a very clear message. I particularly think point 6 is something academics need to take to heart in journalism programs.?