I sometimes feel that scientists, as a rule, shouldn’t consider interacting with the public because we tend to do things like either state things so simply without elaboration or enthusiasm (for fear of extrapolating beyond our data), or bore the audience with minutiae that we find intriguing (the stuff from which we might form more general hypotheses to test). I recently read Bernd Heinrich’s Mind of the Raven, which is an interesting example by a scientist. Heinrich covers a plethora of raven behaviors observed and revealed through his studies, and toward the end, he starts to put it in an evolutionary framework. I thoroughly enjoyed parts of this book; then at other times, I was ready to gouge my eyes out if I saw another anecdote about this raven’s sudden vociferousness or that one’s use of puddles. I cannot imagine any of my non-science friends reading this book cover to cover, which is too bad because parts of it were fascinating and he also gives you glimpses into the quirkiness of a biologist’s life (the stuff of television drama potentially): climbing snow-covered trees to carefully collect baby ravens or to place alien objects in their nests to see what they do; visiting urban ravens who rule the roost in a couple’s apartment; setting up a giant aviary outside his cabin to raise baby birds by hand into adulthood; and following behaviors of ravens with wolves to hypothesize a long evolutionary relationship where ravens may actually help wolves find their kill. You kind of want to read it now, right? I know! He’s dedicated, determined, ingenious, and has amazing stories to share, so why am I not handing it out to each of my friends on their birthdays?
Although many of us have come to believe that there is a benefit of scientists communicating with the public either through the written word or some other form, science training does not prepare us to do this. If anything, through teaching (something else we’re not formally trained to do) we learn to do this on the fly. In some ways, scientists are the ideal communicators of their research: they know the research conducted in the field extensively, they have the inside scoop, they can (often) distinguish a well designed experiment from a poorly designed one, and they know how to weigh different types of evidence. And, scientists are not boring people, as a rule, so there’s no innate reason requiring them to be as boring as possible. In fact, I can only think of one scientist that I’ve met in the last 15 years who seemed totally devoid of a life force (but he also does very interesting science).
This week in the graduate seminar on communicating science to the public we read two chapters: “The Wolf Effect” from Douglas Smith’s book The Decade of the Wolf, and “Valley of Fear” from Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg. Based on the chapter titles alone, you can probably guess that Stolzenburg is the wildlife journalist (http://www.thewildthings.net/author.html) and Smith is the scientist (although Smith co-wrote his book with nature writer Gary Ferguson (http://www.thewildthings.net/author.html)). Really, I think Smith & Ferguson’s chapter is beautifully written and may offers some of the best of what a scientist can offer the public: Smith has a believable voice, he has interacted with biologists and the public over a number of years so has enough experience to write with authority, and he makes some very nice analogies (“For the most part wolves are to bears what mosquitoes might be to the rest of us—pesky annoyances.”). He also has the scientist’s mind, which is open to new data and a willingness to reinterpret nature based on new data (which we learn from the Stolzenburg chapter). If there’s a down-side, it sounds like some biological explanations are parenthetically added in, as if an editor wrote in the margins “What’s a trophic cascade?” On the downside of a scientist wielding his/her pen, potentially a scientist will be overly invested in her/his research to a point where s/he can lose objectivity. I’m sure Smith loves his wolves and it must be thrilling to see data that support the idea of the wolf acting as a keystone predator. (However, I never get this sense from anything I’ve read about “the wolf story.”) In his chapter, you see him grappling with questions and evaluating what other factors could be playing a role in the recovery of pronghorn, willows, etc. So, he seems to be questioning the reason behind observed effects and is not easily satisfied with an easy or simple answer.
Stolzenburg’s chapter on the wolf story is wonderful—the whole book is, really. He pulls the reader in with a mystery of why the protected park of Yellowstone appeared to be suffering from the rivers, to the trees, to the wildlife. We are slowly let in on the scientific hunches and discoveries made along the way. He pulls in points of view from the public and the scientists, he fills us in on the historical perspective (which Smith does elsewhere in his book), he uses the data as the foundation of his story, and he even fits in some poetry. Stolzenburg has a master’s in biology, so he has training as a scientist, and I think the approach of his writing and his even-handedness demonstrates this (although it’s obviously possible to do this without scientific training). What Smith & Ferguson do in a whole book, Stolzenburg accomplishes in a chapter and does it convincingly. This is definitely a book to give to your family and friends.
Science journalists have survived in their careers via literary natural selection—the dull are eliminated from the writing pool (if not the gene pool). Scientists with pens, however, have not and if anything our environment selects for straight-forward, unadorned language, which many members of the public may be repulsed by. Conveying the mystery and beauty in the science may not be our custom, but I think Smith’s book (as well as Heinrich’s) suggests that it can be done if only we can maximize our strengths and expand our repertoire of writing about science. Succinct is not always compelling.
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