How Can We Talk About Science?
It’s a common experience, early in a scientific career, to be hit with deep questions about your field of work. The curtain is pulled back on the scientific process and you begin to realize that the basic questions in your field remain unanswered and the answers you thought you had are less certain than they seemed. You discover that the realities of science, good and bad alike, are often hidden for those beyond the scientific curtain. It becomes harder to explain the complexities of your field to anyone else.
This hit me like a pile of falling textbooks when I started my PhD in cognitive neuroscience. In using functional MRI (fMRI) to study how the human brain supports cognition, I was struck by the innumerable difficulties of noisy biological measurements, interpreting observations, and attempting to know anything with certainty. I was even more dismayed by how the world outside saw it all. Popular media overstated how much we knew with imaginative myths — like suggesting that “technology rewires the brain”— and flung unfair condemnations of neuroimaging methods as being completely flawed. Both missed the mark. Differences in brain activity cannot be taken to mean that the brain is fundamentally altered; just that it is doing different things at different times. A bug in one piece of software does not mean all neuroscience results are invalidated. Seeing the curtain between science and the world, I felt isolated and unsure of what could be done.
This inspired me in 2012 to attend a science communication workshop organized by Neuwrite Boston. That’s where I heard Sara Seager, a well-known astrophysicist, talk about the media disasters that plagued her work characterizing planets in other solar systems. Some called her work impossible while others misused it to jump to conclusions about life on other planets. In a cathartic moment, I realized that I wasn’t alone. This was a common experience in science, not a flaw in only my field. Whether about our own brains or the galaxy, it is hard to convey the complexities of what is understood, what isn’t, and why.
This problem matters because science, to me, is about illuminating our world. But if the picture that emerges and reaches others is incorrect, the work has barely been completed.
My experience in NeuWrite Boston was rich and stimulating. A regular group of us met to grapple with similar challenges, practicing our efforts to write better so we could talk to the broader world. It was an inspiring community of writers and scientists from a wide range of fields, all wanting to share our ideas with each other. The practice was essential for my process of dealing with the limitations of knowledge and the problem of communication. I also gained some invaluable skills in writing!
At NeuWrite Davis, I hope to bring a similar practice to this community. We work closely with Science Says, the science communication group on campus, to organize a workshopping group that meets regularly to share our writing with each other. As the group solidifies, we also hope to bring science writing events to a broader audience so that others, too, feel empowered to shape how science is shared beyond the bench.
