On 'Storytelling Science': How To Communicate Science To The Lay Public

PMB has been fortunate to attend several talks in a series at Oxford University called 'Storytelling Science,' the premise of which is that scientists give 30-minute science talks, usually about an aspect of their own research, pitched to a general audience. After each talk, the audience is encouraged to ask questions from a variety of viewpoints (lay and specialist alike).

The series is great for a number of reasons, not least of which is that, even among those whose delivery or presentation is lacking, virtually every talk covers material that is absolutely fascinating. And, given the composition of the audience, the talks seem to be engaging for specialists who can relate to the material on a more sophisticated level, specialist academics in non-science fields, and generalists and nonacademics as well. Beyond the immediate benefits of the talks, communicating science concepts and research is important because...science concepts and research are often important (as is generating public interest in science, and encouraging youth to engage with science)! Further, when done well, the process of demystifying any kind of specialist knowledge for non-specialists is a rewarding exercise unto itself. For these reasons PMB is an avid supporter of the Storytelling Science series, and other endeavors like it.

Nonetheless, after hearing a number of 'generalist' science talks, PMB has a few observations, and some advice, for scientists engaged in public outreach projects like Storytelling Science.

Consider, firstly, the following phrases (as quoted), used recurrently by scientists at Storytelling Science talks, and beyond:

'Taking a skeptical view--because that's what scientists are, we're paid skeptics...'

'As a scientist I have an analytical mind.'

'And this part is quite technical--it's science, so it's quite difficult...'

'As a scientist it's often quite difficult to explain to people what I do.'

This is just a small sample of comments, the likes of which many of you will have heard before. Generally, comments of this nature presuppose several things about science and scientists, including: scientists, especially if not exclusively, are skeptical, analytical, work with more intrinsically difficult material than do non-scientists, and work with material that is inherently more difficult to explain than that of non-scientists.

There is considerable truth in all of these assumptions; however, all of these assumptions also contain a great deal of falsehood, and not without tinges of condescension and self-satisfied mystification. Put simply, when a scientist makes comments like those listed above, it's not without some genuine and wholly innocent sense that scientists are special people, and science is the work of the intellectual equivalent of the elect, work that is above and beyond non-scientists. Further complicating this innocent but not innocuous belief is the fact that it often takes the form of genuine self-deprecation. 'Nerd,' and, especially, 'geek,' are badges of honor, proudly and sometimes smugly worn, almost always self-assigned, yet proudly passed off as soft commentary on one's allegedly antisocial preoccupation with the the rigorously technical. A 'geek' interrupts your unscientific conversation with a snippet of specialized, peer-reviewed knowledge, then excuses himself as a geek, someone whose social awkwardness in the given moment is but a small price to pay for intellectual superiority (at least, that's the sine qua non of geekdom).

Sometimes, with respect to the complex economics of scientist identity, PMB protesteth too much, and he knows it. On one end of the scientist identity spectrum is certainly the simple sense that after amassing tons of detailed, technical knowledge, the task of teaching a non-specialist seems especially daunting. In the middle is the sense that without science there can be no skepticism, no questioning of the apparent and the given, and no use of 'scientific thinking' by non-scientists outside the realm of 'doing science.' On the extreme end of smugness is the belief that scientists are, as such, simply smarter than everyone else, and are, as such, humanity's last hope.

For the purposes of science communication, wherever one sits along this spectrum, the first step toward demystification of science research and concepts--the first step toward good communication to the lay audience--is a genuine belief that your audience is capable of understanding what it is you want to say. Thus, the most important thing for good science communication is the purging of one's mind of all of these myths about the supreme difficulty of science and the heightened understanding of scientists. PMB has seen excellent scientists do just this, opening up to a generalist audience aspects of fascinating scientific research that otherwise might not have seen the light of day (at least, beyond regular readers of specialist science journals).

The fact is, all specialist knowledge is difficult to explain to non-specialist audiences (the literary scholars reading this might well have experienced the difficulty of talking to a lay audience about a novel, even, and maybe even especially, if all members of the lay audience have read the novel). Just as well, of course, no one will be able to teach the sum of specialist understanding to a non-specialist in a 30-minute talk, whatever the subject matter. But the task of the specialist in non-specialist communication is not to understand such communication as 'dumbing down' and proceed from there, but to maintain in the talk a strong sense of the real complexity of the topic while framing that complexity in non-jargon or non-specialist terms--to communicate in clear and compelling metaphor, in other words. The best Storytelling Science talks use metaphor and analogy to bring the minute to the level of the general without losing too much complexity, just as the best literary generalist talks bring the esoteric and abstract to the level of the concrete without losing too much complexity. The material itself--be it a convoluted process at the intracellular level, or an explanation of why sometimes plagiarism isn't plagiarism--is not the thing. The thing is giving enough credit to your audience that you expect them to understand, and enough credit to yourself that you can understand your own research enough on a conceptual level to teach it without falling back on the specialisms--the jargon, the notation, etc.--that make what you do sound to the layperson a lot harder and more intimidating than it really is. This is absolutely central to the art of storytelling, which, despite its childhood connotations, ain't as easy as it sounds.


Addendum: It's a shame that colleagues in literature departments haven't come up with a parallel lecture series called something like 'Storytelling Stories,' given the difficulty and awkwardness with which most of us seem to discuss our work with non-specialists.

Why PMB Hates Corporations

PMB hates corporations. Usually when someone says 'I hate corporations,' the presumption is that such hatred is fueled or animated by a problem with red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism, or a distaste for profiteering, or some general, amorphous leftyish hippie sentimentalism of the sort you'd encounter at music festivals. Down with the man, man.

It's not unreasonable to criticize corporations--especially the largest and most unfeeling of them--for putting profit ahead of people, or for behaving in some cases like reckless authoritarians, or for purchasing intimate access to governors and policymakers that the rest of us can't afford. But surely these are primarily the faults of large corporations like Wal Mart and Google, not small businesses or medium-sized manufacturers who provide us with access to so many comforts and commodities.

But PMB doesn't just hate large corporations. PMB hates corporations in general. Because one of the greatest constants of corporations, large and small, domestic and international, for-profit and nonprofit virtually alike, is that they set the standards for workplace culture; and 'workplace culture' is really just a euphemism for 'controlling as much of your entire life as is humanly or legally possible.'

And this goes beyond the old 'we'll pay for your Blackberry!' (subtext: we expect you to check and respond to e-mail 24 hours/day); this includes inexcusably invasive policies even before they hire you. All of which is nothing, mind you, compared to the least-questioned and arguably most-oppressive facet of modern industrial society: the fact that working adults have to report to an office every day, remain there all day, and, regardless of productivity, rely on maybe two or three weeks in a given year during which we might be 'excused' by our in loco parentis employers to 'go on vacation' (the explicit purpose of which, mind you, is not so much to enjoy your life as it is to 'refresh' yourself for the work you have when you return).

The problem here isn't that societies require work and productivity to grow and provide for everyone; so the argument here is not necessarily that we should be able to work less. It's just that, when we become grownups, we should be able to work like grownups, on deadlines, but without being rounded up into a workplace whose 'culture' is primarily oppressive, stifling, Orwellian, insufferable, and, in many cases, completely unnecessary. With the technology that we have--cheap wireless networks, teleconferencing, the good ol' fashioned telephone, transportation devices like the subway, the bicycle, the bus, and the automobile, and the ever-important coffee shop, many of us don't need an office to report to in order to get our work done. And when we need to have meetings (as opposed to when a critical mass of people occupying an office, bored out of their minds, decides that its time to have a meeting because there's nothing better to do), can't we initiate and coordinate them ourselves, between ourselves and our colleagues? Shouldn't we just abandon this whole notion of reporting to the office like a child reports to homeroom every morning on a school day?

This isn't exactly a novel idea--Jason Fried, of a web-based company called 37signals, gave a TED talk about it. Probably most people reading this have thought, many times over, that if only they didn't have their day at the office compartmentalized into 30-minute bits, with people asking for this and that simply because they're there and you're there and this is how the 'workplace culture' works, they could actually get some work done. Certainly when corporations advertise jobs with statements indicating preference for 'motivated' individuals, 'self-starters,' with 'the ability to work independently,' etc., they're not envisioning an employee who needs a boss sipping coffee in the next room (or cubicle; or open space) to the left occasionally checking in, micromanaging, or simply working independently a few feet away from you...for what?

Yes, some people will argue that 'if I didn't have an office with set work hours, I wouldn't have separation between my work life and my life life.' To this PMB would say that if you honestly think about the idea of compartmentalizing your 'work life' and 'life life,' you'd be depressed to find out that your 'work life' takes up so much of the sum total of your life that sectioning off your 'life life' is just kind of pathetic. A better approach, as far as PMB is concerned, would be to admit that spending much of our lives working can actually be very natural and very fulfilling, just not under the conditions that presently constitute 'working' in a corporate or corporate-influenced environment. Time after time after time we report higher levels of satisfaction from doing our work in a self-directed manner, and, accordingly, feeling some sense of ownership over it. Rather than letting an employer decide for you how to compartmentalize your life and on what terms and in what environment to complete your work, why not control it yourself? On the surface, it might be easier to accept the readymade boundaries handed you, just as drawing new boundaries between work and leisure might be harder to do at first when the artifice of the workplace is taken away; but certainly we want more agency over our lives and our schedules, not less.

It seems what set out to be a screed against the corporate influence over workplace culture has turned out to be a general condemnation of workplace culture itself. Though we shouldn't forget that corporate interests are indeed pushing for greater control over employees' lives, even before they become employees. Imagine, for a moment, living in a society in which your government told you where to be at what time every day; that your government compiled files of your internet activity, text messages, and photos, and used them to evaluate your social worth; that your government required you to piss in a cup every month to screen you for drug use; that your government told you when you could and couldn't leave the country, go the beach, or spend a few hours in the afternoon in the park with your children; that your government controls who you buy health insurance from, and which doctors you're allowed to see. It's probably not too difficult to imagine, actually, if you simply replace the word 'government' with 'employer.'

When Did Conservatives Become So Thin-Skinned?

I used to have a lot of respect for American conservatism. There was a time, in my lifetime, when it seemed like the thing that most riled a conservative was victimhood. Conservatives couldn't stand the idea of someone taking a welfare check instead of getting a job, someone claiming exceptional treatment because of their race or ethnicity, or someone wanting clemency for crimes committed. You didn't have to agree with the conservative take on these issues--that welfare 'handouts' only breed idleness, racial or ethnic discrimination is a thing of the past, and justice should be swift and retributive--in order to respect the basic worldview that underlies these positions: we should all take personal responsibility for ourselves, our wellbeing, and our actions.

And before my lifetime, when notable conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly railed against the Equal Rights Amendment out of fear that such a law might preclude our ability to 'deny a homosexual the right to teach in the schools, or to adopt children,'you could kind of respect conservatives for standing tall on their worldviews, however repulsive they sometimes were. Schlafly fought against equal rights for women with a force and vitality that make Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann look like PBS telethon hosts on a slow night. You get the sense that if Facebook were around in ol' Phyllis' heyday, her wall wouldn't exactly be filled with passive-aggressive and sometimes weepy e-scrawlings amounting to 'why is errybody always pickin on me (and Bristol).'

The fact is, at some point, conservatives started conceiving of themselves as that which they've always loathed: victims.

It was most notable for me as an undergraduate. At the university, the caucasian majority, regardless of political orientation, was generally bright and openminded, and, even if at times lacking in understanding of particular histories that might make certain kinds of jokes or comments inappropriate or even racist, was not a racist bunch. Our generation came of age in a political and legal environment that had long since granted equal rights and equal treatment under law to all people (except homosexuals), regardless of race or creed. So, I gather, it was often difficult for bunches of smart, mostly well meaning white kids who harbored no conscious prejudice to square the fact that in the university environment, there were special offices, clubs, resources, scholarships, etc. for seemingly everyone but them. Such were the preconditions for the conservative fight against multiculturalism: white conservatives felt simultaneously neglected and deracinated, and minority conservatives were rightfully sick and tired of being placed in identity boxes, or looked at askance, as though they only managed success in the admissions tournament because they got some kind of preferential treatment or racial boost as an historical corrective. Both groups of conservatives had reasonable claims against the multiculturalist agenda: no one likes to be blanco anymore than s/he likes to be reduced to any color at all. So a generation of young conservatives, mostly white, mostly of educated and privileged classes, began thinking of themselves as victims.

On top of this notion of 'white victimhood' that arose in large part, as I see it, as a reaction to the rise of multiculturalism, conservatives came to understand, with some validity, that, at least in the academy, in Hollywood, and in the establishment media, their politics were also out of fashion (owning Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and most of the Supreme Court apparently wasn't enough). Left-leaning professors challenged the assumed supremacy of neocapitalism, the idea of American exceptionalism, the myth of the 'welfare queen,' and the profit motive in healthcare. Movies and sitcoms mocked Reaganites as stodgy, dorky, and sexually inept. And the major media outlets--network news and big urban papers like the New York Times--were crawling with skinny-tied sophisticates who thought and ridiculed liberally. So conservatives took a page out of the liberals' playbook, further playing up their marginalization, their victimhood.

Today, conservatives are perhaps our whiniest victims. Over at Brainstorm, Naomi Schaefer Riley succumbs to verbal hyperventilation over the fact that the liberal Rebecca Mead--for Riley, representing 'the attitude of the establishment' [!!!!!!!!]--had the nerve to write snidely about Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton for buying up a bunch of American art and displaying it in Arkansas. Riley's problem boils down to the fact that the patriotic Alice Walton, who has 'never...considered collecting anything but American art,' might vaguely stand in for conservatism, and the 'establishment' liberal Mead (nevermind Riley's Harvard education) has taken a mild shot at Walton and the company she represents. So what? Aside: between Rebecca Mead--whom you've probably never heard of--and Wal-Mart, who represents the establishment, again?

Meanwhile, as congressional conservatives fight to maintain a series of corporate tax loopholes, among them one that enables tax breaks for the corporate use of private jets, the apparent victimization of those who occupy the world of corporate private jetting has interrupted discussions about how the country might try to pull itself out from under its crushing debt.

And let's not forget about new author of Not Afraid of Life, Bristol Palin, who fell victim recently to a Bill Maher joke about her prudish explanation of how she 'accidentally' got black-out drunk on wine coolers (which she didn't know contained alcohol) and conceived a child with her boyfriend. Bristol, who is evidently mature enough to have a sexual relationship and a child and a memoir, is so much the victim that Fox News brought on a psychiatrist to remote-analyze Maher for mental illness.

Arguably, today's conservative worldview necessarily comes with an orientation toward victimhood, or the feeling of being constantly embattled. The Phyllis Schlaflys and Richard Nixons--the types that weren't too prudish to grab you by the balls and squeeze if it meant winning the issue--have been replaced by a bunch of big softies. It's as if they're compensating for something when they take photo ops with large rifles. It's as if the world is continually moving on, and the progress has got them down.

Maid in Manhattan: How PMB Would Turn the Tables on DSK

By now we all know about former IMF head and leading French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn's alleged sexual assault of a New York hotel maid. Predictably, DSK's defense team has begun to dig up information about the maid's past that is designed to call her credibility (and, transitively, the credibility of her accusation) into question. In this disheartening article in the NYTimes, which details the apparent 'collapse' of the prosecution's case against DSK, the maid and alleged victim of sexual assault is accused of having a drug-dealer boyfriend, being connected with charges of money laundering and drug dealing, and discussing with a criminal the potential remunerative benefits of pursuing a case against DSK the day after the incident between DSK and the maid took place (that a sexual encounter took place between the two is not in dispute; the nature of that encounter is). Among other things, these bits of information would, indeed, seem to endanger the maid's case against her alleged assailant, striking at the heart of her credibility.

Well, actually, not really.

The fact is, this case is about more than the conventional problem of he said/she said in cases of rape and sexual assault. This case is a prime example of one of the most prevalent and under-acknowledged injustices in the US and similarly developed countries: the widespread exploitation, sexual and otherwise, of female asylum seekers, illegal or conditional immigrants, etc. And the under-acknowledgement of this problem is so systematically ingrained that what would be its starkest manifestation in the internationally prominent DSK case--the fact that the accuser is a documented Guinean asylum-seeker in the US--has been used by DSK's defense team, and not the prosecution, to damage the maid's credibility. The NYTimes' coverage of this aspect of the story plays right into the hands of DSK's defense, treating information about the maid's asylum application as a blow to her credibility (in light of inconsistencies between the text of her application and subsequent comments she made to police after the DSK affair about her asylum bid). Instead, both the prosecution and the media need to acknowledge the very real circumstances of disenfranchisement faced by female asylum seekers and trafficked and illegal immigrants.

We know that DSK's accuser may have lied about some of the details of her past and her asylum bid to authorities, may affiliate with a drug dealer, and may have actually tried to benefit financially from her accusation against DSK.

We also know, however, that many women seeking asylum, a better life, etc. in countries like the US come from places where police and other authorities are corrupt and untrustworthy. Many women facing harsh circumstances in their former countries, many of them places where women are systematically raped, tortured, sold, enslaved, disenfranchised, etc., will lie and withhold information in order to avoid being deported back to harsh circumstances.

Likewise, many such women have dark pasts and drug-dealer boyfriends, and will have latched onto powerful and exploitative figures thinking it a means to get out or get away (as many places in the world are largely controlled by people like drug dealers). Many will have tolerated and endured sexual abuse from the men who traffic them, bring them to the US, keep them, look after them, etc. Many will have been willing to go through hell for the prospect of a new life.

And many women who have been systematically disenfranchised, both home and abroad in the US--women who have had to live and survive by their wiles and sometimes by their bodies--will certainly turn to opportunism when they are exploited by rich and powerful men. Would you blame them?

The point here is that, even if not much or all of this applies directly to DSK's maid (though, from what we do know about her, an asylum seeker, she fits the profile pretty damn well), the kind of behavior that journalists and defense attorneys are calling damaging to the maid's credibility is actually very common and very justifiable behavior for women in like circumstances of disenfranchisement, or existence outside the protection of the law. When such women have their circumstances of poverty and desperation leveraged against them for sex by exploitative men, the lying, equivocation, unsavory liaisons, and even opportunism are all not just predictable, but justifiable pasts and modes of behavior. Rather than treating this reality like a character assessment in a vacuum, we need to consider it within the broader context of the systematic and widespread exploitation and sexual abuse of women in harsh circumstances by predatory men who know that their victims would rather endure abuse in the US than seek legal recourse, risking deportation, imprisonment, further threats and abuse, etc.

And this is something the 'near-collapsing' prosecution needs to take into serious account.