Our responsibility to science communication – The Scarlet & Black

When we think of global threats, we don’t think of poor science communication. We think of climate change, of pandemics or perhaps of terrorism. I would be shocked if science communication cracked your top 10.

And yet, we all lived through the COVID-19 pandemic. Think of how 20 years ago, vaccines were largely apolitical, but after 2008, vaccine trust versus skepticism began to fracture along party lines, a division that has widened into a chasm. In an age where bodily autonomy dominates the political sphere — from vaccines and public health research to abortion access to the rights of transgender people — distrust in science and poor communication underscores everything and affects everyone.

If everyone is too big of an audience, how about this: science communication affects you.

Science communication encapsulates how we teach, write, talk about and advocate for science. It covers scientific papers, lab reports and Professor Leggans’ organic chemistry class. Science communication connects funding for cancer research to TV advertisements for medication. Whether you spend most of your time in Noyce or the HSSC, science communication permeates the standards of academic articles in your discipline, the health information on your cereal boxes and the care you receive at the doctor.

With Thanksgiving cresting past, how many of us had tense dinners based in political disagreement? For the fourth years, how many of us are afraid we might not get funding, get into graduate school or get a job in our field?

These are not issues that I can change. These are not the issues I’m trying to get you to change. But to respect the urgency of bettering science communication, you must first respect the stakes.

Recently, I hosted a series of faculty panels on science communication. We covered teaching philosophies in the classroom, the issues that affect both students’ and professors’ efforts to be better communicators and science communication across disciplines. My goal was to open a dialogue about how to improve science communication at Grinnell on an individual level. If the disease of poor science communication starts with an individual’s poor practices, then so too must the cure.

What do you think about when you hear the term science communication? Is it scientific papers? Stories that tug your heartstrings? The efforts of Science Community Leaders (SCLs), course mentors and the Math Lab to help you learn? One classic perception of science communication is that hard science must be simplified into stories for the layperson, or that the role of the humanities in this discussion is that of just the storyteller. I take umbrage with this definition because it creates an intellectual hierarchy that places science over the humanities — thus removing the burden of good communication from scientists themselves.

And as a Biochemistry (and English!) major, it is disheartening to see so many of my classmates treat good communication skills as an afterthought to lab work, and not as an integral component at every step of the research process. From reading scientific papers for their methods to taking diligent notes in lab to trawling for sources for your data analysis, consider how much time you spend engaging with your own or someone else’s writing. Think how much easier those papers would be to parse if we put away the nominalizations and turned those nouns back into verbs.

Now take a hard look at your own approach. As scientists, you should be comfortable not knowing the answer on the first try. Yet, your SCLs and mentors and Math Lab tutors spend as much time fielding requests for the answer as efforts to problem solve.

Perhaps begrudgingly, you’re still willing to devote the time it takes to finish your problem sets and data analysis. Why, then, does writing fall by the wayside? If your answer diminishes the worth of good communication, I will remind you again of our false hierarchy, and say that the students who view science communication as trivial are the ones who lack writing skills the most.

Reader, I have read your lab reports. I have attended your poster sessions. I have listened to you stumble through explanations so full of jargon you don’t even know what it means. And I am tired.

Science doesn’t communicate itself. Grinnellians need to do better.

I am not saying that poor science communication is the fault of each individual student in STEM. Robust science writing is not something we practice consistently at Grinnell. Some poor communication practices are also industry norms. I know, better than anyone, that the demands on your time often outstrip the hours available in a day. But just because something is difficult does not mean it isn’t worth learning. If that were true, Grinnell College as an institution would cease to exist. Take an English class. Go to the Writing Lab. Embrace your liberal arts education for what it truly offers you. The shortcuts you take are not worth it. You cannot be a doctor, work in industry, or join a research institution if you cannot keep accurate notes, much less communicate why your work matters in your own words. I’m amazed you even want to pursue a career that requires so much critical thinking if you outsource brainstorming to a machine.

Stop putting your lab reports through ChatGPT, ruining the environment in the name of easier, smoother, slicker communication — it isn’t working. You are harming your education in the name of convenience that will only come back to bite you.

You’ll ask, what’s the solution? Who do we blame? Isn’t it enough to agree this is a problem? — surely what I do doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, right?

Step one: acknowledge that you are not the sole arbiter of poor communication practices.

Step two: try to be better.

Good science communication, like anything, is about practice. Practice your poster presentations. Build good study strategies with your peers. Reframe your mindset to give good writing its due. Most importantly, give yourself the breathing room that comes with practices, and be a little more aware of the impacts of your communication. Your learning will be better for it.

Your SCLs are frustrated. Your calculus tutors are perplexed. Perpetuating a cycle of poor science communication under the guise that you don’t know any better is simply not good enough. Not anymore. Not at Grinnell.

Clara Bode is a fourth-year biochemistry and English major.