I think more science and research at large needs to be out there for the public to understand. It is on us as scientists to make research accessible. I started a podcast to help with this: The Ignorance Podcast (https://pod.link/1799118727) where I interview researchers based on their research questions, letting them at the end outroduce themselves. I spend maybe 4-5 hours a month on it and I have a full time research job. Ideally I want to be doing science through my podcast also. I am looking for more researchers to interview if you are interested. Let me help you create content about your research.
I am not quite sure that many members of the public have the attention span in today's world to follow lengthy debates on technical aspects of scientific methods that would determine whether a specific piece of research is sound or not. Therefore, I am tempted to think that the bear case would dominate more scientific communication, especially if it becomes linked to funding. I don't think that the case of Hossenfelder is particularly encouraging for instance. She produces excellent content, but is also talking bs about fields she knows nothing about and has been consistently attacking academia in a very populist manner for a year or two. You only need to read the comments below these specific videos to see that they do not raise the public's trust in science.
Second point, teaching and grant writing take time but are imo an integral part of the scientific process. You always think you understand something until you have to explain it to first year students, and every idea sounds great until you have to write it down into a grant and convince your peers. This is an essential part of how you refine your scientific thinking. Anecdotal evidence from content creators I follow suggests that to make a living on YouTube, you need to churn out a video or two per week at least, if not every single day. I don't see how this would gel with the practice of some experimental sciences, where you sometimes make several experiments per day with no real progress for months until you hit it big.
A lot of good points in your comment. One to challenge is that teaching and grant writing are an integral part of *a* scientific process. There are effective scientists today who do neither. Their work might be different from research done by scientists who teach. Likewise, a hypothetical scientist who creates content to fund their work might do different things. For example, the YouTube channel StuffMadeHere is a few small steps from mechatronics research and releases a few videos per year while still supporting its creator.
With teaching and grant writing I think it’s a matter of proportions. Some of it will definitely improve your science, loads of it will hurt your productivity. In my science advocacy work (in the EU landscape), we have tried to push the member states to run a study on what is the right balance of baseline vs competitive funding and on what is the optimal funding rate, but this has fallen into deaf ears for reasons I have alluded to here https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798724000279.
If mass acceptance is the final acid test for any idea, why not have content creation support science?
Instead of burdening scientists, why not get creators to help scientists generate conversational, easy-to-understand content? Creators who have some background knowledge of the involved fields.
AI tools can also do this. But, I guess they don't have access to the research material.
Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come. Yes, agreed. Why wait ages for the time to arrive when you can at least try and accelerate?
I think more science and research at large needs to be out there for the public to understand. It is on us as scientists to make research accessible. I started a podcast to help with this: The Ignorance Podcast (https://pod.link/1799118727) where I interview researchers based on their research questions, letting them at the end outroduce themselves. I spend maybe 4-5 hours a month on it and I have a full time research job. Ideally I want to be doing science through my podcast also. I am looking for more researchers to interview if you are interested. Let me help you create content about your research.
I am not quite sure that many members of the public have the attention span in today's world to follow lengthy debates on technical aspects of scientific methods that would determine whether a specific piece of research is sound or not. Therefore, I am tempted to think that the bear case would dominate more scientific communication, especially if it becomes linked to funding. I don't think that the case of Hossenfelder is particularly encouraging for instance. She produces excellent content, but is also talking bs about fields she knows nothing about and has been consistently attacking academia in a very populist manner for a year or two. You only need to read the comments below these specific videos to see that they do not raise the public's trust in science.
Second point, teaching and grant writing take time but are imo an integral part of the scientific process. You always think you understand something until you have to explain it to first year students, and every idea sounds great until you have to write it down into a grant and convince your peers. This is an essential part of how you refine your scientific thinking. Anecdotal evidence from content creators I follow suggests that to make a living on YouTube, you need to churn out a video or two per week at least, if not every single day. I don't see how this would gel with the practice of some experimental sciences, where you sometimes make several experiments per day with no real progress for months until you hit it big.
A lot of good points in your comment. One to challenge is that teaching and grant writing are an integral part of *a* scientific process. There are effective scientists today who do neither. Their work might be different from research done by scientists who teach. Likewise, a hypothetical scientist who creates content to fund their work might do different things. For example, the YouTube channel StuffMadeHere is a few small steps from mechatronics research and releases a few videos per year while still supporting its creator.
With teaching and grant writing I think it’s a matter of proportions. Some of it will definitely improve your science, loads of it will hurt your productivity. In my science advocacy work (in the EU landscape), we have tried to push the member states to run a study on what is the right balance of baseline vs competitive funding and on what is the optimal funding rate, but this has fallen into deaf ears for reasons I have alluded to here https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798724000279.
If mass acceptance is the final acid test for any idea, why not have content creation support science?
Instead of burdening scientists, why not get creators to help scientists generate conversational, easy-to-understand content? Creators who have some background knowledge of the involved fields.
AI tools can also do this. But, I guess they don't have access to the research material.
Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come. Yes, agreed. Why wait ages for the time to arrive when you can at least try and accelerate?