A failure to communicate . . .

public view science as an inaccessible and arcane religion, whose unusual rituals and unintelligible pronouncements conspire to exclude them. Scientists are trained to answer questions precisely and completely. We are comfortable with uncertainty and, when we are at our best, present each side of an intellectual controversy with balance and nuance. Unfortunately, we have reached a point in the information age where more is less. Many people do not have the patience to listen to extended scientific debate or to accept the proposition that questions that have yet to be answered do not represent failures of the scientific method. Since they do not have the background to understand scientific complexities, they often embrace instead pseudo-scientific simplicities. An alarmingly large proportion of the American populace believes that Creationism or Intelligent Design provides more satisfying insights into the origin of species than does natural selection, notwithstanding the vast and growing body of evidence supporting Darwin's theory. In fact, the very word " theory " is seen as a sign of weakness by people who have come to demand absolute and instantaneous certainty from their pundits. Because we as scientists have done such a lamentable job of making science approachable by nonscientists, the general public too often superimposes upon science its own irrational fears and superstitions about forbidden knowledge or unnatural experimentation. In his play Saint Joan, George Bernard Shaw explored the prejudices of the Middle Ages in order to hold an unflattering mirror up to his own contemporary society. These words from his preface to that play are as true now as they were when he wrote Perhaps the most difficult question that any of us has to answer on a regular basis is asked not by our students, fellows, professors , Department Chairs, or Deans. Rather, it is asked by strangers who sit next to us on airplanes or with whom we strike up a casual conversation as we watch our kids' soccer matches. Ironically, the question is one to which we should be uniquely prepared to respond, since for most of us the answer occupies much of our conscious and a frightening portion of our subconscious thought. This deceptively simple and innocent question, which I expect we each have come to dread, is " So what do you study in your lab? " Of course we can answer this question. After all, the answer is often so central to our …