Found in translation: Crossing the corpus callosum to explain science.

This issue of The FASEB Journal marks a transition with respect to an aspect of our enterprise for the last five years— editorials exclusively penned by the Editor-in-Chief. Combining editorial and essay forms, they have addressed both professional scientists and broader audiences , in keeping with his many engaging books (e.g., Ref. 1). By now inviting other members of the editorial board to pen editorials for The FASEB Journal, our Editor-in-Chief hopes that a diversity of opinions will rouse our broad readership to vigorous response. Here, I take the bait and address the topic of conveying science to general audiences. I was first exposed to the challenge of explaining tough science to a broad audience in 1976 when I was asked to address the board of trustees of the institution where I worked at the time, the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. I was apprehensive but somehow managed to slosh through remarks about my research on RNA-binding proteins (2). In this initial experience, I learned that addressing a lay audience is not simply one valence level out from the s orbital to the p, but out to several more layer lines to achieve audience comprehension. As we take up the topic of scientists addressing a broader audience, we might begin by recognizing the obvious, viz., that this consists of many variations on the theme. Jim Watson's The Double Helix (3) is a very familiar example, and though it is marred by an infamous inaccuracy in regard to a primary character (4), there can be no question the story was spellbinding as was the author's manner of presenting it. Another differentiation is between those efforts that remain within the context of the scientist's immediate expertise (for example when Joseph Goldstein or Michael Brown address a lay audience on the discovery and therapeutic impact of statins) and the contrasting endeavor in which scientists use their own work and stature as a launch pad to be a broader spokesperson for the cause of science and the joy of discovery (as the physicists Steven Weinberg and Leon Lederman have done so wonderfully, for example). Another front is defined by the efforts scientists have made to boost funding for science. There, the imperative is to emphasize the non-linkage between current vogues and discovery , as was done heroically by Vannevar Bush in his report to President Franklin Roosevelt on the state of …