Video in science

The Chinese folktale, Three Blind Men and an Elephant, is more than 2,000 years old. Three blind men approached an elephant and tried to describe it. The first man felt the elephant’s ear and decided that it was like a fan. The second man touched the elephant’s knee and decided that it was like a tree. The third man held the elephant’s trunk and concluded that it was like a snake. They could not agree on what an elephant is really like (Kuo & Kuo, 1976). If each of the three men had felt the whole of the elephant, or at least experienced each of the three parts themselves, they would have gained a better idea of what animal they were trying to describe. Scientists, like the blind men, often have too narrow a focus when thinking about their field of research or particular topics. To obtain a larger, more complete picture—to understand what the ‘elephant’ is—they need as much information as possible. One way of achieving this is to take advantage of new technologies, such as video, and use it to communicate scientific methods, protocols and results. Here, I describe the possible advantages of using video to communicate scientific protocols instead of verbal descriptions, and highlight some further benefits of such an approach, in particular in educational and outreach programmes.