Episode 109
Episode 109 - Why Science Needs Emotion
When you hear the word "science," what do you feel? Bored? Intimidated? In awe? Suspicious? Turns out, that gut reaction matters more than you think — and it might be the key to understanding why science communication so often fails, and why grifters and pseudoscientists are so successful.
In this episode I sat down with Daniel Silva Luna, a science communication researcher from Colombia, now based in Germany, whose work focuses on one of the most overlooked forces in how we understand science: emotion. Not just feelings like crying at a nature documentary (though, no shame), but emotion as a navigation tool — the internal compass that shapes what information you trust, what stories you believe, and who you think "science" is even for.
We got into some big questions that don't get asked enough. What is science to people who didn't study it? Why do anti-science populist movements communicate so effectively while scientists struggle to be heard? How do tech billionaires like Elon Musk wrap themselves in the legacy of real scientists to build authority — and what can legitimate science communicators learn from that? And why does science communication still feel like a club most people aren't invited to?
No lab coat required. Just curiosity.
Key Takeaways
- Emotions don't distort our relationship with science — they mediate it. There's no emotion-free way to engage with information.
- Anti-science movements work because they speak to real feelings of exclusion, distrust, and frustration. Debunking alone doesn't address any of that.
- Science communication's emotional range is too narrow. Wonder and curiosity are great. But anger, sadness, fear, and frustration are also legitimate and powerful — and they're being left on the table.
- Representation in science communication isn't just a fairness issue. It's a relevance issue.
- Science communicators should think of their work as storytelling with a point of view, not just information transfer.
- Ed Yong: Science Writer
- Queering science communication: Representations, theory, and practice
- Lab coats in Hollywood: Science, scientists, and cinema - David A. Kirby
- Varieties of awe in science communication: Reflexive thematic analysis of practitioners’ experiences and uses of this emotion - Daniel Silva Luna
- Emotion in practice: The cultural work of emotion in science communication - Daniel Silva Luna
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Transcript
What is up, Brad fans?
Speaker B:How you doing?
Speaker B:How you living?
Speaker B:Let me ask you this.
Speaker A:When you hear the word science, what do you think of.
Speaker A:What's your definition of science?
Speaker A:Is it just the process by which we confirm hypothesis or generate knowledge?
Speaker A:Maybe you think of the facts that have already been confirmed by that process.
Speaker B:The sky is blue, gravity pulls things
Speaker A:back towards the earth.
Speaker A:Maybe you think of the job of doing science.
Speaker B:That's what science is.
Speaker A:So let's take it that step further.
Speaker A:Who is a scientist?
Speaker A:What do they do?
Speaker A:Is your mechanic a scientist?
Speaker A:Your dentist?
Speaker A:Are you a scientist?
Speaker A:Or is it just the folks in lab coats?
Speaker A:Doctors maybe?
Speaker A:What about tech bros?
Speaker A:Are they scientists or are they just standing on the shoulders of scientists to achieve their own ends?
Speaker A:Maybe a bit of both.
Speaker A:And finally, how do you feel when, when you hear the word science, when you read about science or a new scientific discovery?
Speaker A:And before you think this is just overly sentimental or identity politics in another form, these are actually very important questions to think about when talking about this inescapable thing we call science.
Speaker A:This thing that touches every part of our lives, that permeates throughout our society, from our technology to our medicine, to just the collective knowledge that humanity has amassed up till now.
Speaker A:And make no mistake, science is a human endeavor.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker A:It's critical that we think about what it is, who does it, and how does it make us feel.
Speaker A:One, because science is not the monolith it's characterized as.
Speaker A:Whether it's cheerleading or critiquing science.
Speaker A:The phrase the science or scientists is used to try and characterize it as one thing, which it very much isn't.
Speaker A:And this greatly complicates our discussions about it.
Speaker A:But also, as my guest points out, emotions, the way we feel about things are more than just feelings.
Speaker A:They're tools.
Speaker A:Tools that we use to navigate the world.
Speaker A:And when it comes to science, there's a lot to navigate.
Speaker A:First and foremost, what.
Speaker A:Why should we care about science and what do we do with the knowledge it produces?
Speaker A:As much as the field of science wants to portray itself as this unbiased, cold, emotionless process just meant to determine facts and knowledge and get to the bottom of questions using a rigorous scientific approach.
Speaker A:And it is those things.
Speaker A:But it's also, as I said, a human endeavor which is therefore subject to our emotions or our values, our politics, everything.
Speaker A:So we have to decide which questions, knowledge or goals we want to pursue, and then what do we do with that knowledge and technology that is produced?
Speaker A:This requires examining our feelings, our emotions of who and what science is and like so many other aspects of our society, who is benefiting.
Speaker A:Again, think of the tech community.
Speaker A:The companies that create this technology can use it to service humanity or service corrupt governments seeking control and power.
Speaker A:One Tech one Science two very different applications.
Speaker A:So I think discussing things like emotion and identity are important.
Speaker A:When we talk about science and science communication.
Speaker A:Certainly the people who want us to have a negative view of science, its institutions, and importantly the conclusions those institutions have drawn, they are using emotions, fear, anger, mistrust and they're quite effective at and here's one last shot at the tech Bros.
Speaker A:I think that they often use positive emotions as well, which maybe is sneaking some things past us.
Speaker A:The positive emotions of wonder, awe that we feel when we think about navigating the stars or just the vast potential that their technology does have.
Speaker A:My guest also thinks deeply about these emotions and their importance, and he is Daniel Silva Luna, a science communication researcher originally from Colombia and now based in Germany.
Speaker A:Check out the show notes for his latest publications and some of his recommended readings.
Speaker A:His work focuses on emotions in science and science communication, how we use those emotions to talk about science.
Speaker A:It was a pleasure talking with him about these topics and much more, including his interesting path from politics to science and science communication.
Speaker A:There's a lot of overlap there, so I hope you enjoy this conversation too.
Speaker A:And as always, if you find this content interesting, useful, important or just entertaining, please like subscribe, follow, leave us a comment wherever you're getting us.
Speaker B:It really helps us out a lot.
Speaker B:Daniel, welcome to the show.
Speaker B:Thank you for being here.
Speaker B:I think we should, right off the bat, say we've met before.
Speaker B: too long ago, late last year,: Speaker B:The emotions that are involved, how science communicators use emotion.
Speaker B:I think it's a really fascinating topic.
Speaker B:We ended up doing a panel together on identity.
Speaker B:So the identity of science communicators and scientists and how that plays a role in how they communicate, communicate their work, something that I covered in previous episodes.
Speaker B:So I'm happy to have you here to discuss this in, in, in more detail.
Speaker B:Emotion, science communication, some of the bigger issues in our field.
Speaker B:So let's start with how did you get involved in science science communication?
Speaker B:Was it a communication thing first or a love of science first?
Speaker B:Was it one of those childhood things or how did this all begin for you?
Speaker C:Thank you so much for the invitation.
Speaker C:I'm really, really happy to be here.
Speaker C:I Always love talking to anyone that wants to discuss emotion Communication.
Speaker C:That's always like, I'm always eager to talk about my research and my work and all the stuff I've been doing.
Speaker C:So, yeah, no, that's, that's a good setup for what comes later on emotion, which is that as a kid I was really to science.
Speaker C:I was a science nerd all, all the time, going to the planetarium.
Speaker C:My parents got me a telescope when I was really young and I, I loved looking at the night sky and learning about the planets.
Speaker C:And I was that kid in school that would like, name the moons of Jupiter and.
Speaker C:And in a way, unfortunately, I was never really encouraged to pursue science career.
Speaker C:I grew up in Colombia, where I don't think there are a lot of opportunity to do science, like natural science, like hard sciences.
Speaker C:There's not a lot of encouragement from not just my parents, but like the culture there.
Speaker C:There's not a lot of like, you, you become a lawyer, you become a businessman, you become an administrator, or that's what people push you.
Speaker C:And I ended up studying economics.
Speaker C:I succumbed to the pressure of like, I want to study something like chemical engineering.
Speaker C:I was fascinated by chemistry when I was in high school, but I ended up studying economics and politics and that became my thing.
Speaker C:And for many years I just like wandered around doing international relations.
Speaker C:I was a diplomat at some point and that position as a diplomat moved.
Speaker C:Like, I ended up moving to London for that position.
Speaker C:Like the posting was in the, at the British Embassy in the uk.
Speaker C:And when I landed in London, I became aware of science communication as a field, as a thing.
Speaker C:I went to all the science festivals, all the science museums, all the, all the.
Speaker B:Well, London is like the hub for this, right?
Speaker B:Like with the BBC and the nature doc, like, it's like London is like the spot.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I became fascinated with it.
Speaker C:I would just like, go to all the, all the screenings for the documentaries that were coming out and I would go to the exhibitions and it was just like I was blowing.
Speaker C:Blown away.
Speaker C:And that was where I was like, oh, I need to do this.
Speaker C:This is the thing.
Speaker C:This is my calling.
Speaker C:This is what I always wanted to do.
Speaker C:And I quit my job to join the master's degree in science communication at Imperial College, which was a brilliant experience.
Speaker C:I would recommend anyone that wants also, like a change of career or wants to pivot towards science communication.
Speaker C:They have an excellent program there.
Speaker C:And yeah, and I was hooked.
Speaker C:And my plan was like, yeah, sure, I'll like, I'll do my master's, go Back to Columbia with my master's degree and be like, knocking doors and be like, hey, science communication, let's do it.
Speaker C:Like, this is the thing I wanted to do, like, professional science communication, like, podcasting and journalism and all this stuff.
Speaker C:Like.
Speaker C:And then I landed in Columbia and it was just like, empty stairs, just people being like, science what?
Speaker C:Like, what do you do?
Speaker C:Like, what is that?
Speaker B:You want to talk about science and get paid for it.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:So I got involved in a bunch of projects and they were all like, oh, well, we might find budget in the future.
Speaker C:And there was a project with the National Columbia Radio.
Speaker C:They wanted to have a science podcast, like a science section.
Speaker C:And I was, like, very eager to do it because science podcasting was one of the things that I loved from the very beginning.
Speaker C:And yeah, and I was like, yeah, let's hire an editor.
Speaker C:Let's find some money for.
Speaker C:And they were like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker C:Just you do it.
Speaker C:And then, like, after maybe a couple of years, we'll see if, like, if it works out, we'll find out some budget for you.
Speaker C:And it's like, what?
Speaker C:So I work for free for them.
Speaker C:And it was the same thing.
Speaker C:There's a project at the Colombian Parliament, the Congress, where they wanted to establish, like, an Office of Science and Technology.
Speaker C:And there were some people interested in congress, like, having a British equivalent of the Parliamentary.
Speaker C:And the uk they have the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which is an office that advises parliamentarians on scientific affairs.
Speaker C:And they wanted to have a similar entity within the Colombian Congress to advise Colombia Congress lawmakers on different scientific issues.
Speaker C:On.
Speaker C:At the moment, I remember there was like a big 5G thing discussion going on and they wanted to, like, find people to do that and.
Speaker C:And they, like, I contacted some people that were doing that, that was starting to do that, and I.
Speaker C:And they were like, oh, yeah, please come.
Speaker C:Like, we can use your experience in politics, we can use your experience in science communication.
Speaker C:And like, that would be like, you're the perfect fit.
Speaker C:And I was like, well, sure.
Speaker C:Like, are you going to hire me?
Speaker C:And they were like, no, well, we don't have any money if you want to, like, do some volunteer work.
Speaker C:And it was like that for almost two years.
Speaker C:And I said like, oh, no, it's clueless.
Speaker C:I need to get out of here.
Speaker C:I need to do something else.
Speaker C:And I started applying to PhDs, and I landed up a PhD in science communication at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Speaker C:So moved to New Zealand for a few years, spent my Covid years over There, which is an interesting place to be during COVID and.
Speaker C:Yeah, so, yeah, so it's a very roundabout way to get to science communication from, from a place of like, interests and like a very different life experience that most people have in science communication.
Speaker C:Most people come from, with like science degrees, they come from the natural sciences.
Speaker C:Most science communicators that I know, they, they have a degree in physics in biology, environmental studies.
Speaker C:Like they have something.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:I come with like my politics, like Internet international relations background and people just like, say what?
Speaker C:Where at least a guy.
Speaker C:But yeah, that's.
Speaker B:I think that's, I think that's, that's really interesting.
Speaker B:And I think it's, you know, as much as we talk about, oh, we need more scientists and more science literate people in politics and what, it can go the other way too.
Speaker B:And I'm fascinated by that because I think that like, you know, politics, you have to have personal relationships.
Speaker B:It's communication, right?
Speaker B:It's so much communication and I would say like an understanding of human behavior in a way too, right.
Speaker B:Like you have to make, you're negotiating with people, you have to convince people of your position.
Speaker B:And a lot of that comes down to sort of connections, human relationships connections and things like that.
Speaker B:And that is totally applicable to science communication.
Speaker B:And I think something that science communicators often fail to do.
Speaker B:You know, like, we, I've talked a lot about on this show about, you know, some.
Speaker B:My disdain for the knowledge deficit model and how it's just this one way science communication or scientists being like, well, we have the, we figured it out.
Speaker B:And so here, here's the data.
Speaker B:You should, you'll just believe us, right?
Speaker B:And it's like, yeah, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker B:You people, people make decisions based on their emotions, their worldviews, their relationships, all these things.
Speaker B:And so you have to talk to people in these terms.
Speaker B:You have to communicate to people on these terms.
Speaker B:You have to show them what, what it is that you're trying to, you know, you can't just assume that because I did the experiment, here's the number, everyone's going to believe me.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so I think politics is very relevant for that.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:That has really informed my view on science communication as political.
Speaker C:Like, every aspect of science communication has some politics involved in it.
Speaker C:And also, I don't shy away from the idea that communication is persuasion.
Speaker C:I think the word persuasion has a really bad rap in science communication.
Speaker C:We are not trying to persuade people to change their thing.
Speaker C:We are informing them and Let them make the choice.
Speaker C:But I think the way all communication is rhetorical communication has as a goal to persuade in some way or another a person to change their beliefs, change their ideas, change their behavior, change something about what they do.
Speaker C:And, and yeah, like, so I, I, the way, the way I see a lot of the, of the discussions about like, what it is that we do as science communicators but inform people.
Speaker C:It's like, no, you're, you're really, you want to persuade them to like, vaccinate.
Speaker C:You want to persuade it to go out there and support candidates in politics that support science.
Speaker C:You want them to like, attend the science festivals in the science museum.
Speaker C:You want them to encourage their kids to like, listen to their science teacher.
Speaker C:Like, I don't know, like, there's like many levels of that.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Or you want to encourage them to, to fund your work.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like, that's the biggest thing for scientists when they talk about science communication.
Speaker B:It's always the default answer is we have to reach the public because we're publicly funded.
Speaker B:And then we have to justify what we're doing and we need our budgets.
Speaker B:And, and it's like, okay, well, that's persuasion, you know, like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And then yes, there's all these other, you know, you know, societal measures and this gets to kind of this idea.
Speaker B:So let's, I've been, like I was telling you before we hit record, I've been kicking around these sort of big ideas about science communication because it just feels like there's not a lot of disciplines, science that have another discipline, totally about talking about the other one.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:It's like you have the scientific discipline and then you've, we've built this whole other discipline that's all about specifically telling people what's going on over here.
Speaker B:You don't really have that in other things.
Speaker B:Politics maybe, but it's more commentary.
Speaker B:It's not so much explanatory or even translating.
Speaker B:And I think that this shows the unique place that science has in, in our culture, in our society that's often overlooked because it shows how complex it is, how difficult it is to actually sort of understand the nuts and bolts of what scientists are doing.
Speaker B:There's a very high degree of specificity.
Speaker B:I'm not going to say like intelligence that's required, because I think that doesn't credit people.
Speaker B:People can understand science, but it's very specific, you know, tool set and knowledge set.
Speaker B:So if you don't have that, it can be difficult to Understand.
Speaker B:And so there's this.
Speaker B:That's unique about science, but it also speaks to, you know, the idea that we have a whole field to talk about science and its impacts and what it's doing shows how impactful it is on our society, that we need people to understand this highly specific, highly specialized field because it touches pretty much everything we do.
Speaker B:You know, health and medicine is the obvious one, but all of our technology
Speaker A:and our societies are built around technology.
Speaker B:Our economy is built around technology.
Speaker B:Like, it really is kind of at the root of everything.
Speaker B:And I don't think a lot of people appreciate that.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:No, it's just about appreciation.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:There's a.
Speaker C:There's really, like a gap there, I think, between, of course, the epistemic position that, like, science has in our societies, like, as the.
Speaker C:We now treat science as the basis for most political decision making.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And at the same time, yeah, we have a culture and a society that doesn't necessarily think highly of science and those two things.
Speaker B:It's that new.
Speaker B:I think it's more that they just don't think of it at all.
Speaker B:Like, it's become, you know, maybe it's become so ubiquitous, like, so in the background, so built into this, into the structures, that it's just.
Speaker B:You don't think of it as a.
Speaker B:As something that's going on there, you know, until.
Speaker B:Until it's a personal decision, like a vaccine or climate change behavior or something like that.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker B:Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you,
Speaker C:but that's a question that I actually have as, like, a research question, which is what.
Speaker C:What do people.
Speaker C:When, like, you, like, ask people like, hey, can you define science for me?
Speaker C:Or what is science for you?
Speaker C:Or how.
Speaker C:And when I talk about.
Speaker C:When they say people, like, really, like anyone from, I don't know, my mom, all the way to, like, a politician.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker C:I am curious about how.
Speaker C:How we internalize those things.
Speaker C:And the.
Speaker C:And this question came about because I was.
Speaker C:I was.
Speaker C:I was in a camping place in New Zealand.
Speaker C:We were camping and there was a tent next to us.
Speaker C:I was just laying in my camp in my tent reading a book or something, and there were three kids in the tent next to us, and they were having a conversation, and there were two boys and a girl.
Speaker C:And the boys were asking, what's your favorite subject at school?
Speaker C:And the girl said, science.
Speaker C:And the two boys reaction was like, ew, science.
Speaker C:Like, immediate reaction, gut reaction was like, oh, science sucks.
Speaker B:Boring.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I feel that that is the Gut reaction that a lot of people have because, like, the socialization into what is science has been traumatic for a lot of people.
Speaker C:It's like hard subject at school from a boring teacher that like, we just like had to cheat in order to pass and get some great like so.
Speaker C:And we don't have clarity to the question of what is science for people.
Speaker C:How do people conceptualize science in their guts?
Speaker C:In their guts, in their, in their lived experience?
Speaker C:What like, is science if when they go to the doctor to think of it as a science?
Speaker C:Like, we think of it as a science because we think of medical science and the advances and the, and the cures and the vaccines and all the stuff.
Speaker C:But like, do people where they got vaccinated, are they making that association between vaccine in my arm to science is epistemic industry, institution of knowledge creation and all this stuff?
Speaker C:Or are they just like, oh, well, doctors are not scientists.
Speaker C:Like, the doctor is just the guy that is he like.
Speaker C:Or when they go to the mechanic and fixes the car and they think of like, the mechanic starts talking in technical terms about what's going on in the car and they don't understand like, just like standing there.
Speaker C:But are they thinking of it as like, oh, well, this guy has some technical knowledge that is derived some science and do they make those connections?
Speaker B:Or it's just like, I wonder if the mechanic thinks of themselves in that terms, you know?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, even engineers are always kind of like, put to one side as like, is it science?
Speaker B:Is it not?
Speaker B:But this is another thing that I think is kind of an important distinction, I think for people nowadays is because we talk about tech, right?
Speaker B:Like the tech industry and, you know, a lot of discussions happening politically about the influence of the quote, unquote, tech bros.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker B:And, and it's like, is that what people think science is?
Speaker B:Because to me, those guys are not scientists.
Speaker B:They are standing on the shoulders of the scientists that have done the fundamental work on algorithms, on chips, on, you know, semiconductors, on electronics and even electronics.
Speaker B:You can, you could peel it all the way back to, you know, the, the people that discover.
Speaker B:And I can't think of the names right now, you know, but like the people that discovered electrons, you know, was it Niels Bohr and the Bohr model of the atoms and things like that.
Speaker B:Like, that's where you need that before you can get to this.
Speaker B:So it's like there's this long influence of history and science in history that culminates with somebody selling you an iPhone and, you know, becoming this this titan of industry.
Speaker B:And we look at that as science kind of or like science.
Speaker B:That image gets lumped in with science.
Speaker B:And I think that it's.
Speaker B:I can see it, but it's, it's not totally correct in my mind.
Speaker B:And I think it's detrimental.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:Like now I'm just kind of going off on, on different things.
Speaker B:But I think that your, your point about like how do people feel like if you ask someone what is science?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:That's such a nebulous question.
Speaker B:And, and this is why, and I've said this before on this show many times, is why I really came to hate that phrase during the COVID years of trust the science because it's like well what, what is, what is science?
Speaker B:What does that mean?
Speaker B:And who is science?
Speaker B:Who speaks for science?
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:You know.
Speaker B:But yet I'm also saying at the same time that it's everywhere.
Speaker C:So yeah, that's a very difficult problem to the gap that I'm interested in.
Speaker C:But and I'm glad you mentioned like tech Tech bros and the Elon Musk's and the, and the all what's his name?
Speaker B:Like old man and all these guys.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Because.
Speaker C:Because I feel like there are so the way like I conceptualize this and I'd like.
Speaker C:I kind of like point towards that direction in a way on my own research is that there's no.
Speaker C:There are many different like worldviews and ideologies and kind of what I call cultures of science communication.
Speaker C:It's like ways of thinking about science and meanings that we ascribe to science.
Speaker C:And there is a very strong cultural element that does look at these tech bros and at these billionaires and these people and they ascribe them those characteristics of like oh, admiration and wonder and awe to, to the character.
Speaker C:It's no coincidence that like Elon Musk named their company Tesla.
Speaker C:Like just kind of like as like grabbing themselves from a legacy of like other scientists that came before them and.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Nikola Tesla.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that is part of the conversation about how people think of science.
Speaker C:There are people, there's a, there's a, there's a culture of science communication.
Speaker C:A way of.
Speaker C:In which we talk about science where these people are admired and they are the biggest inventors and scientists out there.
Speaker C:There's no saying whether this is the correct way or the incorrect way.
Speaker C:I don't personally think that that's the best way of thinking about science.
Speaker C:But there is definitely a very strong cultural component in which a lot of people are seen like all these tech billionaires are seen as that.
Speaker C:But at the same time, yeah, as you said, like, you don't see them as scientists.
Speaker C:Like, you, like, you have had a very different experience in life.
Speaker C:You have met many people, you're a scientist yourself.
Speaker C:You have scientific training, and you don't see them as scientists.
Speaker C:But I do see that when these people are idealized in the media and when they put in the pedestal.
Speaker C:But that's just one way of thinking about science in our societies.
Speaker C:And I am interested in exploring what other pockets of ways of looking at science are out there.
Speaker C:And that is why my research on emotion.
Speaker C:I kind of go tangentially at that question in my research about emotion, where I talk about the different ways in which people express awe and wonder and admiration and these emotions in the context of science.
Speaker C:Mm.
Speaker C:So let's.
Speaker B:Let's get to that.
Speaker B:And I just want to dwell on something that you said there.
Speaker B:You know, these different cultures of science communication.
Speaker B:And I would say, I take that as by extension, different cultures of science.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And this interaction of how people view science and its place within the culture, you know, you said there's this revering, you know, the characters, the big characters of science.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like the Einsteins and the.
Speaker B:And the, you know, name Tesla.
Speaker B:We mentioned, you know, all these.
Speaker B:That's one way to do it.
Speaker B:What are.
Speaker B:Maybe before we dig into the emotion, what are some of the other cultural ways in which you can interact with science, do you think?
Speaker B:I mean, there's skepticism is one that's probably becoming more popular these days.
Speaker B:But how do you think.
Speaker B:How do you think that?
Speaker B:And then maybe you can use that as the lead into why.
Speaker B:Why emotion is the angle to.
Speaker B:To so of.
Speaker B:Look at this.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker C:So other cultures that I have identify in these are like very broad cultures.
Speaker C:They're very like Eurocentric, like, very, very.
Speaker C:Based on, like a very narrow experience that I've had.
Speaker C:But on the broad scheme of things, what I've seen is like, for example, there's a cultural.
Speaker C:Around environmentalism, around protecting the planet, around.
Speaker C:Around caring about.
Speaker C:Around kind of working with the resources that you have and kind of ideals around.
Speaker C:Around care and protection and conservation.
Speaker B:Conservation, yeah.
Speaker C:That is sometimes linked with science.
Speaker C:For some people, that is a strong association that they have with science and how science contributes to, like, these ideas of biodiversity and conservation, all this stuff.
Speaker C:There's a view of science that is very kind of business model that is tangentially connected to, like market capitalism, neoliberal thinking, where science so that would be
Speaker B:kind of like the innovation, innovation tech.
Speaker C:And then you can see that in play at play.
Speaker C:For example, when you see universities moving away from kind of like their humanistic model of university that like was kind of the main way of thinking about universities as a play of knowledge, as a play of like diverse ideas and all this thing towards like a market driven sense where you're going to fund business and engineering careers and like the
Speaker B:ones that research that leads to some kind of product.
Speaker C:And a lot of the way that science is talking about societies is like we're competing against China, we're competing against the U.S. we're competing against other countries.
Speaker C:We need to really push for more engineers in order to get our country to lead the way in or grow the economy or something like that.
Speaker C:So that is another way of thinking about science and the way a lot of people in their heads internalize the idea of what science is and what
Speaker B:science does in society or the value of science too.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:That's how they see the value.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker B:Because, because you're ascribing a monetary value to it.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:So like it's, it touches on values, it touches on, on ideals, it talks on goals.
Speaker C:What is the goal of science?
Speaker C:What are the, what are, what is science for?
Speaker C:There is a more like kind of.
Speaker C:They're so skeptical, but not in this, in the, in the word skeptic.
Speaker C:I like the word skeptic.
Speaker C:But the worst skeptic has been so tarnished by like what's been going on in the US as of late that when I think of skeptical is more.
Speaker C:Well, science has had a lot of really good things and has produced wonders and we live in a society that is plentiful thanks to science despite the fact that there's so much inequality in the world and all these issues going on.
Speaker C:But at the same time science has major fuck ups.
Speaker C:Like there's the atomic bomb and there's all these like horrible experiments that happen throughout the like 20th century.
Speaker C:And then there's like all these like Bhopal and then there's like.
Speaker C:So there's like a sense that, that science is a very human endeavor.
Speaker C:Like it's a very humanistic way of looking at science which is close, like closer to how I think about science.
Speaker C:Where you think of science as.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's just.
Speaker C:There's so much uncertainty, there's so much.
Speaker C:We don't know.
Speaker C:Epistemic humility is kind of like a mood in this way of thinking about science where we're trying to figure out Things, but we don't know most of it.
Speaker C:And we are attentive to unintended consequences.
Speaker C:So we rather go slow.
Speaker C:It's not like move fast and break things ideology, but rather let's go slow, let's console, let's think about it, let's see who, what issues might arise from us deploying this technology now with AI or with social media with all these things that were deployed at scale.
Speaker C:And we are just starting to see the consequences of a lot of these things.
Speaker C:Much more of the view of well, let's take it easy.
Speaker C:Let's understand the history of science is filled with blunders and fuck ups and things.
Speaker C:Let's think it through and understand that this is a very human endeavor.
Speaker C:There's no, there's no ultimate best science or something.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:But you know what I mean, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, I do.
Speaker B:I think that makes, it's a good point and that's kind of how I view scientists.
Speaker B:If you're, if science, if you were to ask me that it would come from that, you know, like the, the metaphor analogy or whatever, shining a light in the darkness, right?
Speaker B:Like humans were just these, you know, or find ourselves on this planet and, and now with this intelligence that has grown over time and, and just being like well what does that mean?
Speaker B:Well why does that do that?
Speaker B:And well what is going on there?
Speaker B:And you know, just constant questions and then by understanding one thing you can, you, you learn how to leverage it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, and that's kind of the, the, the, that to me is science, right?
Speaker B:It started with a, it always starts with a curiosity.
Speaker B:And then we decide as a group or as a individuals what we then do with that knowledge.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:So it's, for me it comes to that, that, that, yeah, that more curiosity and, and, and humanist kind of place.
Speaker B:But all of these cultures, right, they all exist simultaneously, right?
Speaker B:And I think that that's kind of again the beauty of this broad thing that we're calling science and then science communication.
Speaker B:But it's also why it's so difficult to, to pin down, right, for communicators and for like what is the goal of our communication and what are we trying to achieve?
Speaker B:And maybe that's it is that we just like, like all things with, you know, look at politics, right?
Speaker B:Like it's always changing what people want and what we're trying to do and all of these things.
Speaker B:So maybe, maybe that's it, maybe you'll never pin it down.
Speaker B:But having said that, what is, what is the role of emotion then in these different cultures and in your work, what's the kind of central question you're asking with your work when it comes to, you know, the different scientific cultures and then specifically emotion?
Speaker C:Yeah, so the way I like to think about emotion is emotion as meaning.
Speaker C:Making emotion as kind of like the part of the embodied experience of assigning meaning to things in the world.
Speaker C:So for me, emotions is something that is learned through life.
Speaker C:Like you learn to experience certain emotions or certain situations because that is what the cultures and the experiences that you have had through life have taught you.
Speaker C:So the way that this connects is that emotion in a way is at the center of how we give meaning to things, how we value things.
Speaker C:So I don't want to get too technical, but emotion in a way works like a compass or as, as a motivator, as something that pushes us towards certain other things or away from certain others.
Speaker C:It guides us through the world and allows us to interpret certain things are certain way certain things.
Speaker C:It gives signals to the body to act in certain ways and to pay attention to certain things in the world and discard others.
Speaker C:So yeah, it's like an internal barometer that's always on.
Speaker C:There's no such thing as being unemotional.
Speaker C:This is like a, like a story that we like to tell ourselves.
Speaker C:And the scientists love that.
Speaker B:It's like, which science loves to tell that story.
Speaker C:Right, Love it.
Speaker C:But there's a long history of like rationalism and like how it came out in the 19th century, 18th, 19th century, and how this idea came about of the, of the rational self.
Speaker C:Like, and we can trace it all the way back to like Plato and even before that, the idea of the chariot being led by the horses and pulling in certain directions, all that stuff.
Speaker C:So there's like a long history of like, especially in Western thought, of, of rationality being neutral to emotionality, of, to affect and, and yeah, so, so the way I think about it is that like there's emotion in every, absolutely every single aspect of our lived experience.
Speaker C:There's emotion guiding us through life.
Speaker C:There's something that like, moves us through the world and like we, allows us to assign meaning to this things.
Speaker C:So coming back to the question that you had early on about talking about scientists, I'm actually really interested in that question about how do scientists land up in a scientific career.
Speaker C:I know that there's a motivation to learn new things and push boundaries and contribute to the scientific endeavor and create new scientific knowledge and all this stuff, but there's always like a personal story behind that there's always like a, like my parents taught me something or like my teachers encouraged me or like I read this book that like really moved me.
Speaker C:And so there's always like a gut motivation that's moving people through the world and helping them make the decisions that lead them to become scientists.
Speaker C:And the same with like communicators.
Speaker C:Communicators are like in science communication because they believe in science in a certain way and they think that they can contribute in a certain way to start to certain things.
Speaker C:And I'm very interested in that.
Speaker C:I'm very interested in like thinking about what are the, what are the ways that people who end up in science, in science communication experience emotion around science, which emotions are valid and which emotions are not valid.
Speaker C:So something that I picked up in my, in my latest study that came out a couple, a couple of days ago, links in the show notes.
Speaker B:Yep, absolutely.
Speaker C:I will sort of like how you call it, like when you, you plug your stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was a nice plug.
Speaker B:Good job.
Speaker C:No, really like one of the things that I observed in my conversations with scientists, with science communicators, especially science communicators that do research, 50% of the time, 50% of the time is dedicated to like communicating science is that the norms of like, what are, what are the expectations, how are they expected to communicate?
Speaker C:What kind of like tones and affective like notes and which emotions is very limiting.
Speaker C:So of course they can talk about wonder and they talk about curiosity and they could talk about certain.
Speaker C:But hope maybe, but things like anger or sadness or like joy or like intense expression of emotions are like very discouraged and not just by, by their peers, but like the institutional setup that you're supposed to write in like neutral language or you're supposed to write in like, like non affective tones.
Speaker C:And so like.
Speaker C:Yeah, so certain, like our culture, our cultures of science communication kind of like encourage certain emotional tones and discourage others.
Speaker C:And I'm interested in that.
Speaker C:Like in which of these cultures that I was talking about.
Speaker C:What are those effective tones of each of these?
Speaker C:Which ones are discouraged, which is encouraged?
Speaker C:When something is encouraged, how do we express it?
Speaker C:How do we talk about this?
Speaker C:Yeah, this is where I think there's a lot of opportunity for research, but also for improving communication practices.
Speaker C:Because there's a lot of, with the state of the world, there's a lot of anger out there.
Speaker C:Fear, anger, frustration.
Speaker C:Like just emotions that you would not normally consider as good effective registers for talking about science.
Speaker C:Like we usually talk about like these excitement or discover like Wonders, these things.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And we are, I think that we are in a way doing a disservice to not tapping into those emotions.
Speaker C:Like, not just like this.
Speaker C:It's like, again, we're talking about generalization.
Speaker C:There are scientist communicators that are tapping into those things, but like, we are losing, in a way, the attention of a lot of publics because other influencers, podcasters, other people are really tapping into those fears and those angers and those.
Speaker C:And that's what you see in populist backlashes, as you see in like, riseless fascist movements.
Speaker C:That's what you see in like, inequality.
Speaker C:That's what you see.
Speaker C:Like, so, so I'm interested in talking about the things in order to encourage people to be more open and flexible and more kind of explore these effectiveness,
Speaker B:to use the whole range of emotion that we have available to us.
Speaker B:I do workshops on science communication, science writing with grad students.
Speaker B:And I always say this because I feel like science communication.
Speaker B:I'm speaking to scientists that want to get their message out.
Speaker B:And I'm like, our default is always humor, right?
Speaker B:Like, it's always happy.
Speaker B:It's humor.
Speaker B:Like, if we can be funny, then people will, right?
Speaker B:And it's like, sure, that's great, that's one way to do it.
Speaker B:But if you look at, like you just said, all of these movements that we could say that we would, as scientists and science communicators say these are maybe like anti science or antithetical to what we're trying to do.
Speaker B:Populist movements, anti science movements, whatever that means.
Speaker B:Those people are tapping into some of the strongest human emotions we have.
Speaker B:Fear, anger, frustration, all this stuff.
Speaker B:And I would say they're doing it obviously for bad.
Speaker B:You know, the outcomes are bad for society, for people, for everything.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But it's effective.
Speaker B:It's very effective communication, right?
Speaker B:Those people are really good storytellers.
Speaker B:They're really effective communicators.
Speaker B:So I agree with you that there's a place to be using these.
Speaker B:You know, it's like you're, why, why, why paint with only three colors?
Speaker B:You know, when you have a whole spectrum of colors, right?
Speaker B:So use all the colors that are available to you.
Speaker B:Now the question is always, what's the goal then in science communication when you're using some of these other emotions, Right.
Speaker B:And how, how to effectively use them?
Speaker B:And I understand that you probably don't have all the answers, or maybe the research hasn't gone this far.
Speaker B:But I think about it in terms of like, well, now, are we coming back to persuasion?
Speaker B:Are we trying to bring people to the state that we're at?
Speaker B:Like, I'm, I'm angry about this inequality in the world.
Speaker B:And science, I think has an answer or could play a role in fixing that.
Speaker B:Am I bringing people to that position or am I pushing them to action?
Speaker B:Like, what am I using that emotion for?
Speaker B:Because so often I think, like I said, humor, funny, that's how we view science, how we put it out into the world.
Speaker B:And even science journalism, the, the field that I'm in a lot of times starts to feel like cheerleading for science.
Speaker B:When there's a room to be, you know, as journalists, it should be, there should be more skepticism, more critique, blah, blah, that.
Speaker B:But how do you flip it, you know, into this?
Speaker B:What are your thoughts on using these sort of what we might on the surface call sort of like negative emotions or something?
Speaker B:Where, where would you place them?
Speaker B:What's the area?
Speaker B:Or how would you project them, you know, onto the science, highlighting the fuck ups, as you say, or onto the problems in the world and saying like, hey, we can, you know, so then there's a hopeful message at the end.
Speaker B:I don't know what, what do you think of this?
Speaker C:Yeah, like, of course I don't have an answer, but to be questions of like how do we fix or how do we prove all the science communication.
Speaker C:So there's wonderful people doing really good job, really good work.
Speaker C:I don't have the names from the top of my head.
Speaker C:There's journalists really addressing all sorts.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I'm a huge fan of Ed Young at the Atlantic, for example, where there's a problematization of these issues.
Speaker C:If you see his trajectory and the way that he's engaged with issues, especially like around Covid, he really describes how he has changed his mind around how do we engage in certain topics, how are we cheerleading science, this kind of stuff.
Speaker C:I find that brilliant and I would very much recommend his work.
Speaker C:But there's many brilliant communicators that are aware of many of these things.
Speaker C:What I think is, I think a lot of the Joe Rogan I spent a lot of like just a ridiculous amount of time think about Joe Rogan.
Speaker B:I've talked about Joe Rogan before on this show and I.
Speaker B:So let's get into it because I'm always fascinated.
Speaker B:His trajectory is such a fascinating, fascinating
Speaker C:like someone as a straight guy that like at some point was interested in, in performance and making like.
Speaker C:I listened to his podcast while ago and he used to bring and he still does bring proper scientists of all medical researchers, astrophysicists bring to the conversation and talk about these things.
Speaker C:But increasingly he started bringing.
Speaker C:And like, obviously he lost his mind during COVID but he's really like, bringing people to talk about a lot of topics from archaeology that are obviously not completely unqualified to talk about the six because they're just like.
Speaker C:And I'm obsessed with this, the archaeologists.
Speaker C:He brings like all these people that
Speaker B:are like, do, like, doing research on the Graham Hancock.
Speaker C:The Graham Hancocks.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:All those people because they talk about scientific topics, they frame themselves as scientists and researchers.
Speaker C:But the way they talk about themselves as the narrative they tell about themselves is often that of heretics being expelled out of the proper academia underdog story.
Speaker C:And what that does those stories that they tell about themselves.
Speaker C:And Joe Rogan likes to promote that.
Speaker C:We're just asking questions.
Speaker C:That kind of attitude taps into like, very strong cultural narratives that we have established through generations of like, free thinking and like, idealism and, and, and, and, and masculinity and like, it taps to all those things in ways that are
Speaker B:well and especially very American.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The idea of like the rugged individualism.
Speaker B:Pull yourself up and.
Speaker B:And, you know, carve your way.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, exactly, yeah.
Speaker C:That's like, that's a good summarization of the amount of norms and values and beliefs that those narratives and those ways of presenting their science, this underdog science, quote, unquote.
Speaker C:I have to do this.
Speaker C:I say quote, unquote because I don't want people to really think that I believe that Graham Hancock is an actual underdog.
Speaker C:And that has been so effective for promoting these wacky, esoteric, pseudo scientific beliefs and promoting these people to sell their books and promote their supplements and whatever they're selling, because it is tapping to preexist or not pre existing because they don't exist from that cultural worldviews.
Speaker C:And they're tapping to how many people in our society, not everyone, but mostly straight white dudes, feel about, like, the world.
Speaker C:And that is something that like, science communicators can learn a ton about because the stories that like, science communication tells are often tapping into worldviews and beliefs that, like, some people have, but not everyone.
Speaker C:And they're tapping to ways of looking at the world that people can resonate with, but not with everyone's way of looking at the world.
Speaker C:And I'm not talking about straight white dudes because that is not demographic I'm really interested in.
Speaker C:I'm interested in minorities.
Speaker C:I'm interested in those people that have been disaffected from science.
Speaker C:I'm talking about many, many different communities around the world, and not just in Europe and the US and whatever, but anywhere.
Speaker C:The stories that we tell about science are still about the big scientists that discovered a big cure and a big thing or a big project that is doing such and such.
Speaker C:And those stories I don't think are necessarily tapping into certain communities lived experience.
Speaker C:And that is why a lot of people are reacting to science in ways that are like, well, I don't trust those people.
Speaker C:Like, why would I trust like these people in universities that are doing who knows what with that money that we're giving them from our tax.
Speaker C:But rather they are tapping like all, all these other folks that like tell themselves as a quote unquote underdog are rather tapping into those feelings of like, of, of like, oh, I, I work so hard to get a living to establish a family, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker C:And, and yeah, I don't know if I'm making much sense about this thought, but this is something that I'm trying to articulate and this is a research proposal that I have in my head of how do we understand the kind of the worldview narrative component of what influencers and grifters and science grifters are doing and how can we learn from that experience and apply to science communication that actually can improve people's lives, can increase rates of vaccination, can get people to like engage with science in like interesting positive ways.
Speaker C:Something that improves the well being of people rather than like being angry at the elites in the universities for X or Y reason.
Speaker C:Like.
Speaker B:Yeah, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yes, I think I do.
Speaker B:And it's, I mean, not to be pessimistic, but I mean it's like, you see, the challenge with that right off the bat to me is because that underdog story, you know, is so especially, I think, especially in the time that we're living in where there's like a backlash against elites, a backlash against institutions.
Speaker B:You know, all of these things are seen to be not working for us or that they're, they're hiding things from us.
Speaker B:That kind of thing that inequality plays into that, you know, just like income inequality.
Speaker B:And it all plays into this.
Speaker B:Us versus them, the big guy, the big things, you know, are keeping things from the, from the rest of us.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like that's such a strong narrative.
Speaker B:But then if you start to try and, and I know like the instinct is to debunk, right?
Speaker B:And I'm so, I'm not convinced that debunking does anything like, I don't, I don't know at all, right?
Speaker B:And I hate doing it.
Speaker B:Like, I hate, like, there's obviously, there's like, if I'm being honest, there's like a smug kind of satisfaction that you might get from being like, well actually, well actually that's not how it worked and that whole thing.
Speaker B:But like, nobody's gonna listen to that really.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like you're just doing that for your own little audience, your own little echo bubble, I think.
Speaker B:But anyway, but so then how do you deal with that?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:So that's where I'm starting first.
Speaker B:How do you deal with that?
Speaker B:How do you combat that narrative without coming across as a gatekeeper, an elitist, you know, all of these things.
Speaker B:So that I think is super challenging.
Speaker B:And then if we look at how do we, how do you use similar narratives or tap into similar worldviews in order to, as you say, for a more like, let's say, positive outcome.
Speaker B:How do we do that?
Speaker B:So then do you try and position science as an institution, right, as this broad thing which is difficult to do because scientists are all individuals and they all have their individual motivations and, and you know, and we just talked about how many cultures are involved in science.
Speaker B:Do you try and take that, let's just again, quote, unquote, science and position it as the underdog against capitalism, against corrupt politicians?
Speaker B:Again, you know, I think maybe there's something there and I think a lot of scientists would probably feel that sort of, that message might resonate with them.
Speaker B:Especially, you know, look at a place like the U.S. where, where you know, budgets are being slashed and in all of these, research is being cut for, for what?
Speaker B:You know, for tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and stuff.
Speaker B:So that could be a powerful message.
Speaker B:But it's difficult to sort of, you know, there's, it's almost like you can't have it both ways, right?
Speaker B:You can't eat your cake and have it too, because you want to say science is everywhere.
Speaker B:Science is this thing that, that, that powers our whole society, but yet it's also not, it's not part of the elite.
Speaker B:It's not, you know, like, it's not this top down institution, ivory tower, all the, it's really hard to play both of those things, right?
Speaker B:Like, so how do you do that?
Speaker B:Is it individual stories?
Speaker B:Is it character?
Speaker B:Like individual characters, you know, and we've seen attempts at that, right?
Speaker B:Like the hidden figures and all of this stuff.
Speaker B:I'm not, I don't I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't have any data, but I'm not sure that it's resonating.
Speaker B:It's all this to say I think it's an incredibly challeng challenging thing, you know, and I'm looking at it again as, like, let's say if we want to just combat the grifter, that grifter thing that's going on, the pseudoscience, you know, you see it in health, archeology, you see it everywhere, right?
Speaker B:But yeah, it's a difficult.
Speaker B:It's a heck of a challenge.
Speaker C:I think, like, identities, where a lot of these threats come together, like, people, like, when they engage with information, they don't engage with it as, like, abstract information, like processing, but rather they do that as members of social groups with a history, with a language, with values and emotions is one of the ways that those identities get activated and reinforced.
Speaker C:So feeling included, feeling respected or not dismissed is often more, much more important than, like, the content of the message.
Speaker C:Like, one thing that, like, I point towards in my experience is how I, like, I lived the last, like, 15 years of my life outside Colombia.
Speaker C:Like, on and off.
Speaker C:I spent a year in Colombia, like, trying to set up the podcast, like, and I work for government and all this stuff.
Speaker C:But I have spent for just good chunk of my life already.
Speaker C:Like, I left the country and my identity as Colombian, Like, I grew up, like, I was born there.
Speaker C:Grew up there is tenuous at best.
Speaker C:But every time there's like, a Colombian scientist in the news or I hear about, like, all the Colombian scientists involved in such research, like, there's something that, like, I feel like it's like a, like a little butterfly pride, a little, like, excitement, like someone from a place where, like, there's not a lot of money for science.
Speaker C:Like, it's, I don't know, to, like, a big institution and you publish a big paper and people are talking about it like, I feel it.
Speaker C:And that's because, like, my history and my language and all the stuff that I carry with me from my experience is tagged to that.
Speaker C:In a way, my identity is still there.
Speaker C:Like, I still, again, despite the fact that, like, I have lived abroad for quite a while and, like, it's 10 years at best, I still get excited.
Speaker C:The same with, like, the big.
Speaker C:The national football team.
Speaker C:Like, I don't watch a lot of football, but when Columbia plays, I get excited.
Speaker C:Same thing.
Speaker C:So from this perspective, you can think of science communication as always identity, work.
Speaker C:Science communication always signals who belongs, who is an insider, who is an outsider who's part of the group.
Speaker C:And then going back to the emotion thing, the research that I've carried out suggests that there are certain emotion tones that are powerful, but they can also implicitly exclude certain groups because, like, certain people just from their backgrounds, from their history, are not going to feel necessarily the same as others.
Speaker C:I think about it in terms of like, I watch Rick and Morty, the TV show with my wife.
Speaker C:I love it.
Speaker C:I grew up with sci fi.
Speaker C:I read a lot of sci fi, sci fi books, sci fi movies, like, you name it.
Speaker C:And there's a lot of these references.
Speaker C:And that is like the meta textual level that I enjoy the show.
Speaker C:My partner couldn't care less about any of these things.
Speaker C:And she likes it.
Speaker C:I think she watches this sometimes with me because I like it.
Speaker C:But she enjoys other things.
Speaker C:She enjoys the family dynamic, the family relationship, because that is the thing that kind of show taps into in her experience.
Speaker C:And that's the same for absolutely everything.
Speaker C:When we put out a piece of content out there, whether a essay or a video or a movie or whatever, people are gonna engage with it in so many different ways because their experiences in life are different.
Speaker C:So thinking of identity not as something like, oh, well, target demographic is like you named a hidden figure, so like African American women, but rather understand that there is a, like a history, like, not like a.
Speaker C:Like a lived experience there that like, we can actually engage with through art, through science, communication, through visuals, through stories, through narrative.
Speaker C:I think, like a way that the best way to think about it is trying to really put yourself in the shoes of the other person.
Speaker C:Like the worst cliche in the world, but putting yourself in the shoes of other people that have had different experience that you've had.
Speaker C:And if you're not able to put yourself in those shoes, like, you're probably not the best person to be communicated about a certain topic to a certain group.
Speaker C:But it's trying to engage on your own work from different perspectives and try to see how different people are engaging with it and try to learn from that and grow from that and move forward.
Speaker C:Trying to engage different people.
Speaker B:I think it.
Speaker B:I think it makes sense.
Speaker B:And the Rick and Morty thing actually, you know, like that, that's.
Speaker B:That's what kind of like clicked it for me, because it is.
Speaker B:It's like you can have one piece of content that.
Speaker B:That speaks to different people with different aspects.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like you said, there's the science, you know, the references to the actual data, like the science and the theoretical.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And then the references to the science fiction.
Speaker B:So there's a cultural thing.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:And then there's.
Speaker B:It's a show about families, you know, and there's human relationships, right?
Speaker B:So you get one thing that's speaking on three different levels to three different people, and each person that comes to it for one specific thing is also going to be exposed to the other.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's a really effective piece of, of art communication.
Speaker B:So then how do you.
Speaker B:To me, then it's like, so finding stories or crafting stories that do that similar thing about science.
Speaker B:And some people would say, like, I've done, again, I've done workshops on science communication with scientists and they, they would say like, yeah, but you know, the, the misinformation people, you know, like these, these grifters, whatever, they're not bound by truth or facts and that makes it easier for them.
Speaker B:And my instant reaction was like, well, yeah, but you have truth, in fact, so actually that's easier for you because you have something to ground in.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:But getting to the point that maybe the stories that we tell, you know, these biographical stories about whether it's underdog scientists, hidden figures, whatever, or the big scientists, you know, the Einsteins or whatever, the Newtons and all of this stuff and trying to play their underdog narrative or whatever, maybe that's not exactly it, but maybe there's, you know, science fiction, you know, science art.
Speaker B:You know, I've, I've thinking about, yeah.
Speaker B:Ways in which you can tap into those things on multiple levels.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I do think science is art.
Speaker B:I think science, there's a, there's a strong similarity between, you know, the creativity, the, the.
Speaker B:There's, there's a, there's a group aspect to, to art as well as science, but there's an individual thing of an individual scientist or an individual artist.
Speaker B:And I think both express.
Speaker B:Can express their own identities and their own, you know, values through their work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Whereas in art, the place in art in our culture is we, we look at it as that, you know, this is an expression of some kind of thing, right.
Speaker B:Some kind of emotion, some kind of value comes to something and that is what we use art for.
Speaker B:But we don't think of science in that way.
Speaker B:But I think you can.
Speaker C:Yeah, actually, like the, it's really funny that you like mention like the people that provide misinformation.
Speaker C:They're not like attached to facts and they have like a distorted view of quote, unquote reality.
Speaker C:But like science fiction authors also, like, there's science fiction, science Fiction is very flexible with facts and stuff.
Speaker C:And then people who like probably the wrong way are Those like Neil DeGrasse Tysons of the world that like go through like they watch I don't know some the Matrix and they're like well actually the human mind is not a battery because it only produces such and such a voltage.
Speaker C:And like.
Speaker C:Because like, like first who the fuck cares?
Speaker C:But also like, but also no like that it's story is a science fiction.
Speaker C:Like it's fiction.
Speaker C:Like there's like an element of you play around with and science fiction, it's
Speaker B:about a broader theme.
Speaker B:It's about a broader, you know, topic.
Speaker B:You're using science to highl some broader thing.
Speaker B:It's like the bad.
Speaker B:Yeah, the battery thing is just the low hanging fruit of like let me, let me sit here and be someone who knows more than everybody else.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Like I don't like that either.
Speaker C:But, but that's the thing like.
Speaker C:And you talk to like, like people that don't think of science, like science fiction, science communication.
Speaker C:Like there's.
Speaker C:Because it's, it's fiction.
Speaker C:It's not really.
Speaker C:And I think that the lens through which a lot of people like around the world like filter science and think about science in their everyday lives has to do with science fiction, with I know you name it, with the Matrix, with the Terminator, with like and those depictions.
Speaker C:And I'm fascinated by that work.
Speaker C:David Kirby is like one of those researchers that has looked into that.
Speaker C:Those descriptions are usually like either super negative where like it's the end of the world and scientists.
Speaker C:Or is that like rah rah.
Speaker C:Scientists know the solution, like Independence Day.
Speaker C:Those scientists find how to like hack the alien like spaceship and like, like as maybe like the bomb explored.
Speaker C:Like there's very like stereotypical patterns into which science gets represented.
Speaker C:But, but it's recent, it's reaching like broad audiences.
Speaker C:It's like talking to people from all walks of life.
Speaker C:It's like all sorts of people are watching these films and they're taking different messages about like science and the science world, of sciences, of society, how science works.
Speaker C:They're taking different messages from it.
Speaker C:And again there's no one silver bullet because there's so many different ways of being in the world.
Speaker C:There's so many different cultures and experience.
Speaker C:People have had so many different experiences in life that some people are not going to resonate with something.
Speaker C:Some people are going to resonate with others.
Speaker C:But just being more playful and active and just the idea of bringing perspectives of, of people who don't that haven't had the same experience as us.
Speaker C:I was fascinated by the conversation that we had in Brussels when one of the, you asked the audience, it was, I don't know, maybe 50 people that were there.
Speaker C:40, 50 people.
Speaker C:And you asked like where in Belgium they were from.
Speaker C:And there was like 90% Flanders, 10% Brussels.
Speaker C:And like the rest of the country was not represented or like was very little minimal representation of the rest of the country.
Speaker C:And that is what I see like everywhere in my science.
Speaker C:Like I teach science communication and like my courses like most of the people in my course have like, I don't know, like white quote unquote white backgrounds.
Speaker C:Like you don't see like Western European with immigrant backgrounds, for example.
Speaker C:I have had a couple.
Speaker C:I'm really always happy to see people with names that are Turkish or Arabic or they have.
Speaker C:And you see that they come from migrant second generation, third generation background.
Speaker C:But they're always a super minority.
Speaker C:They're not consistently there in the courses.
Speaker C:It's usually white upper middle class kids that like science and their parents like science and they went to the science museum that may be interested in this kind of stuff, which is fine.
Speaker C:I want them to also talk about the things that they're interested in, what they like.
Speaker C:But they cannot be the only ones talking about science in our societies because again as you reflected at the beginning, science is something that touches all of us in many different ways that like invisible, visible and just getting more people to like at least acknowledge that, that I think I would move the needle forward quite a bit.
Speaker C:But yeah, that is the big.
Speaker B:Yeah, ask.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, but I think it's, yeah, it is a challenge and it's like, and I know like for again for, for some of the people that we would view as like having this whatever anti science or the science grifters or whatever like this sort of populist movements and things like this.
Speaker B:You know, they would hear things like, they would hear this conversation and be like, oh here we go, identity politics again, you know, like that kind of thing.
Speaker B:And I don't.
Speaker B:So I think there's always these, these challenges to, to sort of overcome and that's one of them is like how do you, you, you, you need, I agree with you, you need to show all of the sides of science, all of the, all of the people in science, all of the.
Speaker B:And that, and that the diversity there is actually a strength, you know, because you have.
Speaker B:Science is, needs a diversity of ideas, it needs a diversity of perspectives.
Speaker B:Right, that's how you ask new questions.
Speaker B:It's essential to it.
Speaker B:And a lot of cultures, whether like you do, you know, you talk about Colombia not having that sort of, you didn't have that growing up, that sort of image of science or that, like, oh, that's something I could do, you know, like it wasn't present and maybe you have to go back in, in further in history, but a lot of places have those cultures or have that history, but it's just not, it's, it's so long ago or it's been erased by colonization or what, you know, all of these things.
Speaker B:So there's, there's an opportunity to tap in there.
Speaker B:But then it's also, in the more immediate term, again, diversity of ideas, diversity of opinions, showing that, you know, this is, I think, science communication, we try to do this, but we do it for our own, for, for the sake of science, not for the sake of society.
Speaker B:It's like, and it's the goal of encouraging more, you know, minorities to get into STEM fields.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like, that's where that communication effort goes is like, how can we reach communities that don't think, see science as a career, as a pathway and get them on board and bring them into.
Speaker B:And that'll benefit science, that'll benefit the institutions, like all of those things.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:But that's not a story that is told outward, you know, to, to the public.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:It's more like a recruitment story rather than like a, a science communication story.
Speaker B:So then what is, what is the role of those stories in, you know, this, this broader, you know, job of let's get science community.
Speaker B:Like if we had to put a broad category or a broad goal for science communication, it would be, I think, you know, an appreciation of the process of science and the products of science, like what it does for our society so that we can view problems that we have, societal problems, ecological problems, technological problems with the lens of the process of science, so we can come to the best solution.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That's also very, very naive maybe, but I don't know.
Speaker B:Now I'm kind of going off on a tangent here, and I'm not totally sure exactly how, how, how it all fits together, but I agree with you that identity is a big, is a big thing that's probably missing in or more identities, more visible identities in science, in the portrayal of science could go a long way to, yeah, opening it up for, for more people, but also just humanizing it in a way.
Speaker B:Maybe that's what I think about my goal of science communication.
Speaker B:Is like understanding the humanistic side of it and then, then it doesn't become this, you know, either this mystical magic thing that just plucks fact and data and then, or that top down, just believe us, ivory tower thing.
Speaker B:But you see it as the messy, creative, frustrating, awe inspiring thing that it is.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker C:Yeah, I.
Speaker C:So there, there's many efforts to really bring forward and tell stories of underrepresented minorities, minoritized groups.
Speaker C:There's a book called Querying Science Communications which I recommend.
Speaker C:I think it goes in the same kind of idealism that I pursue and I want others to have.
Speaker C:And it's not idealism.
Speaker C:It's like there's a pragmatic, as you say, there's also a pragmatism there where, where we acknowledge that like plurality enriches the field in general and enriches society.
Speaker C:Like a, a plural diverse society is a much richer, much more interesting, much more forward looking, much more like and unfortunately like the voices.
Speaker B:Innovative.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:Like there's all this, there's even studies where they look at companies with, with like diversity in their personnel and they do better in many different aspects of innovation and stuff like that.
Speaker C:And the forces that are fighting against this are right now super powerful.
Speaker C:You see rise of right wing, extreme right wing movements all around the world.
Speaker C:So it's also a difficult time to talk about many of these things.
Speaker C:But this is a tension that I struggle in.
Speaker C:Perhaps we can leave it at that.
Speaker C:I do think that we all contain multitudes.
Speaker C:Identity, it's a terrible word for identity I think because identity assumes there's a single unmovable block object that is called identity.
Speaker C:And this is me and this is what I am all the time.
Speaker C:And the same with personality.
Speaker C:All those words really assume kind of very narrow conceptualization of how people experience the world.
Speaker C:And there is like a movement towards localism, towards kind of like you focus on the narrow aspects of what your community and the country and the language that you live in.
Speaker C:And at the same time when we talk about science communication and kind of the experience of science communication globally, you see all these many different experience.
Speaker C:But there are certain beliefs and ideals that I think unite most of the science communication community about science being a net positive for society, science being something that is a work in progress and can improve things, but has issues and all this stuff.
Speaker C:And that is a very kind of this understanding of we're all humans at the end of the day.
Speaker C:And at the end of the day this idea of these distinctions between nationality and ethnicity and culture and are Constructed are illusory, and we are all one species.
Speaker C:And we all should treat each other with the same dignity, respect, care.
Speaker C:And this is like a very globalist, kind of like entire humanity mindset.
Speaker C:I'm human, I'm empathizing with, I try to empathize with all humans.
Speaker C:I just want the best for everyone.
Speaker C:But at the same time, those two things, those two impulses, that tension of my culture, my identity, my local kind of experience with this impulse of science to be very humanist and very intention and finding that right balance between those two very strong impulses that I have, those two identities that I hold in myself of.
Speaker C:I want the best for my community, for my family, for the people around me.
Speaker C:And at the same time, I want everyone in the world to get better.
Speaker C:We need to think of the most constructive ways of not merging, because I don't want a synthesis of identities, but be able to flow between identities more easily and be more comfortable, like, moving between those two worldviews and seeing that they're, like, not necessarily intentioned.
Speaker C:They are just like, learning from each other.
Speaker C:Like, I am happy that there are cultures and languages in the world and the people are having different experiences because that enriches my experience as a citizen of the world.
Speaker C:And this is like, yes, yeah, yeah, Triton.
Speaker C:But it is what I experience.
Speaker C:And I want to find ways of just moving along that path of like, yeah, we can have a humanistic big umbrella.
Speaker C:Everyone is accepted feeling, while at the same time very.
Speaker C:And I'm not the first one to explain this tension, like, has been talked over and over.
Speaker C:But we need to acknowledge those things and talk about them like that and finding some way of trying to understand it.
Speaker C:But also, again, as I said, just flow, just go more with understanding of those ways of being in the world.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I think it makes sense.
Speaker B:And it's like, but it is a challenge, right?
Speaker B:And I find that every time I have these conversations with different science communities, communicators and science communication researchers now, I just, I'm constantly seeing a push and a pull.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:You want to be, you want to be more open, but you, and, and, and, you know, but you don't want to be a gatekeeper, right?
Speaker B:You want to be critical of, of misinformation, but you don't want to sound elitist, right?
Speaker B:You know, I, the local and the global, right?
Speaker B:Like, there's all of these.
Speaker B:It's, it's, it's a constant balancing act.
Speaker B:And I think that the way that you kind of put it there is that just Being aware of these angles, of these worldviews, of these perspectives is a good start, right?
Speaker B:And so then how do we weave that into the, to the, to the stories that we tell about science when again, there's a million different stories to tell about science, each with their own goal, each with their own audience, right?
Speaker B:But on the local scale, you could have a small audience and a small and a specific goal, but in the undercurrent of all of it is this larger human thing, right?
Speaker B:About the wonder and, you know, the connection that we all have to science, to knowledge.
Speaker B:You know, just knowing things, right?
Speaker B:Wanting to know things.
Speaker B:And the big questions that science, you know, I think initially set out to ask, right?
Speaker B:Like, if you look at the, the.
Speaker B:And I mean, I don't know, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm kind of maybe just making this story up in my head, but I think about sciences like, you know, the very first peoples that were asking questions about why do rocks fall, what is the sun, you know, and why is it moving like this?
Speaker B:And, and you have cultures that figured out ways to describe those movements and use those movements, right?
Speaker B:So you have that.
Speaker B:And over time, which is big questions about what is the world, what is the universe, who are we, why are we here, right?
Speaker B:Like, those are some of the fundamental questions of science, right?
Speaker B:Meaning, purpose, all of these things, you know, like big, big, big humanistic questions that all cultures have.
Speaker B:And then over time, as we got more knowledge, we started to get narrower and narrower and narrower in our focus.
Speaker B:And now we're talking about this little atom and whether it moves here or there.
Speaker B:And how can I leverage that into data storage for a quantum computer, you know, whatever, right?
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, both things exist, right?
Speaker B:There's the, there's the micro and the macro.
Speaker B:And like you said, we all contain multitudes.
Speaker B:Science contains multitudes.
Speaker B:So how do.
Speaker B:Keeping all of this together in our communication, in our stories, in our perspectives, in our worldview is incredibly difficult.
Speaker B:But maybe that's just everything.
Speaker B:Maybe that's just being human on the planet.
Speaker B:I don't, I don't know.
Speaker B:You're welcome to come back anytime.
Speaker B:And, and, and I encourage everyone to check the show notes and look for the, look for your work.
Speaker B:Do you have a final thought?
Speaker C:I think science communication can be better, but I think there's really fascinating and interesting people that are really doing amazing work and research, and maybe you can put some of them in the show notes.
Speaker C:I'm really bad with names and stuff, but I mentioned a couple throughout.
Speaker C:But I encourage people to look up for those experiences and use them as resources in your own science communication.
Speaker C:I don't know what your audience is, but if there are science communicators out there and you feel that like you want to explore some of these things, there's really, really good researchers and practitioners that are pushing boundaries and doing brilliant work.
Speaker B:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker B:I appreciate that and appreciate your perspective and your enthusiasm for the topic.
Speaker B:So I really enjoyed the conversation and I'm looking forward to when inevitably we will do it again.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:Thank you all for listening.
Speaker A:And as always, if you find this type of conversation interesting, useful, entertaining, important,
Speaker B:essential, any of these things, please leave
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Speaker A:You can also follow along on Instagrambread4.
Speaker B:Uh leave us a comment, let us
Speaker A:know what you think.
Speaker A:We'll see you next time.
Speaker A:Bye for now.
Speaker C:Sam.
