For the Love of Science
In a recent Urban Times’ article Images and Soundbites that changed the world Carl Sagan was one of the first major scientific communicators. In various interviews he felt that it’s something he should do to combat, what he felt, was a growing anti-intellectualism. He wrote a classic book, The Demon Haunted World, where he extensively investigates this phenomenon. He pursued this course of action despite the negative impact it had on his career. He did it because he loved the pursuit of science and wanted to ensure that future generations would be as excited about the pursuit of ” the endless frontier” as he was.
Carl Sagan with a model of the Viking lander. Source: NASA
We are very fortunate that his work on Cosmos and his advocacy has had a huge impact on the next generation of science advocacy and science communication. One of the most vocal advocates within the same field as Carl Sagan is Neil de Grasse Tyson who was part of the group that demoted Pluto. He frequently is a guest on the Colbert Report and recently had an excellent interview with Colbert that ranged from everything related to Pluto, to space flight and where he thought the future of science of the US was going. I highly recommend watching it. It’s extremely humorous and enlightening.
Carl Sagan’s work has influenced our scientific discourse in other ways. There are many authors today that follow in his skeptical intellectual footsteps. Books like Denialism, Why we believe Weird things, and The Moral Landscape all deal with serious concerns over issues like psuedoscience, homeopathy and various religious belief systems. In some views, these books are written to preach to the choir, however, for many people this is extremely important. It can be seen with the rise in Atheism in the US, which some surveys show it as high as 16%.
Nonetheless, not all of the resulting advocates have dealt with increasing scientific awareness in some extremely unique ways. One of them is a young Canadian named Reid Gower who created the Carl Sagan Series, which includes some incredibly moving pieces of footage with a voice over of Carl Sagan. He has completed a similar project, but much shorter, for Richard Feynman.
Another great communicator is the people behind Symphony of Science. Which takes talks and lectures from great scientists and creates interesting custom music. These songs tie together these talks in a way that make it every interesting to listen to pretty technical topics.
And finally, one of the largest most popular would be TED talks which typically tie together some really interesting topics into a single lecture that can be watch anywhere anytime. To some extent we’re living in a golden age of science communication, but in other ways it feels like there has never been a larger disconnect between the scientific community and the broader population. Readers of the Urban Times are in a great position to add their voice to the conversation on science and technology.
As avid fans of Science and technology we need to make sure that we are contacting our respective political leaders. However, it’s important to be able to hold this conversation with a language the politicians understand. This is the reason why it is important to understand the economics of innovation and scientific research.
"scientific communicators" - i think this term encapsulates the way in which science may one day win over the majority of people and truly shape our world. listening to sagan and tyson (what an amazing interview!) reveals the magic and awe inherent in the pursuit of knowledge and fact. fantastic! thanks!
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