Commentary: A defense of science communication

It’s easy to believe that the US scientific community is in crisis. The daily news is full of stories about cuts in funding and oppressive visa restrictions. Organizations that champion scientific communities are marshaling their resources, attempting to counteract a barrage of destructive new policies from Washington. We as physicists must speak up, by either contributing to organizations that lobby for science or speaking directly to government representatives. However, we can expect public support only if people understand what we have to say. And that means we must end the physics community’s lackadaisical view of science outreach. It is this belief that has motivated me to speak up for science, through efforts that include hosting a successful YouTube channel and writing articles and opinion pieces for national news outlets—work that was recently recognized when the American Physical Society (APS) awarded me the Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach .

The disconnect between researchers and the public is not a new problem. In the physics community, outreach has often been viewed neutrally at best. Careers are advanced by writing papers and getting grants, not by communicating to the public via books and videos and talks. Over the past few decades, when I’ve told my colleagues that it is important to talk to the public about science, their responses have been often incredulous and sometimes even hostile. Science, they believe, is supposed to speak for itself. The data and the process should be persuasive and need no further support. I would like to see this mindset change. Scientists’ current simplified view of how scientific knowledge should be disseminated and adopted doesn’t even work among their colleagues, let alone among the general public.

If the public had a better sense of how physics research has improved their lives, perhaps we would not be in our current situation. The science that the public encounters has only a hazy resemblance to the results published in the literature. The public consumes science information that has often passed through the filter of traditional and social media, where even good-faith reports include watered-down or misunderstood material and preliminary reports are presented as established fact and without the cautionary nuance that is the hallmark of frontier research. Even worse, that good-faith research news is competing with misinformation and even disinformation.

Certain bad actors have economic incentives to muddy the waters with untrue claims that sound persuasive to nonexperts. For that reason and others, we find ourselves in a cacophonous hubbub in which many citizens believe that there is controversy surrounding topics that the scientific community has already settled. In reality, it is well established that anthropogenic climate change is real, vaccines are both highly effective and do not cause autism, and Earth is not flat.

In November 2024, APS released a policy statement on the value of physics-related public outreach. In it, APS “urges educational institutions, national laboratories, and companies that employ physicists to recognize the high value of public engagement when making hiring, assessment, promotion, and investment decisions.” I believe that this statement was overdue. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the group that proposed this policy statement to APS.) It is important for physicists—indeed, all scientists—to embrace the value of public outreach.

There are very real dangers in not having conversations in the public sphere. One example is the universal hazard that faces all citizens: the possibility that policymakers will make bad decisions because they are ignorant or because they have heard and believed bad information. (And, of course, some have used bad information despite knowing it’s wrong, but that is its own separate issue.) Policymakers cannot be expected to have expertise in all matters, and science is a broad and challenging field. For governmental and industry leaders to make the best choices on matters of social policy, they need to have an adequate understanding of the science relevant for those decisions. And, when it comes to science, there is no better source of information than the consensus of the scientific community. If the case for science is not effectively presented, our leaders could well make flawed decisions.

There are lots of reasons to join those of us who have long participated in physics outreach, but it may be that you yourself are not inclined to take part in the conversations that ripple through society. For some, it’s just not that appealing. The good thing is that not all scientists need to be visible to the public. In fact, it’s better if the task of public communication is handled by scientists who enjoy the experience of talking with nonexperts. But people responsible for hiring and promoting scientists need to recognize public communication as a valuable skill worthy of recognition on par with other service work.

Not all scientists need to become science communication experts—certainly not in the modern world, which values specialization. In physics, people become theorists or experimentalists, but they are rarely both. In my own field, experimental particle physics, the specialization is even more specific: Some people design accelerators, while others design detectors. Some specialize in the flow of data around the world and others in statistics or machine learning. But it is essentially unheard of for any individual to master all of those skills. So I am certainly not proposing that all scientists master the art of communication.

Large physics departments should include a member or two who spend some fraction of their time engaging with the public and helping the community advertise the value of physics research. Importantly, I am suggesting that this be done not by communications professionals (although they are also important) but by practicing physicists. By virtue of their scientific expertise and skills at science communication, these communication-minded physicists are best suited to share the excitement of scientific research with the public in a way that is accurate. If excellent science communication skills were recognized in the hiring and tenure processes for scientists, it would make all of our lives easier.

In a world of social media, where many voices can be heard, it is important that the voice of science be strongly represented. Who can do that better than a scientist? And if it’s not something you want to do, consider supporting and rewarding those who do it well.

Editor’s note: If you are inspired to speak up for science, a forthcoming article will tell you how to get started.