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Don't Be Such a Scientist Rating: 9 on a scale of 10 Review This is a great book. This book is a tremendous service to anyone who is basically a scientist at heart. And, honestly, at heart, I am a scientist. I find myself wanting to be able to communicate better, but not understanding why it seems to go awry at times. This book has the big answers. Of course, you have to be able to hear the answers. How do know if you are a scientist? If you like data, and you can can consume it in vast quantities rapidly, you are probably a scientist. If when your spouse tells a story, you like to correct the inaccuracies, you are probably a scientist.. If you like to focus on the precision, detail and the truth, you are probably a scientist. If you like to tell stories, but you get lost describing the details, and soon people are drifting off into trying to find a new conversation topic or even a new conversation partner, you are probably a scientist. Do you get the sense you might not be real likeable because you always find the negative in things, then you might be a scientist. Do you see things in big picture kind of ways, really big pictures, like everything at once, how it all fits together, but then you get lost trying to describe the detail of it all, then you might be a scientist. You might not be a great communicator even though you believe you understand everything. This book reminds me of my Masters degree comprehensive exams. There were three separate parts to the exam, one for each area in my Interdisciplinary degree. I had done a couple of general science bench research projects (the kind with lab rats, test tubes, etc). My general science advisor asked me to do one simple thing, I was to explain to the other two advisors from the counseling and psychology programs what all the work was that I had been doing and why it was important, but do it in a way that they could understand it. I couldn't believe a comprehensive exam question could be so easy. However, when I got the grade back during our oral review of my exams I had earned an F on this section. This didn't seem like a good thing. Dr. Bandick looked at me in that serious way only he could do. I knew I must be in trouble. He said, "You got an F, do you know why?" I did not know. I had done my best to explain my research in great detail. I was however, to explain it in a way that anyone could understand it. And, let's face it, the guys from the counseling and psychology department did not know squat about my science research. He explained to me that I had failed to communicate effectively to these guys what I had been doing. He explained to me that I was now educated in a way miles beyond most of the people I would ever meet in the world. I would be going off to medical school and I would be acquiring an even more specialized knowledge, perspective, understanding, etc, but the reality was I had to be able to communicate it to ordinary people. I had just failed my first test in this regard, but he did not ever want me to forget how important it was to communicate to ordinary people. For the rest of my career he wanted me to remember this simple truth. And, by giving me the F, he knew I would remember. I have not forgotten that lesson from a summer day in 1978. I function as a physician in my regular life. Over the years I have learned a "few" things. Sometimes people want me to be the scientist and sometimes they do not. Sometimes being a physician means being the scientist and sometimes it means being just a really good human being who feels, relates, understands, and has the same problems my patients have. Some people long for relationships with their physician. Some people want their physician to give them the facts. The difficult part is being able to tell what it is that people want, and being able to change gears and give it to them when they want it. This book is about how scientists fail at communicating. Randy Olson has his PhD in Marine Biology specializing in invertebrate embryology. I know exactly what that means, but most people could care less. He was busily going about being a professor and researcher with tenure at the University of New Hampshire when at the age of 38 back he had an epiphany. He realized the world was changing and that somewhere not far down the road if you couldn't work with film and mass communication you wouldn't be able to communicate. He was absolutely correct. So, he decided to leave the world of academia for "Hollywood" to learn about film. This book is a brief summary of what he would like scientists to know about themselves and their work as it relates to being able to communicate. His understanding of scientists is dead on the mark. He doesn't go into great detail about the personality types of scientists. He has a simple message for scientists, if you want to communicate with the masses you have to let go of your thinking processes a fair bit, let go of being so detail oriented, learn to tell a good story, be creative and work on some qualities that will make you likeable. This is a huge task for any scientist. Scientists almost certainly come more generally from a certain set of personality types. Generally speaking, these personality types are not very good at doing these creative tasks he has outlined so well.. As nurses say about doctors, "they never learned to play with others very well". We can play with "each other" fairly well, but it's hard to play with average people. He never demeans scientists in the book, in fact, he has the greatest respect for them. He loves what they do and who they are. He considers himself one of the fold, and I am certain he is. Never the less, he wants to help scientists communicate better. Let me illustrate my point. A couple of good friends were giving a seminar on science related topics for non-scientists. It was a sort of update for people interested in hearing about cutting edge stuff. One was describing some genetic diseases and referred to them repeatedly as "mistakes" in the DNA. My wife was becoming quite upset. To her, each one of these so called "mistakes" was a child or adult human being, with parents, family, school, etc. To her there was no calling these DNA changes "mistakes", they were people to be loved and cared for. She tried to express her concern to one of the presenters. I can honestly say, he never really got her point, and if he did he didn't really, if I can use bad grammar. He just kept referring to the mistakes in the DNA. This is the danger of being stuck in your "head" processes. The book is a challenge to scientists to recognize that their world view is not the only world view. If scientists want to be successful communicating to other segments of our society they will we need to adapt their messages in ways that match up with other peoples world view. They will need to create messages that communicate in ways people understand. If I can use a computer metaphor, they need to communicate in user friendly languages. Scientists may like to use "machine language", but what the rest of the world really understands is "visual basic". This is no small task, but it could be an awful lot of fun to work on. Scientists truly enjoy being creative. The challenge of learning to communicate in a different fashion is a creative task worth taking on. We can all be better communicators, teachers, and human beings. Academia is a great institution, but it is just one of many institutions in our culture. I think the exact same book could be written to policemen "Don't be such a cop", or to Christians "Don't be such a Christian". Any group that has it's own sub-culture and "lingo" could learn something from this book. When we encounter "the other" in life, there is always love and conflict. We both love and hate our scientists. Sometimes it is up to the scientists to come closer to the mainstream, this book is about that task. It is a great read for any scientist. All opinions are mine and only mine, Curtis Climer, MD Copyright 2010 |
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