March 12, 2007
Seeing is Believing
Science is complicated. Seeing it with your own two eyes is almost impossible these days, even for scientists. Some things are too small (the spin properties of a single molecule) and some things are much too big (the mysteries of the universe), and some things are just plain invisible. However, the closer we can get to “seeing” something, the more we believe it. Consider how reputable the TrimSpa creators look in their white lab coats, while they stand among beakers and flasks. However, eye-witness accounts are rarely found in science stories.
This is why explaining science is so damn hard. Rarely does the public catch a glimpse of a real scientist in action. And even if they could, who knows if they’d enjoy watching? Often, the crawl of scientific evidence doesn’t make for a compelling scene. But then again, maybe it would.
According to some conference participants, some websites now have “lab-cams” to catch scientists in action. This means that someone, somewhere, wants to see what goes on behind closed laboratory doors. As a young(ish) person starting out with the hopes of communicating science, this is an important lesson. I don’t mean to say that watching a researcher pipette her sample into tubes is inherently beneficial. But rather, knowing something about the set-up of a lab or the smell of a certain room lends itself to a deeper understanding. And these days, science is in desperate need of de-mystification.
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