The Hampshire Skeptics Society
The Hampshire Skeptics Society
The Hampshire Skeptics Society
Last week an article written by Prof. Catherine Brooks was published by Scientific American. In it, Brooks asserted that people don’t trust scientists and questioned whether science communicators are the problem by “relying too much on gripping headlines or in trying to get science information to viral” which might be “somehow undermining the critical role of trust in scientifically based work”.
Now, I’m a bench scientist. But I’m also an amateur science communicator. I blog and tweet , I write occasional news articles , I’ve podcasted fortnightly for over three years, I’ve been actively involved in skepticism for over six years. I give talks – to lay audiences across the world, to academics and to industry collaborators. I do workshops with kids of all ages.
I talk about science with every person I meet – from taxi drivers to GPs, from family to friends, I once did a science test in the changing rooms of a rugby club with a rugby kicker. My mother-in-law left school at 16 and hadn’t thought about science for decades but she still asks me how my cells are doing. We talk about the science behind her vision problem and how cancer works.
The Hampshire Skeptics Society
The Hampshire Skeptics Society
The Hampshire Skeptics Society