FROM A SCIENTIST AND A WRITER

If we’re successful, this book will seamlessly merge form and content. For it is the collaborative work of a writer and a scientist, and it argues that we need many more such “two cultures” partnerships if we’re to forge the connections between American science and American society that will guide us through the twenty-first century.

Chris is a journalist who learned to value science’s humbling lessons and penetrating way of thinking at a young age. His biologist grand-father, Gerald Cole, had a powerful influence: “Paw” liked to refer to Charles Darwin as “Chuck” and pretend he was sitting right there at the dinner table. Chris’s first book, The Republican War on Science, took up the family tradition and helped feed a growing awareness of the ways in which science has been abused in the political realm, thereby jeopardizing our ability to address pressing issues such as global warming. But over time, Chris came to see that the problematic status of science in our society sprang from causes far more diverse than the most immediate one (conservative ideologues attacking well-established knowledge) and that the solution required far more than throwing George W. Bush out of the White House. In particular, he began to write and lecture about the need for scientists to communicate their knowledge in ways that non-scientists can relate to and understand.

Sheril took a very different trajectory, yet converged on a similar place. Currently an associate at Duke University, she holds two master of science degrees in marine biology and marine policy from the University of Maine, where she studied the population dynamics and life history of Cucumaria frondosa—the ever-charismatic sea cucumber—and worked with the fishing community to preserve and manage the species. Sheril continues to publish in scientific journals, but instead of pursuing a Ph.D. she accepted a position on Capitol Hill working with Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) on energy, climate, and ocean policy. Far from the ivory tower, Sheril soon saw how difficult it can be to integrate science into the public policy process and how often scientists fail to connect with top decision makers. A stint working in pop radio as a “Top 40” DJ, meanwhile, showed her how jocks engage the public using basic social-marketing techniques and convinced her that the world of science might get a shot in the arm from employing similar strategies on occasion.

Both of our careers, then, have drawn upon the creative energy generated at the intersection between science and other disciplines or approaches. The central inspiration for this book was precisely such a culture-crossing case study: ScienceDebate2008, an initiative in which we joined up with two Hollywood screenwriters, a physicist, a lawyer, and a philosopher to try something unheard of—mobilizing the American scientific community to demand that politicians address crucial matters of science policy on the campaign trail. Within months we had dozens of Nobel laureates, scores of scientific luminaries, over 100 university presidents, a wide range of scientific institutions and societies, and 38,000 individuals supporting us, an unprecedented response from the traditionally staid science world. But although the initiative had many positive repercussions, politicians from both parties largely managed to ignore us during the campaign. So did the mass media. It was quite a wake-up call, and demonstrates just how far we—and they—still have to go.

Yet through countless discussions about the place of science in our politics and our culture, we’ve developed the conviction that a better future is possible and that we can build on undertakings like ScienceDebate 2008 to help ensure it. If we’re to meet the science-based challenges that will dominate this century, we have no other choice.

The good news is that President Barack Obama’s administration, with a Nobel laureate as secretary of energy, a restored White House science adviser, and many other distinguished researchers in positions of major influence, represents a dramatic step forward for science and its role in public life. The “reality-based community” has been reinstated in Washington; after the Bush administration and its “war on science,” it feels like a sunrise. Yet we can’t expect the long-standing gap between scientists and the broader American public to disappear overnight, meaning this is no time for satisfaction or complacency. If the metaphorical “war” on science is over, now’s the time for the long and difficult process of “nation building”—for laying sounder foundations to ensure it doesn’t come raging back.

And not a moment too soon: Even as science is crucial to the fate of twenty-first-century America, it’s under assault from new forces that not even the science-friendly Obama administration can fully address, because they’re as much cultural and economic as directly political in nature. This book details what we consider the main challenges, centering on the immense difficulty of bringing useful and accurate information about science to our political and cultural leaders and to the broader American public, a long-standing communication problem that only appears to be growing more grave and urgent. Yet we find hope in perhaps the most unexpected of places: The army of young researchers on campuses across the country who do not want to be just scientists, but instead nourish a powerful desire to reach out to the society in which they live, and to which they owe so much.

Our deepest aspiration is that this book will push these young scientists, and those who share their enthusiasm and sense of mission, along that path. They are the future, and we need their help to break down the walls that have for too long separated the “experts” from everybody else. If we can combine the restoration of science in Washington with a renewed effort, partly grassroots in nature, to reconnect it with our broader society, perhaps we can finally create a stronger rapport between American science and mainstream American culture.

Right now the public needs that very badly, but so too do the scientists.

 

Writing a book is a long and yet at times frantic process, and we couldn’t have gotten through it alone. For helpful readings, feedback, and copious useful information and advice, we’d like to thank Glenn Branch, D. Graham Burnett, Darlene Cavalier, Matthew Chapman, Jonathan M. Gitlin, Kei Koizumi, Sriram Kosuri, David Lowry, Molly McGrath, Sally Mooney, Shawn Lawrence Otto, Robert Pennock, Stuart Pimm, Phil Plait, Andrew Plemmons Pratt, Eric Roston, Reece Rushing, Paul Starr, and Al Teich. For putting us on a work schedule, we’re indebted to Michelle Foncannon; and for helping us see how to unlock our ideas, to Sydelle Kramer and Bill Frucht, and to Lara Heimert, whose judicious edits were a revelation and who made us realize that we could say far more with vastly fewer words.

Chris also wishes to thank the Center for Inquiry West, in Hollywood, for allowing him to use its work space, and the Center for American Progress’s Science Progress Web site (http://www.scienceprogress.org) for the opportunity to test-drive many of the ideas that eventually fused into this book. And he wants to specially thank Matthew Nisbet, who opened his eyes to a revealing body of research on the communication of science that has informed and enriched this project. A series of nationwide lectures they gave together in 2007 and 2008 served as an occasion for thinking through some of the arguments advanced here, and although they do not always agree—especially about ScienceDebate 2008—Chris is indebted to Nisbet for many enlightening conversations and dialogues, as well as for his comments on an early draft of this book. Additional thanks go to filmmaker Randy Olson, whose films about science communication (Flock of Dodos and Sizzle!) have been deeply thought-provoking, who read and commented on our Hollywood chapter, and whose forthcoming book, Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, resonates with our own project. Finally, on a personal note, Chris wants to thank his fiancée, Molly McGrath, for her faith, support, and refusal to let him work and be serious all the time; and his Boston terrier, Sydney, for understanding that Daddy couldn’t go on as many walks as usual when the book dead-lines came up.

Sheril would like to thank the Pimm group and members of the Duke community for work space and stimulating conversations that enriched the pages that follow. She wishes to thank David Lowry for constant encouragement, inspiration, and excellent cooking throughout composition of this book, Vanessa Woods for endless advice, Rebecca Katof for unconditional support, Megan Dawson for holding the band together in her absence, and Nicolas Devos for his ever-optimistic outlook. Thanks finally to Mom, Dad, Seth and Rose Kirshenbaum, Jen Kiok, Sea Grant Fellows past and present, and everyone who has motivated her along the journey.

Last but hardly least: We want to dedicate this book to the core ScienceDebate2008 crew—Erik Beeler, Darlene Cavalier, Matthew Chapman, Austin Dacey, Lawrence Krauss, and Shawn Lawrence Otto—who constantly inspire us and who prove, to a very high degree of certainty, that any initiative can succeed if only it has the right people behind it. Granted, a little funding also helps, and we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be devoting a fixed percentage of royalties from sales of this book to ScienceDebate. Here’s to 2012!

 

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum,
May 2009