Scientists as People

[Andy writes...] I recently had the chance to attend the annual Plant and Animal Genome conference in San Diego. This conference gathers a few thousand genetics and genomics scientists from around the world so that they can share their research, learn about new advances in the field, and strengthen the genetics community as a whole. Generally I would expect detailed, cutting edge seminars, and for the most part my expectations were exceeded. However my biggest takeaway from the whole conference came from the opening keynote address by Alison Van Eenennaam regarding communication in science.

She spent an hour addressing the way science is perceived by the public and the effect this could have on translating research into practical applications in the future. The stereotype of the absent-minded professor has been established for decades if not centuries, but Alison pointed out more serious issues with public acceptance or rejection of science based on a mistrust of scientists themselves. She hypothesized that scientists have been trained to think and speak in a way that alienates them from the general public.

In science, facts reign supreme and stand alone beyond the realm of emotions. This separation between information and emotion is critical for the scientific process, and in this kind of culture it becomes easy to minimize the human components that drive our societies. However, most people are not used to having their emotions trampled by facts in their daily lives, and the discomfort this causes can be a real barrier to communication.

​​Furthermore, there is a sort of seductive chauvinism that causes scientists to value their own way of thinking above others. Non-scientists should recognize the pattern: develop a value system where you are rich in virtue and then disdain outsiders who don’t rate as highly. It’s a universal strategy for establishing self-worth. 

Although this chauvinism is odious when based on your bank account, fashion, skin color, or gender, it becomes harder to avoid when it is based on something seemingly innocuous such as intellect or reasoning ability. To put it another way, science careers provide selection pressure for intelligence, so scientists are generally intelligent, so they value intelligence very highly. But this has led to a perceived arrogance in the scientific community that causes tension with the general public.
 
Unfortunately this perception has some merit. There are scientists that are arrogant. Some are driven by ego and grandeur and fame and jealousy and pride. There are some who are vicious and cutthroat in securing funding and throwing competitors in the mud along the way. It’s true. But these traits don’t exist because they are scientists, they exist because they are people. Every job, every workplace, has these people. Scientists want to believe they’re able to transcend their nature with intellect, but it doesn’t work that way: They are people first and foremost.
 
And that is a good thing.

Scientists are paid for their work, as we all should be. Corporations assemble new technologies into products that consumers are eager to buy, and those companies make a profit too. As scientists develop new technology that is translated into benefits for society, there are well-known reasons to be vigilant – the motto “trust, but verify” will always be wise when dealing with corporate profits, our health, and the environment.

The more important realization is that all the people, from the researchers to the corporate employees to the truck drivers to the mom in the grocery store, all of them share a common status as people that want to have safe food, a clean environment, and jobs that can support themselves and their loved ones. Every frontier of scientific exploration offers new opportunities for progress, whether it is medical advances, communications, or the hope of benefits we haven’t even dreamed of.

​Science is a miraculous engine that drives us toward these goals. At the end of the day we all benefit as we share the work of learning more about the world around us and translating that into a better society. A scientist is just a person who does this for a living.