A girl walks into a conference

In the past 4 days I went to 2 very different conferences. The first one, I mentioned last week, was the congress of the Science Communicators of Québec (ACS). The second one was a Host-Pathogen Interaction Symposium that I've been attending for the past 6 years. Interestingly enough, I felt way more comfortable in the new one which, is a weird thing, considering how socially awkward I can be.

If someone asks me what was the main difference I noticed between the 2 conferences, I would have to say: attitude. They were both small conferences, but even though most of the people in the symposium knew each other, there is always this "frenemy" vibe I get in scientific conferences, whereas at the ACS everyone was so inviting and welcoming...or at least that's how they made me feel. I even talk to some well known characters in the field, and while I did feel a bit self-conscious (it is me after all) their tone was never patronizing and I not once felt like anyone was looking down on me, even if I was one of the new ones.

Another big thing I noticed was that during the talks and workshops, most of the questions in the ACS one felt constructive. It's not that the questions in other type of congress are destructive per se, but understandably most of the time, there are questions intended to discover the flaws in a present hypothesis. While this can make the research stronger, there is always a way to be critique of someone's work.

Finally but probably the most important one is the communication itself. The language used. While it is to be expected that a scientific conference has much more specific terms during a talk, the thing is not everyone attending is already an expert. People jump into acronyms or terms that might be very obvious to them and their lab, but there are so many of them (acronyms) that you can see how slowly a big chunk of the audience just disconnected. If you don't know what NTD means (Neglected Tropical Diseases in this context) chances are your brain will wonder off trying to figure out what it is, and by the time you ask/figure it out, the talk has advanced and you just missed the whole relevance or the punch line. You could argue that the people in the ACS managed to pass their message along way better, because they precisely work in communication. But if the whole point of going to a conference is sharing your information, scientists have no choice but to step up their communication game.

In all guys, I feel like I am making the right choice in this career path. You know when you find a group of friends and you sort of feel at home? Because everyone understands you in a very weird way? That's how I felt.

Getting ready for a new type of congress

As I have mentioned several times now, I want to make the transition from academia and work on scientific communication. I’ve been building a network, talking to people from the institute and of course, looking around for courses and opportunities to work on my writing. In part, starting this blog was intended to help me work on my vulgarization skills.

But next weekend I am taking one step further: I am going to a congress organized by the Scientific Communicators of Québec (ACS in French). I am very excited but also nervous. I am used to scientific congress, particularly those related to my field (Immunology). This time, from what I see in the program, most of the background of the attendees is journalism or communication itself, with some of them having specializations in science.

What I expect from this congress is very different from others I’ve gone to. In the latter, I hoped for people to see my research and either propose and give new ideas to advance my project, or to critique (hopefully in a constructive manner) my results, so I can make it better. This time, all my expectations are based on learning. Learning what the field has and needs, and I am lucky that this is pretty much the theme this year.

As someone who has been working in academia for the past 11 years, it will be interesting to see the type of discussions that experts in scientific communication have. How do they intend to deliver the scientific message to so many different levels of public, from the daily newspaper to specialized magazines without jumping in the academic format.

What am I doing to prepare myself? I actually have an interview with one of the panelist that happens to work for the institute and she kindly accepted to see me and answer any questions I have on the field. Even better, this meeting will be just a few days before the congress so I can be more than ready.

I am doing all of this, while at the same time working on a poster for one of my more “typical” congress. I’ve talked before on how to prepare for this type of presentations, mostly for talks, but I have also mentioned to not dismiss poster presentations. Next week, I expect to give you a comparison of the two congress, while also sharing whatever I learn in the ACS on.

In the meantime, be careful with what you believe, do your research and keep doing good science.

Me and my Soapbox: The importance of proper journalism on science/medical topics

 

 

You probably saw it in the news: a woman that (somehow) was called a wellness guru admitted that in fact she never had cancer and hence she was never cured by her diet. Now, I will admit that before these news, I have never heard of her. Or maybe I did, but I discarded her story as of yet another person, with no medical/science background whatsoever, selling her image (insert snarky comment about "Food Babe").

But what really bothered me with this whole thing was not that she lied, not even that yet another person was given (unsolicited) advice about a subject she/he had no real knowledge about. No, what really bothered me was this:

Gibson, whose survival story was praised by the media despite never having been verified, has now admitted that she didn’t have, and never had, cancer.

From BuzzFeed.

Because the problem I see, not only with her, but with a lot of the self called "health gurus" is that they tell a story, a wonderful "heal with no pain" story that almost everyone would love to believe and then the people who hear this story eat it all up without taking the time to question it and more importantly, verify it. Now that she admitted the whole thing was a lie, you can find almost half a million news sites if you Google her name, either shaming her or shaming the ones who believed her. Very few are addressing the source of the problem: no fact checking whatsoever. It's the same situation with Jenny McCarthy and vaccines, Vani Hari and "unpronounceable words" or Dr. Oz and his "miracle diets": no one is verifying before sharing and endorsing their "wellness approach". Or rather, the people doing the questioning and fact checking are being dismissed.

There are numerous people who dedicate their lives to do proper science (or medical) journalism, who spend their days making all these topics accessible, well explained. And yet, when a new food/health/diet/whatever guru (also, shouldn't we stop with this already?) comes out, it would seem like they don't matter. It would seem the "best case scenario" is a talk show where one of the aforementioned people will discuss their views with a scientist, acting like both sides have the same weight and where (sadly) the person who screams the most but knows the least will gain the sympathy of the masses because "the scientist is just using big words to confuse us". Kimberly Moynahan wrote a great post on how this attitude would be considered ridiculous if it were another subject, other than science.

I've said before that we need more scientific and medical journalists, and I stand by it. But more and more it seems to me that we also need more general journalists that do all the homework and not get sold for just a "human side" story. We need the people sharing these news to do the proper fact checking, to discuss it with the people who have the background to point out inconsistencies and validate things that (in context) might make sense. Otherwise, these snake oil salesmen will keep becoming celebrities and people will keep on ditching science as scary.

Too vulgarized?

Last week I talked about the need of proper scientific writers and proper vulgarization. Today I want to elaborate on the “proper” part. As with everything, there are always two extremes with vulgarization. We mostly talk and refer to the lack of, when scientists (myself included) have a hard time taking their research and putting it into more common terms. Case in point, every time I have to explain to my grandmother what is it that I do. I struggle to avoid the very specialized terms I’ve come used to using with people around me at the lab, but I get there and she has the general idea.

However, there is such a thing as too vulgarized, and most of the time, when this happens people get misinformed and get the idea that finally, science is not such a big deal. For example, yesterday was our nephew’s birthday. He got the visit of an educational zoo, with lizards, snakes, a ferret…bunch of little animals. She did a great job simplifying the terms and facts about the animals, when explaining to the kids (average of age was 6). But when a couple of adults asked questions…she kept using the same terms that she used with the kids. Now, I am not saying this was her fault, it could be that she only has that information about the animals, or she simply didn’t want to get too much into details. But it got me thinking, how a lot of times, what is sold as vulgarizing a subject tends to rather be infantilizing the subject, underestimating the audience.

This is a problem for me for several reasons. It not only assumes that the regular audience is incapable of grasping certain terms/ideas unless explained to them as if they were kids, and it takes the ideas to such a basic terminology that the point gets lost. You can always go for simpler terms, while incorporating the right definitions, and off course, giving sources and means for people to get more in depth information, shall they be interested in it.

I have mentioned before that when doing a presentation you have to know your audience, and this also applies to any type of communication. While the terminology used on your paper or thesis might not be ideal to explain to you dinner party why is so important to vaccinate addressing them as if the complexity of the subject is beyond their grasps also perpetuates the image of the scientist that thinks of the rest as commoners. A lot of people can be offended when they are feeling patronized, and with reason.

The key here is to find that balance in your discourse that is engaging, understandable and yet, remains true to its scientific nature. I am not saying, by any means, that I know how to find that balance. All I am pointing out is that we have to be careful not to go to the extremes.

Do you have any examples of "too vulgarized"? Please share them in the comments, and in the mean time, keep doing good science. 

On Vulgarization

The image of the lone scientist observing natural phenomena or creating systems and theories in ("splendid") isolation is now understood to be an unrealistic image --a myth, now viewed as an idealization even in the science of previous eras.

      --Manual of Scientific Style, 2009.

As I've mentioned a couple of times, after deciding I no longer wanted to remain in academia once I finish my PhD, I would like to go into scientific writing. It seems funny to me how much in need of people dedicated to this craft our society is. 

You might be puzzled by what I just said, but the thing is, a lot of journalist that are in charge of the science area of your newspaper or even TV news (and this is when there is a science area) are people who sadly lack a scientific background. Without such background it can be hard to pass the right message on scientific developments. Off course it can be done, but as anything, the more you understand one subject the easier is to explain it to others and make it more accesible.

One of the definitions of vulgarization is "To disseminate widely; popularize". However, there is a faint line between popularizing a subject and just using less complicated words and assuming that is enough. Case in point, I was reading about the case of a man in Kansas, who died due to an infection with a brand new described virus (Bourbon virus, you can read a bit more about it here) on an article from my local newspaper. 

At the end of the article, the journalist wrote that the person died "even though doctors had given him antibiotics". The thing is, you cannot treat a virus infection with and antibiotic. We discussed this with my boyfriend, A, and we had several hypothesis: maybe he had a bacterial infection along with the viral infection and that's why he was getting antibiotics; maybe the journalist meant antivirals instead of antibiotics. Either way, the information was erroneous, and what is worst, it can be read by someone without enough knowledge as if some viruses could actually be treated by antibiotics. 

My point here is that the person reporting this news should've had the knowledge, but because not a lot of us actually go into this path...well, that's what you get. There is a ridiculous believe that vulgarizing can be bad, amongst certain scientist (not pointing fingers, but mostly older ones, sorry!), that we should stay in our high horse, riding along with unnecessarily complicated jargon and look over our shoulders for the "laypeople"...And then be offended when a so called celebrity gets people to stop vaccinating. 

No, we as scientist have the responsibility to not only share our knowledge with our scientific community, but also with the rest of the world, and we have to be able to do so in simple, but not simplistic terms, an issue I will tackle next week. We have to be able to share those amazing things that we see everyday and explain what makes them so amazing to others. That is why I want to be a scientific writer. That is why I think we need more of them. 

What do you think of vulgarization? Please let me know in the comments, and in the mean time, keep doing good science.