How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by "We"

Over Twitter, somebody pointed to this article on astronomy outreach (free PDF from that link), which argues that everybody else should stop trying to be Brian Cox:

I've known Brian for years and worked with him before his celebrity status went supernova. I would love to say "I told you so" to all the TV commissioning editors who rejected my suggestions to use him as a presenter. I suspect Brian fnds it as ironic as I do that TV companies now regularly put out adverts looking for "the next Brian Cox".

As much as I love Brian's work, I don't think we need any more like him at the moment. Instead, we need more really good science teachers, and here's why: I don't want to see science become something that people "believe" is important and cool and sexy without understanding why.

It goes on to make a decent point in a somewhat odd way, but honestly, my first reaction to the argument that we don't need any more Brian Coxes is "That's easy for you to say, Astro Boy."

I'm probably being a little unfair-- after all, the piece is running in a magazine on Communicating Astronomy to the Public-- but it's a little grating to hear that we already have plenty of media presence just because there's somebody on tv hyping astronomy and particle physics. If you want to argue that we have plenty of outreach going on in astronomy and particle physics, that's fine, but to say that astronomy and physics outreach is sufficient for science as a whole (or even just physics, which I've heard people say) is just insulting.

Astronomy and particle physics aren't the whole of the physical sciences. Astronomers and particle physicists are significantly outnumbered by people doing other types of physics-- condensed matter, atomic and molecular, materials science. Those topics don't get anywhere near as much attention as things you can illustrate with a picture from the Hubble telescope.

"Yeah, but astronomy and particle physics touch on really big questions, that inspire people," you say. "Oh, bite me," I reply.

Sure, astronomy and particle physics deal with big questions and provide inspiring images, which is great if your goal is to attract students who want to be astronomers and particle physicists. Of course, the majority of them won't be astronomers and particle physicists, but will end up in some other area of science. And, really, it's kind of galling to hear the suggestion that those of us in other fields should be content with students who were drawn in hoping to do something else, and are settling for our fields.

So why shouldn't we try to get some other science in front of the public? Yeah, a lot of what professional physicists do isn't as spectacular as what you get from the Hubble or the LHC (though I would argue that low-energy quantum mechanics is every bit as weird and cool as anything those billion-dollar instruments produce), but then again, condensed matter physics will very likely lead directly to technologies that improve people's lives, which finding the Higgs boson will not. That's something you ought to be able to sell, though it may take more work.

Outreach in astronomy and particle physics is relatively easy-- the spectacular pictures pretty much sell themselves. But we shouldn't be content to only do what's easy. And we shouldn't be satisfied to have gotten one person doing one kind of science on tv. It's great that Brian Cox is becoming a superstar for science, but that should be the first of many steps, not the end of the process.

More like this

Over in Discover-land, Razib has a couple of posts about the content of science blogs, based on an analysis of the content of the top science blogs according to Wikio. Razib's second post is sparked by a pointed question from the author of the original study: I'm now curious to find out why there…
Earlier this week, there was some interesting discussion of science communication in the UK branch of the science blogosphere. I found it via Alun Salt's "Moving beyond the 'One-dinosaur-fits-all' model of science communication" which is too good a phrase not to quote, and he spun off two posts…
If you go by physics-related stories in the mass media, you'd probably get the impression that about 90% of physicists work at the Large Hadron Collider or some other big accelerator lab. The other 10% would be dominated by people working on foundational questions in quantum mechanics-- Bell tests…
In comments to my complaint about the over-identification of physics with particle physics, I noted that this is largely because high-energy physicists have been successful in getting the media and general public to buy into their belief that high-energy physics is the coolest and most important…

Given the antics of the Texas Board of Education, I'd say that biology needs a Brian Cox or three ASAP.

(A popular economist or two that can actually read balance sheets instead of tea leaves and manifestos would be nice, too.)

-- Steve

I had to go out there and google Brian Cox, because I was sorely curious as to the connection between an actor and astronomy. As I suspected, there's another Brian Cox.

By Surgoshan (not verified) on 02 Aug 2011 #permalink

Chad, I was a little disappointed that you chose relativity for the next thing to teach to Emmy. I think she might find "Teach your dog the materials science of catching a squirrel" more interesting. What would a dog need to climb a tree? Real Stuff.

By Peter Morgan (not verified) on 03 Aug 2011 #permalink

Chad, I was a little disappointed that you chose relativity for the next thing to teach to Emmy. I think she might find "Teach your dog the materials science of catching a squirrel" more interesting. What would a dog need to climb a tree? Real Stuff.

By Peter Morgan (not verified) on 03 Aug 2011 #permalink

And, I will add, nuclear physics is not particle physics even if there is a particle theorist / talking head out there who thinks he knows everything about everything, including Fukushima-Daiichi.

But I still agree 100% with your sentiment, because condensed matter and AMO physics is cool even when it isn't cold. That we can manipulate bands (raw, unadulterated many-body quantum physics) so these words can be typed and transmitted globally is simply amazing.

I agree "Chad, I was a little disappointed that you chose relativity for the next thing to teach to Emmy. I think she might find "Teach your dog the materials science of catching a squirrel" more interesting. What would a dog need to climb a tree? Real Stuff"

Well, the condensed matter people can take some consolation in the fact that they have, what are those called, jobs.