Episode Transcript
Lantz-Gefroh: The question of what harm does it do if scientists don't communicate, I think this is a really important question.
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Interviewer: Valeri Lantz-Gefroh is the Improvisation Coordinator at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University School of Journalism. The first question, what are some of the common problems that doctors and scientists have when it comes to communicating what it is they do?
Lantz-Gefroh: That scientists often don't make adjustments for the audience that they're talking to. They have so much information in their heads, and the focus is just getting that information out in a factual way, in an accurate way. That's important. We don't want to dumb down science. We don't want to make it something other than what it is. But every audience is different, and needs to hear that information in a way that makes sense to them. It has to be a two-way street.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Lantz-Gefroh: A lot of times communication is . . . Alan Alda calls this "lecture mode", when a scientist is so concerned about just getting it out there that they're stating everything that they know with no regard to the other. What we're trying to do is get scientists out of lecture mode and into conversation. That's a process that is learned through improv and through playing these games. The other thing that we're kind of leaving out that is hugely important to us is getting the scientists connected and engaged with the thing that they think is important. Everything about science is distancing the self, so that your emotional being doesn't influence the data. I mean, we don't want that to happen in science. But what we need to get back to in the way that we're communicating science is who that human being is that's going through that journey.
Interviewer: So really, it's kind of a cultural thing? The culture of science is that, that you remove yourself and you give the facts and figures, and you don't really put yourself into it. You're suggesting that maybe scientists should a little bit?
Lantz-Gefroh: I'm saying that when they communicate it's a different thing than when they're doing research.
Interviewer: Okay. I mentioned a story a little bit earlier. It seems to me that when I interview scientists they forget about that journey, and that's something that everybody loves to hear. "Here is the obstacle. Here I am, and this was the thing I was trying to accomplish. But man, I ran into this obstacle. But here's how I overcame it, and then there was this other obstacle."
Lantz-Gefroh: Yeah. There's nothing more exciting. I mean, the stories that these scientists have that they keep to themselves, this is what we need to be let into. There are different stories for different audiences that would make sense and resonate.
Interviewer: Do you have any final thoughts, or is there anything that I forgot, or anything that you just feel compelled to say?
Lantz-Gefroh: The question of what harm does it do if scientists don't communicate, I think this is a really important question. We have such profound misunderstanding of science, and so much on the Internet that it's just not factual. It's dangerous, I think, because we're being led to believe misinformation because there are passionate voices behind that misinformation. The issue of vaccinations . . .
Interviewer: I was just thinking that. How did you know?
Lantz-Gefroh: There is an example. I was raising my son, I had just had my son when this whole vaccine scare was kind of coming to the forefront of the public eye, and there was a lot of fear. I had many mothers talking to me about, "Don't vaccinate your kids," and showing me videos, and all of these other things, and it's a very scary idea. I went to my doctor, and I talked to the doctor, and I did vaccinate my kids. But there were many who didn't, and we have so many examples of that in health and in global warming. I mean, you name it, we have example after example of the public hearing from sources who really don't know.
Interviewer: And that are outstanding communicators.
Lantz-Gefroh: Exactly.
Interviewer: I mean, actresses and people that really know how to muster up that emotion. Then, we as a scientific community kind of respond in our very removed sort of way.
Lantz-Gefroh: Right, exactly. When faced with passion with no facts, or all the facts with no passion, we're always going to side with passion. It's just who we are as social beings. So it's really important for the people who know to step up to the plate and get these skills together so we can hear the information correctly.
Interviewer: So they can be the passionate communicators of truth and fact.
Lantz-Gefroh: Exactly. Because the reality is, the thing that I've come to learn in the last 5 years of working with scientists, I worked with probably 1,000 scientists in the last 5 years, they are passionate people.
Interviewer: They are. You're so right.
Lantz-Gefroh: This is a really, really engaged, charged, passionate group of human beings. If they could just bring all of that to the microphone, we could change the world I think.
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