Ben Lillie

Here’s a question about outreach that came up after the SoNYC panel last night. It won’t fit on twitter, so I’ll ask it here.

Say you’re a cell biologist studying a signal pathway. You give a seminar to other scientists studying that pathway — that’s at one level (a very technical one). You give a seminar to other cell biologists, and it’s at a different level. You give it to other biologist and it’s yet another level.

Finally: You give that seminar to a group that includes physicists and geologists and every other type of scientist. Is that level different from giving a talk to the general public? If so, how?

Partly I’m wondering if there is a reason to have an event series for “other scientists,” but also wondering about the bigger question: is there something about being a scientist that makes it easier to understand other bits of science? I suspect the answer is “a bit,” but really want to know specifically what one could say to scientists they couldn’t to a general audience.

Update: There was a lot of good discussion on twitter, so I Storified those. I’ll update it if there’s more.

And you now have to scroll way down, but don’t miss the comments. Lots of good stuff.