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Ending 'Voodoo Science' Through Communication
hen Robert L. Park writes or speaks, controversy often follows. So it’s no surprise that his new book, Voodoo Science, a debunking of pseudo-science, recently spent time at the top of the New York Times list for science best-sellers.
A renowned scientist in his own right (he’s a former chairman of the Physics Department at the University of Maryland), Park is also a prolific communicator. He writes a series of op-ed articles for the New York Times each year on science and science policy, along with feature articles and book reviews for the Washington Post. Much sought-after as a science commentator by network television, he also publishes his own weekly column and writes occasional magazine articles. In his spare time, Park heads the Washington, D.C. office of the American Physical Society, the organization of professional physicists.
After years of academic writing – he’s authored more than 100 technical articles during his career as a physicist – Park says that today his audience is the general public. “Writing [for non-technical readers] is a second career, and I love it,” he says, calling the experience “absolutely a revelation” and “a lot more fun” than the technical writing of academia.
Park says his mission is to help the layperson put science in perspective. “Scientists always say the problem is the level of scientific illiteracy among the public,” he notes. This makes it easy to “trick” people into believing the unbelievable, like perpetual-motion and free-energy machines.
Voodoo Science unveils many of the “tricks” that would-be scientists and a gullible press have played on the public – cold fusion, perpetual-motion machines, homeopathic cures, gravity shields, the Roswell Incident, cancers caused by power lines, and pathologic conditions caused by ruptured silicone breast implants.
In all of these cases, as he quotes Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims are expected to be backed up by extraordinary evidence.” But the evidence typically consists of press releases and press conferences. Instead of scientific proof, the press is seduced by the great story: “A backwoods wizard who never finished high school makes a revolutionary scientific discovery. He is denied the fruits of his genius by a pompous scientific establishment. It’s the little man battling a gigantic, impersonal system.” Unfortunately, that story rarely holds water.
Yet so much is happening in the scientific world (“Science is on a roll!” Park proclaims) that scientists themselves can’t keep up with their own fields. Instead of a scientifically literate public, Park says his goal is a public with what he calls “a scientific world view.” People should appreciate that “we live in an orderly universe governed by natural laws that we can understand and use to our advantage, but that can’t be circumvented,” he explains.
Scientists have an important role to play in helping the educated, involved public develop the world view he envisions, Park says, and communications skills will be critical. But he thinks that most scientists today lack the kinds of skills they will need to communicate effectively. “We’re not prepared at all.”
Park says that’s going to change. He sees “a real opening” for people trained in both science and communications, and predicts mounting demand for college-level courses in public communications for scientists. Such courses will feature everything from the principles of public relations and basic media skills to how to write and place an op-ed.
With that in mind, Park and his colleague from the Washington Post, science reporter Curt Suplee, will team-teach an introductory science communications course – exclusively for science majors – at the University of Maryland this fall.
“I believe that in this world of high-tech companies, there is going to be a real market for scientists with a real science background but who can also communicate,” says Park.
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