How can design help communicate science?
The Linnean Society Christmas Lecture Anne Odling-Smee 12 December 2011


Why does science need help with communication?
Build up of miscommunication
‘Scientists need to engage more fully with the public.’ Report by The Royal Society, June 2006
Scientists being asked by editors to communicate to the media
1. How is science communicated to the public? 2. What are the challenges? 3. How can design help science to be better understood and more accessible?
4. How can future collaborations be encouraged?
Science journals
Museums and exhibitions: challenges
Text
TV documentaries: limitations
Government
Education
Media
Art
Architecture
Education
Direct communication from scientists
1. How is science communicated to the public? 2. What are the challenges? 3. How can design help science to be better understood and more accessible?
4. How can future collaborations be encouraged?
‘Why doesn’t America like science?’ Financial Times 25 Nov 2011 ‘Just three Republican candidates have declared that they believe in the scientific basis for evolution…
“When candidates for the highest office in the land appear to spurn reason, embrace anecdote over scientific evidence, and even portray scientists as the perpetrators of a massive hoax, there is reason to worry” – New Scientist magazine.’
Current challenges
Nanotechnologies
Stem cell research
Climate change
Population growth
1. How is science communicated to the public? 2. What are the challenges? 3. How can design help science to be better understood and more accessible?
4. How can future collaborations be encouraged?
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
Painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, engineer, mathematician, inventor, anatomist, botanist, geologist, cartographer, writer
Drawings of the flow of water
William Roscoe (1753–1831)


Lawyer, MP, agriculturalist, gardener, botanist, banker, writer, historian
Charles Darwin (1809–92)
‘In the long history of human kind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed’
Stereotyping isn’t usually helpful (Google networking event badge)
Design is not the same thing as art‌
Language
1. ‘Inside’ science language
2. ‘Outside’ science language – essential for: a) research funding b) enabling public response c) helping one kind of scientist communicate with another kind of scientist
Language
‘One … ‘Although ‘Scientists of the most this themselves difficult jargon may often features bestruggle useful of science within with the a communication scientific difference field, in technical itisisthe often unwieldy terms not used understood technical in biology by jargon nonfrom often associated scientists, those used including in physics withthe scientific andpublic, chemistry, inquiry… reporters, for example.’ and AAAS Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology policymakers…
Language: visual and verbal
Charles Joseph Minard, map charting losses suffered by Napoleon’s army in the Russian campaign of 1812
Information graphics: representations of evolution < Human s here
Human s around here >
Barton, Briggs, Eisen, Goldstein, Patel, Evolution, CSHL Press, NY 2007
Ernst Haeckel, Geneological Tree of Humanity, 1891
Applying scientifically tested expertise in visual communication to the communication of science
Communicating probability and theory
Communicating probability and theory
‘Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is one of the most misunderstood parts of quantum theory, a doorway through which all sorts of charlatans and purveyors of tripe can force their philosophical musings.’
– Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe, 2011, Allen p. 54. Lane)
Interactive design
Tangram game
Exploiting combined science and design knowledge through technology
Netterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anatomy Flash Cards
Made by Apple Designed by Jonathan Ive, RCA
1. How is science communicated to the public? 2. What are the challenges? 3. How can design help science to be better understood and more accessible?
4. How can future collaborations be encouraged?
Direct challenges facing science communication
1. Engaging new and diverse audiences 2. Creating a dialogue and platform for discussion and input of ideas 3. Science education 4. Addressing misunderstandings about science
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5. Communicating the scientific process
Design Science
Five areas: DSRG is a venture between practising designers from 1. Commercial Central Saint practice Martins and consultancy and science communicators 2. Workshops between from Imperial scientists College and designers London, setRegular 3. up in 2011 debates in response to the recognition by a growing 4. Exhibitions number of scientists that improvements areAcademic 5. needed inpractice the communication of science to the public.
www.design-science.org.uk
Parallel deficit model changes in science communication and design communication
Not: ‘I’m telling you some stuff’, but: ‘I’m suggesting you think about some stuff in a different way’
Curiosity driven Beauty (Richard Interactive (JussiFeynman) Ängeslevä)
DSRG Launch event Live debate between science communication graduates from Imperial College and MA Communication Design students from Central Saint Martins
Hunterian Museum Royal College of Surgeons Monday 28 November 2011
Thank you