Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, once wrote: "I will try t
The academic scientific community which supplied the excess baggage can be heard loudly bemoaning the "loss" of talented young scientists. Yet academic scientists also complain about scientific illiteracy in exactly those non-science professions, which are now welcoming science students.
Perhaps if there were less moaning and greater acceptance of this intellectual osmosis(渗透), the exodus could be turned to everyone's advantage. The refugee graduates ought to be able to think of their scientific knowledge and training as a bonus. It ought to make a positive, constructive contribution to their working lives, and be a source of insight for their colleagues. At the same time, the scientific community should be reaping the benefit of this broad and influential distribution of people who are sympathetic to science.
The reason why this is not the case is that science graduates are often unable to share their science with their nonscientific colleagues. They are unable to communicate. Instead of building Bragg's "flying bridge" they find themselves erecting barriers whenever called upon to explain scientific concepts in everyday terms. Attitudes in the scientific community are changing. In 1985, the Royal Society published a report on the public understanding of science in Britain. Its conclusions took many members of the scientific community by surprise.
The report advocated increased cooperation with the media, more training in communication skills for scientists and wider science education. It also recommended that communication skills be an integral part of every undergraduate science course. The response in British universities has been patchy, to say the least, the reasons are not clear. It may be that nothing more than straightforward inertia is responsible. Being more charitable, academic scientists may simply feel their job is to teach science and that any attempts to delve into the art of communication will be ill received by both students and the outside world. However, there is evidence to suggest these fears are ill founded. For example, the departments of chemical and electrical engineering at Imperial College, London, have for many years offered their students tuition in giving talks. The
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