This will be a short and sweet post.
The scientific community needs to become better communicators. If we as a whole were better able to translate our research into things that people can understand we would be in a much better place as a society. People outside of science (and some scientists) do not understand how we process data, run statistics or present findings. If every PhD candidate also had to to take a communications course, there would be much less doubt about science.
We would be much less likely to have people denying climate change.
Or in the case of what sparked this post today, we would be much less likely to have the head of the Canadian Football League (yes, we have a professional football league in Canada) denying a link between concussions (which are a traumatic brain injury) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
The burden is in part on consumer of information to become more informed about what is there, but scientists do everyone a disservice when they poorly communicate to the media and general public about their findings. The media and their awful representation of science is a topic for another day.
Love always,
Ian + AL
P.S. Science rules