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NATIONAL SCIENCE POLICY STUDY, PART VI: COMMUNICATING SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING IN A SOUND-BITE WORLD
THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1998
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Committee will be in order.
Today's hearing is the sixth of a series of hearings conducted by the Committee on Science as a part of the National Science Policy Study. Today's topic, communicating science, is, I believe, crucial to ensuring continued public support for science, and I would like once again to thank Congressman Ehlers for organizing this hearing.
Albert Einstein once commented that, ''the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.'' One would hope that this comprehensibility would be widely available to, and appreciated by, the public at large. But this does not appear to be the case.
Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the modern age that, although our society depends upon science as never before, what scientists do is something of an enigma to most people. Ask people why they shun science and the answer you are likely to get is that science is, with apologies to Einstein, largely incomprehensible.
This view should not come as a surprise to anybody who has tried to wade through a scientific journal. Granted, these journals are not written for laymen and laywomen, nor do I think they should be. But they are perhaps the most extreme example of the widening chasm between scientists and the rest of society.
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As Latin in the Middle Ages distinguished one as learned and of the upper classes, so scientific jargon today separates the scientific class from the general public. It is interesting to note that in the Enlightenment, when the formation of scientific societies flowered and science began to acquire many of the characteristics it has today, the language of science shifted from Latin to the vernacular.
If we are to maintain public support for our scientific enterprise, what is sorely needed today is a way to translate the grandeur of science into the language of ordinary people. Scientists have wonderful stories to tell, but too often their stories get told poorly, if at all. And while educators and journalists have a role to play in getting these stories out, scientists must also recognize that they, too, have a responsibility to increase the availability and salience of science to the public.
During the last year and half since I became Chairman, I have spoken to a number of meetings of scientific societies when they have visited Washington, and usually during the question and answer period, a question comes up of what can we as scientists do to increase support of the public, and thus increase support of Congress, for science.
And I, not facetiously and very seriously, have said the best thing you can do is to organize a grass roots campaign in telling the public what you do and what the value is of what you do.
And I told every one of these groups that the best way to start is to give two speeches to a local Rotary Club in the next year within their own communities. And the expressions in the audience when I made that response were about divided in half. About half of the listeners smiled and started nodding their heads, which indicated that they had gotten the point and think that they have to do a little bit of outreach work. The other half of the people had a very angry expression on their face, which I think was a feeling of either, ''How can he impose upon my time to do things like this because my time is too valuable?'' or on the other hand, ''How am I ever going to be able to explain to the Rotary Club what I am doing because I am going to have to change the language that I usually use?''
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Now, the second group of people, I think are the people who really have got to get the message, because budgets are a matter of priority, and the way to get more money for science is to increase the priority for science in the eyes of the American public. Congressmen and Congresswomen and journalists can't be expected to do that. The people who benefit from increased expenditures on science are going to have to carry the ball, and service organizations like the Rotary Clubs that I have suggested are always groups that attract the movers and shakers and opinion formers of every community.
So today I look forward to hearing from our panel of distinguished witnesses and hope that the discussion will help us communicate the importance and vitality of science to a general audience.
Before I turn the gavel over to Mr. Ehlers, as is my custom at these Science Policy hearings, I'd like to take a moment to extend a personal welcome to one of our panelists today, Deborah Blum, who is from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Ms. Blum graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism and earned her Master of Arts in Journalism at the University of Wisconsin.
She has written for a number of newspapers and publications, including Discover Magazine and The New York Times. She most recently served as science writer at the Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, California, where she won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on primate research. The Sacramento Bee's loss is the University of Wisconsin's gain, and I am very pleased to welcome Ms. Blum here today.
And now I will turn the gavel over to Mr. Brown, and without objection, the Committee will be able to recess during the votes. Would you like to say something before we recess for this vote?
Mr. BROWN of California. I was just concerned that you were going to turn the gavel over to me.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Oh, no. That was a mistake. The gavel goes to Mr. Ehlers.
[Laughter.]
The Floor goes to you.
Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Chairman, I do have an opening statement, which I would like permission to insert in the record at this point.
And I will not take up all the time necessary to read that, but I would like to yield a moment to our member, Ms. Johnson, who I think may have a short statement also.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and my Ranking Member. Chairman Sensenbrenner, I am appreciative of you calling this hearing, because it is important that the journalists and the scientific community come together not only because of textbooks—pretty soon we might not need those because of the Internet—but newspaper articles should be written as well in an understandable and readable manner, focusing on easy terms so that the regular people can understand the language.
One of the problems that we had with the Supercollider is that the scientists had a difficult time communicating to this Congress. So it's not always just the general public; it is general America that does have difficulty sometimes.
So journalists and educators must explain the scientific theories in the most concise and effective manner, right now really, because we need to engage students in those areas of interest that do not have a science background, but can understand the concepts. So if the American public is to make science issues their top priority, we must be able to relate to and decipher scientific issues really in an elementary fashion.
And so I will file the rest of my statement. But I look forward to the witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. EHLERS [presiding]. Without objection, all opening statements will be entered into the record. Mr. Brown, did you wish to say any more on your opening statement.
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Mr. BROWN of California. I have a lot I'd like to say, but I am going to pass.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. It's probably best if we—and I apologize to the witnesses. We've been very fortunate in most of our hearings; very few votes have interfered. But obviously, there is a problem that has developed on the Floor, because there is a motion to adjourn which means that someone is angry at someone. And we have to go dispose of this vote and hopefully, they will be able to solve the problem and we won't be interrupted again.
Mr. BROWN of California. Shall we vote in favor of adjournment to make sure?
[Laughter.]
Mr. EHLERS. That's a possibility. Without objection, the Committee will stand in recess.
[Brief Recess.]
Mr. EHLERS. I'd like to call the hearing to order. I apologize for the interruption. Had I known what was happening on the Floor, I would have delayed going over there. It turns out we were having two votes, and so we had to wait for the second one to take place.
Normally, our protocol is that we would not restart the hearing without a member of the Minority here, but Mr. Brown, I know, has a meeting that he has to go to and will not able to return for a little while, and we are not aware of another Minority member planning to be here shortly. So we will begin the hearing and presumably people will come as their schedule allows.
I do apologize for the delay. This does happen around here, although we've been remarkably fortunate in the hearings we've conducted so far.
I do have an opening statement I wish to make, but in the interests of time, since we've delayed enough already, I will simply have it placed in the record without objection and save everyone some time.
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I do want to welcome our panel here today. This is a very important topic we are dealing with today. I have made much in my comments elsewhere and here about the need for an educated electorate if our Nation is to make good progress in sciences, engineering, and mathematics technology.
And I believe that's extremely important. We have dealt primarily with improving our educational system. It's very important to recognize that is a good project, but a very long-term project. And we have to do a much better job of communicating not only the results of science to the public, but also the thinking of science, that science is a mode of inquiry, a way of learning about the universe around us; and that it is a unique mode of inquiry not commonly used by the general public.
And we hope that we can communicate to them some understanding of that and also, therefore, an appreciation of the scientific work that goes on in this Nation and the results of science.
I think it is also important to recognize that it is becoming increasingly difficult to function as a consumer, as a citizen, as a voter in today's world without an adequate understanding of science and technology. Many decisions made by consumers, whether consumers of medical care or consumers of groceries, involve some understanding of and analysis of the materials you are dealing with, the care you are being provided, and as a consumer today, you do have to make a considerably large number of decisions regarding those issues.
Similarly, as a voter, if the voters do not understand science, the Congress is not likely to have it as a priority and the Nation as a whole will suffer, because the economy we enjoy today is due to the investments our parents and grandparents have made in scientific and technical research. And what our children and grandchildren will enjoy depends on what we do today.
The issue today, then, is how can we, as a scientific community and as a Congress, best communicate with the public regarding the nature of science and the results of science. And we have before us some noted experts on that score. We have Mr. Jim Hartz, a former co-host of the Today Show, co-author of ''Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America's Future.'' That is written with Dr. Chappell, who is going to be introduced shortly.
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Mr. Hartz has just completed a year and a half tenure as a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt University. He is a host and chief correspondent of the PBS series, ''Innovation.'' He was an NBC News Correspondent from 1964 to 1979, has co-hosted ''Over Easy'' and ''Asia Now'' on PBS, and served as a commentator for the American Viewpoint series on Times Cable-TV systems.
He has won a total of 5 Emmys and 2 Ace awards, and that's even harder than winning election to Congress. Congratulations. Mr. Hartz is also a television producer and writer and in 1990, was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
Dr. Rick Chappell—am I pronouncing that correctly? Chappell or ''Chapel?'' ''Chapel.'' okay. It's a more religious pronunciation than the one I gave you. Dr. Rick Chappell is Director of Science and Research Communications and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University. He is the co-author with Mr. Hartz of ''Worlds Apart,'' and is a former Associate Director for Science at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
He has directed research in solar terrestrial physics and served as principal investigator on several satellite missions. He was an alternate payload specialist for space shuttle mission STS–45 in March 1992, and was the mission scientist for Spacelab 1, a joint European/American space shuttle research mission. He has twice received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement.
Dr. Chappell received his undergraduate degree in physics from Vanderbilt University and his doctorate in space science from Rice University. And it's a pleasure to welcome a fellow physicist on the panel today.
Ms. Blum was introduced earlier. I'd just add one comment to that. My wife is from Ripon, California, and grew up reading the Sacramento Bee and the Modesto Bee, and I know that territory well. So we are happy to have you here for that reason, also.
Dr. Stuart Zola is a professor, Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, University of California at San Diego. Dr. Zola is also a research neuroscientist at the San Diego Veterans Administration Medical Center. He performs memory and amnesia research using primates and also works with human patients who are suffering from memory loss brought on by damage to the brain.
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He was the Chair and Director of the top ranked graduate program in neurosciences at UCSD, has served as the Chair of the USCD committee overseeing—I'm sorry, UCSD, I said that wrong—UCSD committee overseeing the use of animals in research, and has also chaired the 26,000 member Society for Neuroscience's Committee on Animals in Research.
He has over 80 publications to his credit and is also a member of the UCSD Speakers Bureau for Research Scientists. And it will become clear during his testimony why he was invited to speak here today.
Dr. David Billington is the Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor of Engineering at Princeton University. He is the first such professor of this seat, named after the alumni benefactor who donated $100 million to Princeton to improve the ability of the Engineering School to graduate well rounded engineers and to educate liberal arts students in engineering.
A professor of civil engineering, Dr. Billington received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and has remained at Princeton for most of his professional life. He has performed extensive research in structural design and engineering history, has prepared numerous art exhibitions of bridge structures and has published over 140 papers and six books.
It's a very distinguished panel we have before us today. We are pleased to have you all. Just a word about procedure. The rules of the Committee are that each witness will be allowed 5 minutes to offer their testimony. The panel then will have 5 minutes per member to ask questions. We may have more than one round of questions. If you do not have time enough to state your views during your initial testimony, you will have time later, I am sure, during the question period. Thank you all very much for being here. We will begin with Mr. Hartz.
STATEMENT OF JIM HARTZ, FORMER CO-HOST, THE TODAY SHOW
Mr. HARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Chappell and I have submitted written testimony for the record and we will take a few minutes here to sort of summarize that and, of course, respond to any questions that you have.
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Dr. Chappell and I were brought to Vanderbilt University by the First Amendment Center to compile this report, which is titled ''Worlds Apart.'' It is the latest in a series of surveys the First Amendment Center has done teaming a member of the media with a person from the area being studied. Previous studies have looked at the media in politics, media in medicine, media in the military, media in religion.
As a part of our study, we did an extensive survey which we'd like to talk about. Approximately 2,000 scientists and engineers in the country were sent copies of the survey, and approximately 2,000 reporters and editors. Our response was about 30 or 40 percent, which is typical of a national survey.
The people at the First Amendment Center who had seen these surveys from other areas told us that the one we did showed the widest gulf between the group being looked at and the media of any of the surveys that they had done.
What it indicated was that the scientists were deeply distrustful of the media. Most of the scientists said that there were a small number of outlets and a small number of reporters that they respected a great deal, but by and large, their opinion of the way reporting was done in this country was not good.
However, what it indicated to us was that there was not a great deal of animus on the part of the scientists toward the journalists, that they all indicated that the issues were not too complex, that they could be covered and could be done in a way that would benefit everybody involved.
As far as the journalists were concerned, they looked at the scientific community as being, if I can summarize this, as being a little arrogant, a little prone to jargon in looking at the way they covered it. They felt that many of the issues were beyond the comprehension and understanding of most of their readers and viewers. They felt that oftentimes the work was not ''relevant'' to the readers and viewers; and that there was, in some cases, not interest among the readers and viewers, despite the fact that we've seen a lot of surveys that indicate the American people, by overwhelming majority, 80 and 90 percent sometimes, say they are very interested in matters of science and technology.
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On the other hand, those surveys indicate that not very many people feel qualified to make good judgments about science and technology, going back to your issue about what the public comprehends and understands and can do then as voters.
The conclusion that we came to at the end of this was that the scientists told us they fully understood, at least large numbers of them, that they had to do a better job of communicating their work with the American people. And as many as 80 percent in the survey said that they would be willing to go as far as to take a course in communications to improve their skills.
So what we've tried to do—and I'll let Dr. Chappell talk about some of the recommendations that we've made in the report. We've given everybody, I think, on the Committee, and all the staff a copy of the book, which we hope you'll be able to at least scan and look at some of the results.
What we've tried to do is to put out some recommendations that would improve this process of communication between the scientists and engineers in this country with the media that then communicates that to the general public.
Many people in the media said that they didn't consider themselves in the education business. And of course, that's true in terms of they don't give tests and they don't run regular schools. But we found that, looking at the general public, the media is one of the very few places that they can continue their education once they are out of school. And if the media doesn't do a good job of reporting on these issues, then it does leave the public in the dark.
We are not counseling in our recommendations that the media drop things that they do now in favor of science. All that we are recommending is that they expand the table, so to speak, and include more information on science and technology in this country that we think in the end would benefit their readers and viewers.
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Interestingly, when we asked the scientists to rank various forms of media as to the job they felt it did in reporting on science and technology, nobody stood out as being an excellent source. The best sources, according to the scientists, were several national newspapers, National Public Radio, and a few sources like that. On the low end of their list, unfortunately, was local television, which other surveys have shown us is where most people get their news.
So not only is there a wide gap between what is reported, but also in the quantity of what's reported where most people get their news.
I think my time probably is expired and I'd like to let Dr. Chappell talk about some of the other recommendations that we are making in the report.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman's time has expired. Dr. Chappell.
STATEMENT OF RICK CHAPPELL, DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS AND ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Mr. CHAPPELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here. This is a subject that is particularly important to me personally. My career has been as a research scientist and I have felt for many years that part of our responsibility as scientists is to report to the stockholders who are the ones who pay for our work.
I was moved many years ago, probably 20 years ago, by a show that Walter Cronkite did on space. It was ''Space: A Report to the Stockholder,'' and it very clearly reminded scientists involved in space exploration that the people of our country are the ones who pay the bills, and that they certainly, as stockholders, deserve to understand what they are getting for their money.
We depend on ourselves and our ability to communicate, and then we depend very much on the media to carry to message to the public. On the science side, we believe that there are a number of things that the science community can do. We will always be dependent, though, on the interest and the effectiveness of the media in taking the message as we are able to get it across.
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Science is an easy story to tell in terms of its excitement. It's a great adventure. Research of all sorts, it's equally as exciting as an Indiana Jones movie, except it's talking about fact instead of fiction. The metaphors that scientists use in developing their own understanding of the work can be used effectively to tell the story to the public. It's sort of a detective story.
So science can be written, if it's written the right way, in a very exciting and interesting way. And we would encourage that on the part of the media.
From the scientists' side, though, there are a number of things that we can do, and I think scientists need to put thoughtful amounts of time into communicating the research that they do. They communicate often with their peers in the jargon of their disciplines. They communicate to their students when they are teachers. But they tend to spend less time communicating to the general public. And as Jim said, a very high percentage in the survey said that they would be willing to do that and spend more time on it.
We need to do some things that will encourage them to follow through. So in terms of some of our specific recommendations, the first is as an explicit recognition on the part of the science community of the need to communicate and to invest time in it; and a sort of change in culture from drawing back from the media and maybe occasionally making disparaging remarks about scientists who are a little too visible in the press. Change that over to the other side, which is to be much more aggressive at being available and at telling their story.
We think, secondly, that universities should train, as scientists and engineers are being trained as undergraduates, that they should have at least one course in communicating science to the public and communicating engineering to the public. We have instituted such a course at Vanderbilt and intend on having our science majors and engineering majors be part of that.
It's something that I never had going through as a science major and a Ph.D. candidate in science. Never was I taught anything about communication. It's sort of a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later kind of a thing, and I had to learn that much later in life. I think it would be a good thing to involve in scientist and engineering education early on.
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Thirdly, we feel that we would like to train a category of science communicators. These would be undergraduates who take about half of their hours in science and math and engineering and about half of their hours in communications and English and history and political science and economics. Students who come out of high school being very comfortable with everything they took in high school, liking science as well as English, math, history, everything; and instead of forcing them to choose whether they want to be a science major or not, we would encourage them to get an interdisciplinary major in undergraduate school so that they never lose touch with science and learn how to communicate it.
And we have developed such a curriculum at Vanderbilt that will be in place this coming fall. It's not a journalism school, but it's a broader training of science communicators. And we think they'll find careers, not only in journalism, but as public information officers for research labs and universities, for public outreach people for research hospitals or chemical companies or pharmaceutical companies. We feel like that category of talent will be very useful to the country.
Finally, I think in terms of the scientists communicating, there are a couple of things we would encourage them to do. One is in the informal side, to be more proactive in working with the public information officers in their institutions. When they've got a piece of research that is sort of ready for prime time, they need to get together with and work with the public information officers to get that out. And maybe participate in workshops that bring them into contact with journalists so that they can share some ideas on the journalism process and the science process and find some bridges there.
And finally, and I think, most importantly, we believe that formally one can consider adding a requirement within the overall science journal process so that when a scientist submits a paper for publication in a science journal, he or she is asked to write a second abstract that is written for the public, and would be done probably in cooperation with the public information officers at their establishment;
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and as well, identify the significance, as best they can, of that piece of research within that discipline.
Both the public paragraph and the significance flag would be peer-reviewed as part of the overall review of the article. And it would end up in producing information which we think will be more useful to the journalism community in terms of being able to understand the content and significance of the science that is coming along.
We think they should also choose and develop spokespeople. I like the title of the hearing very much regarding sound-bites. And we get a lot of sound-bites in science. Unfortunately, many of those sound-bites are from people who are not scientists. They are good at sound-bites, but they are not good at content.
We think that the disciplines, the science disciplines, can develop their own spokespeople, so that the media will be able to get a good sound-bite, but get a sound-bite that's got good content to it. And we would propose using the Internet as the vehicle to deliver this information and to identify the spokespeople. The Internet, probably supported by the different science associations in the different disciplines and maybe with an umbrella site, for example, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that will be a directory for the public and for journalists to find out and find their way down into the science community and the results of the science community and get to the people they need to talk to.
We believe there are a number of things that can be done. We are very excited about the fact that both sides of both groups that we talked to expressed an optimism that things can be made better, and we are in the process now of implementing as much of that as we can.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Hartz and Mr. Chappell follows:]
Insert offset folios 153-160
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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. Ms. Blum. We're going to end up in stereo here.
STATEMENT OF DEBORAH BLUM, PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
Ms. BLUM. I sound good in stereo, too. I thought I'd start by telling you about a story I am working on. I have an oddball appointment at the University of Wisconsin in that in the Journalism School, I am the one working journalist on staff; I am not an academic. So, though I teach classes, I write for a number of publications, and right now, I am doing a piece for Psychology Today on face reading, the biology of face reading, what happens in our brains as we try to translate other peoples' expressions.
And as I sort of pursued this story, I ended up talking to some people at IBM. IBM has a project called Blue Eyes, in which they want computers to read our faces when we use them. They are planning to install cameras within the computer that would read your face. Then they would use automatic face coding systems that are now used by scientists to try to decipher your expression, so that you would be sitting there arguing with Windows 98, if it ever comes out, and your computer would say to you, ''Deborah, you look really confused,'' or ''Deborah, you look angry with me today,'' or whatever. And the people at IBM said to me, we want people to have a more natural relationship with their computers.
[Laughter.]
And you know, the question for me as a journalist is why? Why would you want to have a natural relationship with a machine, and can you have one? But as I pursued it further, it turns out there have already been three international conferences on this particular topic, how do we build computers and other machines that interact with you constantly in a natural way.
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And IBM actually wants computers that will respond to you and develop a personality that you will like. And so they are hoping that we will have computers that will sense what you like and what you don't like.
And the reason that I bring this up is that science changes the world all the time and it changes everything we deal with, including our natural or unnatural relationship with the machines around us. And people need to know that.
To me, science reporting falls in the realm of public affairs in the same way that political reporting does. It's a force that changes people's lives. And while politics may seem straightforward or not to people, science is mysterious and it's off-putting and the world changes without people understanding it.
And there have to be ways to make people informed and make them comfortable and allow them to make intelligent decisions about things such as, do I want a computer that is reading my face when I'm working on it? Is that the way I want technology to go? And they need to be able to have some power in this process.
I would argue, too, that journalism is one of the enabling ways to do this. It's not the best way. I think we need to overhaul some issues in the way we educate people in science. Science education tends to be a kind of filtering process for scientists, and if you're not good in science at a certain stage, our education process sort of blows you away.
I think we need to deal with that, and make science interesting to the nonscientist throughout education. We don't do that well. But right now, journalism—particularly, I am going to argue, at the regional level—is one of the ways to really connect with people, and people do.
I worked for a regional paper in California, the Sacramento Bee, for 13 years. People called me all the time with their science theories, science problems, with their how-do-I-do-this. Who are they going to call? And actually, there was one person in Sacramento who built two bombs he was trying to make work, and wanted me to test them for him.
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[Laughter.]
The paper called the police, so that didn't work out too well. But they are out there, and people are really concerned and they don't have anywhere to go. And they don't have anyone allowing them to connect with science beyond an education that didn't pull them in. And so good science journalism does that.
We don't do that well yet in journalism. I'm a science writer. I got my master's degree in a science writing program. I'm the daughter of a biologist. I'm a dropout chemistry major. I grew up in science, and I'm comfortable with it. Most journalists are not. I was often told by my colleagues that no one wanted my job. And we don't pull all journalists well into communicating science.
And so I'm going to argue a couple of things quickly before my time runs out. One is I think we need more science journalists, and there are more and more programs at universities to do that. But I think we need to make all reporters a little more comfortable with covering science. The science journalist doesn't always get called out on assignment. There's not enough of us to go around.
Dr. Chappell was just pointing out to me, it's about a 1 to 100,000 ratio in the country of science journalist to reader and viewer and listener. So there just aren't enough of us to cover the stories.
Lots of reporters get plugged in and they are often clueless. They don't even know how to do the homework well to ask the right questions. So I would argue that journalism programs need to train all journalism students in science journalism, that there should be at least one course in that.
I also believe that scientists need to, as has been recommended before, have their job description redefined a little bit so that science communication is part of that picture. And I think that they need to understand the culture of journalism better. I think that one of the things that happens, it's not only that they don't know how to communicate, but they don't know how the media work. And they are floored the first time they are quoted not the way they thought they were going to be quoted.
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And so my final example of that is I was on a panel once with a woman from Harvard who was outraged. She had given this speech. It had three important points. The third point was the most important, and not a single reporter wrote about her final important point. Every journalist in the room was rolling their eyes. If it was so important, why didn't she put it first?
And so there is that kind of conflict in how we work that I think we need to build those bridges. And so in my job now at the University of Wisconsin, I try to train journalists, but I also try to train scientists. I go into science classrooms and talk to science students about how the media works. And I think we've got a long way to go, but I think it's really important. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Blum follows:]
Insert offset folios 161-167
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. Dr. Zola.
STATEMENT OF STUART ZOLA, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO
Mr. ZOLA. I wanted to just take a couple of minutes to describe a little bit of the background of my work, because it is germane to the experiences that I was asked to then further describe. And the work that I do involves monkeys. I am a neuroscientist and I study the brain and how memory works in the brain and what parts of the brain are important for memory, what happens when things go awry with various areas of the brain that are important for memory.
And we are really, in a sense, at a fairly primitive stage in our understanding of how the brain works and how memory is organized in the brain. One of the strategies that we have developed over the years is to use something called animal models. We refer to it as animal models. It is a jargon; it's a term that we, as scientists, understand. But it simply means that we look at animals as a substitute for humans, because we can ask questions about memory in animals sometimes in ways that are very similar to the kinds of questions we ask in our human patients, the kinds of memory problems that we can demonstrate in animals are the same kinds of problems that we see occurring in our human patients who have damage to regions of the brain that are important for memory.
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So over the years, that has been the focus of our research. It has been successful. We and others in the field have been successful in being able to identify what the critical structures of memory are in the brain, and this has turned out to be important for us. Science tells us, time and time again, in the process of evolution of understanding and being able to have some impact on a medical problem, we have to understand how the mechanisms work, what they are, in order to be able to develop effective interventions.
And this is the process that we are in now with respect to memory. We are at the very early stages of this process, in fact, in just being able now to identify what the structures are that are important for memory, and we then hope that we and our children are going to be able to develop then these interventions and treatments that are going to be so important for us.
This work is germane to a number of different kinds of conditions where memory problems occur, in terms of Alzheimer's disease, strokes, encephalitis, and of course, now even in terms of aging. As we are getting older, some of us are seeing more and more problems with our memory, and the question is are there any ways to slow down that kind of difficulty or intervene effectively in our later years?
So all of this work is germane to it. The kind of work we do is referred to as basic research. It's basic research because we are trying to understand the simple basic mechanisms of how these things work in the brain. It isn't clear what the direct applicability is going to be to patients at this point in time. But we would suppose, and again, science tells us that this is the step that becomes critical in the eventual development of interventions and treatments and cures.
And so we are basic researchers, as opposed to applied researchers, a field where individuals are working on some kinds of things like a bypass valve or something that has direct application to a particular medical problem. We, although we aren't working directly in that same sense, we are developing the kind of information that is going to be important for it.
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Because I use monkeys in my research, I became the target of a group of animal activists from around the country focused on this. And this is the point in my career where I then became involved in this question about communicating science.
I thought that my job was to be in my laboratory doing good, high-quality research, ensuring that animals were being treated humanely in the course of this research. But my job—and indeed, my intellectual love—was doing research. That's what I wanted to do for my life, and that's what I was being paid to do, as well.
But it turned out that the animal activists had another point of view about this. And they began to discredit this research, as well as other research using animals, suggesting with a variety of distortions about fact that research using animals was not only inhumane, but was useless. It had never been applicable, it had never given us any reasonable kinds of solutions to medical problems, and indeed, we should be refocusing our efforts in other directions, preventative medicine, as opposed to basic science research.
So that got me focused on this question, and I believed that the public would, of course, understand how relevant all of this would be, and it wouldn't be the case that anybody would pay attention to these individuals.
But it turned out that was dramatically wrong. The public began to embrace these ideas and began to question our research and the research of colleagues around the country, asking us to justify why is it that we are doing these things. What is it that we hope to learn, and why do we need to use animals? And what would be the outcome of this kind of research? And if doesn't have direct patient applicability, why should we be doing it? We should be focusing then on something that does have direct patient applicability.
So there were all these kinds of issues that began to be raised. And I was for some time shocked, actually, at the response from the public. I just could not believe that they would not understand how critical this was.
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And accordingly, I began to focus then on trying to educate the public. We at the university developed a small group of individuals who were interested in this. It wasn't very many, initially, but we were able to incorporate the chancellor. The very highest level of the institute became supportive of taking a very proactive stance on trying to educate the public about what the university researchers were actually doing.
And the university became so involved in this and so committed to this that they set up these training programs that Dr. Chappell referred to. We brought in media people, local media people, and we had mock interviews and mock demonstrations which were videotaped. And those of us who were interested in doing this were interviewed, and then the videotapes were played back and the reporters would tell us where we went wrong, why we shouldn't have said what we said, or how to develop better sound-bites.
And that was the eventual goal, was to develop these sound-bites in response to these kinds of confrontations that we were having with animal rights activists, as well as being able to inform the public generally. And this became a very effective kind of approach for us.
In addition, we spoke to legislators. We learned very quickly that all of you have the same kinds of problems that the general public has. You are busy, you have your own agendas, and you don't have this as your focus in the way we do. And so, in going to speak with legislators directly, probably the most rewarding kinds of experiences I had, because legislators would tell me without exception, you know, Dr. Zola, you are the first scientist who has ever come to see us. We've had animal rights people in and out of the office and we've had all this stuff, but no scientist has ever taken the time to come and talk to us about this. This is remarkable.
And legislators, like everybody else, they want to do the right thing. But they can't do the right thing unless they know what the facts are. So it is our view—and our recommendation is very much in line with what people have already said—that it is critical that the job of a scientist, the job description of a scientist really has to change. We need to communicate not just to ourselves, but we need to communicate to the general public, and we need to be able to develop strategies and effective ways of doing that.
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The University of California at San Diego has done a great job. The VA system does a great job, as well. They actually require abstracts to be translated into regular language so that they can be used by the media and the general public.
So I think that is essentially the underlying message: that scientists ourselves are coming to terms with this, and we need to understand how critical all of this is, to be able to communicate the excitement of science, what science does, to the public.
And there is a very practical aspect to that. Unless we do that, then we have to fear that we will not be able to excite the next generation of people to become scientists. That is, there are lots of problems still out there to be addressed and to be answered, and unless we have kids excited about science, then that's not going to happen.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Zola follows:]
Insert offset folios 168-171
Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you very much, Dr. Zola. Dr. Billington.
STATEMENT OF DAVID BILLINGTON, GORDON Y.S. WU PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Mr. BILLINGTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly subscribe to what everybody has said, but I have a different approach, being an engineer and teaching engineering at a university which is largely liberal arts.
I was asked to talk about my two courses, which are for non-technical people, although engineers take them as well. Presently, we are teaching in these courses about 20 to 25 percent of the entire student population at Princeton.
The questions that were asked of me were, first of all, how do we make the connection between engineering and the humanities. Secondly, how do we attract students to take these courses. And third, how do we make engineering accessible to the non-technical without losing the essential character of engineering.
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Now, you must understand that as an academic, if I begin to speak, I am going to speak in 50-minute increments and therefore, I am going to read because that's the only way I can discipline myself out of that tradition.
So I want to answer those three issues about connections, attractions, and accessibility, and then I want to give a couple of examples. First, our course connects engineering and the humanities by focusing on great works. That is, on historically significant objects, such as Fulton's steamboat, the Wright Flyer, and the microchip of Kilby and Noyce.
Second, these courses attract students because they are based first on scholarship; secondly, the lectures are done entirely visually with slides and film; and third, the courses have become part of the core curriculum. That is to say, they satisfy the university requirements for lab science or for a writing seminar.
Third, the courses are relevant to the non-technical students because they emphasize the work of individual innovators. These innovators had to make things as simple as possible in order to understand them themselves and to make them work. Thus, the innovator's main ideas are accessible and their essential engineering character can be put in mathematical formulations that are relatively easy to grasp.
Let me illustrate these by giving three examples from these two courses. The first two are from a freshman course entitled Engineering in the Modern World, whose central theme is the transformation of American society by engineering beginning with the steamboat. The students study Fulton's 1809 patent; they make the type of calculations that Fulton developed himself. They also learn about the intense competition among entrepreneurs on the Mississippi, which led to faster speeds and bursting boilers.
For over 3 decades, the Congress debated that issue of federal regulation of private industry until after 2,500 steamboat deaths, they finally created the first government regulatory agency. Engineering was transforming politics.
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But it was also giving rise to a new literature pioneered by a river boat pilot, Samuel Clemens. The students calculate boiler stresses, they study Congressional debates, and they read elegant stories.
We move through similar scientific, social, and symbolic studies such as water power for textile mills, the railroad, the telegraph, and on to the Model T and the Wright Flyer. These transforming events lead us into the 20th Century of concrete structures, radio, nuclear power, space flight, and the microchip.
Although few Americans have heard of Jack St. Clair Kilby or Robert Noyce, they are in the same league with Edison and Bell. Kilby first came to the idea of the microchip by an example of spectacular reverse thinking, what might be called negative suboptimization.
Silicon is a poor material for all the elements of a circuit, resistors, capacitors, and conductors. So one would never use silicon to get an optimum element in a circuit. But as circuits got smaller and the wiring connection problems got out of hand, Kilby saw that he could avoid connections by using low grade resistors, capacitors, conductors all made of silicon.
Thus, the overall was far better than optimizing each of the elements separately. Here was the monolithic idea, and it ushered in the computer revolution that we are witnessing as the century closes.
Let me give a third example, this one from another course, Structures and the Urban Environment, whose theme is that structures at their best are works of art parallel to, but independent from, architecture.
We begin this course with the Eiffel Tower. The 1898 Tower's unprecedented scale and form shook the 19th Century French artistic establishment and worried political leaders. But the Tower allowed Gustave Eiffel to express the visual potential of modern engineering through a new material, the new material of industrialized—iron.
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The form of the Tower, a narrow column sweeping out at its base, is a scientific diagram of resistance to wind. Liberal arts students can easily grasp the formula that expresses the need for this shape. The story of the Eiffel Tower is a story of politics and economics of public works. It nearly paid for itself as the main attraction of the World's Fair marking the centenary of the French Revolution.
Finally, the Tower survived its critics and inspired a new generation of painters, including Georges Seurat and Robert Delauney. It soon became the defining symbol of France that it is to this day.
Stories like these coupled with scientific principles, political contexts, and artistic responses contribute to the success of our courses by attracting non-technical students, by convincing colleagues that such content can be part of a core curriculum, and by showing that the essential character of engineering is accessible to all students.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Billington follows:]
Insert offset folios 172-178
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments and I learned a great deal in a short time here. I might just comment, I have never had the pleasure of teaching a course exclusively with slides and film, but I always started out my physics courses for the general students with a slide show the first day and a collection of slides I had taken over my lifetime of physical phenomenon that I had observed. It's a great icebreaker. I also interspersed it with pictures of my wife and children, because they, of course, are objects of art and the pictures I took were superb examples of good aesthetics.
Mr. BILLINGTON. And they are great scale factors for bridges.
Mr. EHLERS. That's right. But also, it humanized the course. I certainly appreciate what you have done, because I have tried to do the same.
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We are now into the question time. There are a number of issues that have been brought up. One that is somewhat overarching is something I have experienced in dealing with the media, both as a scientist and as a legislator, and it's the old familiar man bites dog phenomenon, or perhaps today it's Marv Albert bites someone phenomenon.
[Laughter.]
It's not news unless it's unusual. And too often, I think this is applied to science. That it's not newsworthy unless somehow it's a little oddball. Whereas, what we are interested in talking about here primarily is the education of the public.
I am a little dismayed; I don't know if it was Mr. Hartz or Dr. Chappell who made the comment that journalists don't regard themselves as educators. That's somewhat surprising to me, because I think that's a major purpose of the profession, is to educate people about what is going on in the world. It's not just transferring information, but aren't you also providing background, context, and so forth.
I think that is part of the problem that scientists have with the media, that they think their job is to transmit information and educate the public simultaneously. And this is a new insight that you gave that the journalists don't regard that as part of their job.
But also, relating to that is a question I have raised, the man bites dog phenomenon. It's just not newsworthy unless it's something exceptional, something a little bit odd. Even NPR, which I think generally does a good job, but when I analyze what they select, and looking at it as a scientist, it's certainly not the most newsworthy from a scientific standpoint, in general. It's newsworthy from someone else's standpoint.
I'd appreciate comments that anyone here would wish to make in response to that. Ms. Blum, first of all.
Ms. BLUM. I want to respond to the issue of journalists as educators. We debate that a lot in the science writing community, but I think if you turned it around and you said to journalists, do you believe in the need to inform the public, everyone would say yes. That's been one of the guiding principles of journalism since it was first founded in this country.
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Why do we cover government? Because we believe that you have to have an informed public to vote. So I would question that. I think that's an integral part of what journalism does, and I think most journalists would accept that at some point. The difference is that journalism is also storytelling. So that if someone comes to me as a science writer and says you need to write about condensed matter physics—I mention that because people in physics are always complaining they can't get any journalist to go to condensed matter physics meetings——you have to do it, because the public needs to be educated about condensed matter physics. Then I'm going to turn that around and say what's the story that has to be told, because journalism is always about telling a story.
So I am not opposed to educating, but I want to people to read what I write. It's a waste of time to simply write stuff that's not read. So I am always going to put it through that additional filter. Is it interesting? Am I going to get people to read it? Given that in journalism we don't write about airplanes that don't crash, and you're right about that.
Mr. EHLERS. Let me just follow that up for a moment. Relating to this, what about the choice that editors make in deciding which stories to print and how long they should be and so forth? Is that a major factor there too?
Ms. BLUM. I think editors in science journalism are the great black hole of the media. We do train reporters, but we don't train editors in science. In fact, what I've found in 15 years that I've covered science is that editors don't know anything about science. They are afraid of it, so they will jump at a story that has multiple—if several wire services sent it out, they just make the assumption it's big news, even though it's not.
And when I have dealt with editors, they have had a kind of, ''You're the expert, you do it'' kind of attitude, so that I've been able to—I mean, it's wonderful for a reporter to push through your own agenda, right. It's a great job. But nevertheless, there is no backup there.
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And so one of the things that I would really like to see in journalism is exactly the issue you're talking about. And just to stick with this one last second, Mr. Hartz and Dr. Chappell and I were on a panel in which a woman came from the Associated Press and she was an Associated Press editor. And she raised that issue. She said, ''I don't know anything about science,'' and she gave several examples of stories that turned out to be poor science that had gone out over the AP wire because there was no filter.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. May I just ask quickly, is there a similar situation in the electronic media, in your experience?
Ms. BLUM. Absolutely.
Mr. EHLERS. A quick response, since my time is about to expire. Dr. Zola, quickly.
Mr. ZOLA. Yes. I should just say that there is this tension. You raise a very good issue. But there is always this tension some of us as scientists see between science reporting, between journalists and the scientists.
That is, the scientist has, as his or her job, to be very careful and very succinct in doing facts and a very careful analysis of a finding. The journalist, on the other hand, is trying to make it into a story, and make it more interesting than it might inherently be.
We had this experience in 1986 when we had this discovery from a patient and it was an area of the brain that was damaged very, very selectively. It never had occurred in 100 years of this work, and we were fortunate to have post-mortem material on the patient and we published this and it really got a lot of media attention, as it turned out, because it was such an unusual event.
But the media that came to us were always trying to put a spin on it that was not inherent in the discovery. They were always trying to move it way out ahead of the data, as we refer to it. The media is always trying to go out there ahead of the data and make it—not always, but many times. Sorry, Deborah. Deborah is certainly an exception. The point is that Deborah and I are old friends and Deborah has spent days at our laboratory trying to get the right information. She doesn't come for 10 minutes; she really came and lived with us for a while.
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But that is the tension that is created between the scientist who is trying to be very careful and the media who has another kind of obligation. And the ability to try and make those two things intersect properly is very rare. Deborah has been able to accomplish it, but it's very rare. That's not the scientist's experience with the media, generally, because of the kinds of things probably that have been said. Media aren't trained to do this in the way that they need to be trained. And scientists aren't trained at being able to communicate it in the way that they need to be trained.
Mr. EHLERS. Dr. Chappell.
Mr. CHAPPELL. Mr. Chairman, I might just add that one of our recommendations addresses specifically the issue of the gatekeepers, the editors, producers. We feel that if the science community, through the information that it produces, can give some indication of significance of the different articles, some sort of significance flag, that that's going to be a help to the editors to understand the things that they might want to run in the paper or carry on the air.
There will be some indication from the science community itself regarding the level of significance of different findings, and we think because not many of them are trained in science, that will be an aid to them in making some of their decisions for column inches or minutes on the air.
Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Hartz, did you want to add something?
Mr. HARTZ. Yes. We did that, picking up on what Deborah said about the lack of knowledge in editors of science. We asked our respondents in the survey what their educational background was, and 6 percent of the editors had a degree in science. I'm not sure how that compares to the general population, but given the fact that we sort of define ourselves as a society of high technology and science, it just seemed to us to be pretty low on the people who were governing what we were reading and seeing.
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Mr. EHLERS. Yes, but higher than I had expected.
[Laughter.]
My time has expired. I next turn to the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I was just sitting here thinking I really do believe that the average American looks to the newspaper more so than the journals to get scientific information.
And scientists usually are thought of as being kind of arrogant or smug. It might be the inability to communicate well. How can the media help to cut through this? They have been described as often confused and gullible in this book, and I wonder if that's not even a putdown for the public.
Mr. CHAPPELL. The being confused and gullible, I think, is a result of this poor linkage between the scientists and the journalists. The things that end up coming out in the paper often appear to flip-flop on an issue.
Really, what's happening is the science process is progressing, knowledge is accumulating. The idea of the right explanation evolves with time, and that's really what's happening. It tends to look more like a seesaw going back and forth and the public says I don't know what to believe; I don't know whether to eat this or that, whether this is good or this is bad. It's a result of that process not working well.
We think that, from the scientist's point of view, we need to put more effort into being less smug or less arrogant and communicating in the right sort of language. From the journalist's point of view, we, as scientists, will be much more comfortable if we are interacting with a journalist whom we feel has some insight into the science process. Scientists really open up if they feel that they're talking to somebody that kind of understands what they are talking about, as opposed to just getting a blank look on the other side of the interview.
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So I think there are some things on both sides there that can make that better.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. One last question, Mr. Chairman. Often, if people get confused or disagree with something, the scientific aspect becomes bad science. Do you feel any responsibility as journalists and scientists to attempt to clarify—I'm not sure there is any bad science. It might be some incomplete investigations or whatever. How do you convey to the public the explanation, because once that phrase is out there, it's very hard to correct it.
Ms. BLUM. One of the problems in journalism—let me back up and say that science journalists used to be accused of being stenographers. They were very awestruck by scientists and a little bit afraid of them, and basically the image was that science journalists wrote down whatever a scientist said and spit it back to the public.
And, in particular, one of the things we've talked about is what we call the talking head problem. Scientist A says this, scientist B says that, with no sort of putting it in context and explaining what makes this valid science and where does it fit.
And I think we're getting better at that. I think we've done process really badly, so that we got the everything causes cancer kind of effect. People didn't understand the sort of evolving nature of the way science works, and they didn't understand how things built together.
I think that we need, as journalists, to be more comfortable and less afraid of scientists, so that we question them and do our interviews and do our homework the same way that we do with any other beat. Because I think there are two things there. One is you don't ask good questions unless you understand the science and do the homework. And you do establish—he is right—a comfort zone with scientists.
But the other thing is it's our job to make our readers or listeners or viewers comfortable with what they're reading about. And they need to relax into it and be able to use their own critical judgment. It is our responsibility then to put the information out there in a way that people don't just go, oh, this is too hard, I'm not smart enough, I can't do this, and use their own critical skills, because they are out there.
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I don't believe in writing down to the people I write for. I know they're smart enough to get it if I tell it the right way.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Next the gentlewoman from Maryland, Mrs. Morella.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a terrific panel. I congratulate you on putting them together, because I, as a nonscientist who is making scientific policy, I particularly appreciate what all of you said and the approach that you gave to it.
Just some random comments. In looking at this wonderful book that you collaborated on, Mr. Hartz and Mr. Chappell, I also was amused by some of the epithets, the quotations at the beginning of each chapter, and one of them ties in with what Ms. Johnson said about scientists shouldn't take themselves too seriously. It's like people in Congress. We shouldn't believe our own press releases. But it also said, get a life.
And I think that's important, because I think if you can be soft and open and understanding of laypeople who may not understand the intricacies of the microchip and the Y2K, all of that, then I think you can probably explain it far better.
Some other little comments. Science education for Members of Congress in terms of how to communicate, I think would be very helpful for all of us. I mean, with whatever our subject matter happens to be, if we could get maybe a few lessons on how do you try to communicate it, so the press understand us when we are trying to talk about it.
I think another thing that probably comes out from what you say is that we need to put a human face on what you are saying. Sometimes science writing for me is so dull that I will try to get through maybe the first two paragraphs and then they've lost me and I look then at the end to try to get a synopsis in some way.
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But if you can put a human face on it—and I think you do that, Dr. Billington, when you talked about Mark Twain and the steamboat. That's good teaching, too, to put it in a context so that we can identify, or as you did, Ms. Blum, in terms of telling about someone who had chemotherapy and suffered from it.
And incidentally, I'm glad that my alma mater, Boston University, has that course that you mentioned, and also the one in my State, University of Maryland, also teaches that. So two of them that are doing very well.
Dr. Zola, I represent the area that has the premier medical research facilities, National Institutes of Health and so many of the others. I also represent a community that has the largest number of animal rights groups, and so if you can teach me how to communicate so I can keep that balance of taking good care of animals while we still continue with research, it would be certainly very helpful. Because I consider myself an animal rights person, but I also consider myself someone who wants to move forward during this decade of the brain and beyond that with research.
I am reminded of a cartoon I saw, and I say this facetiously. Someone sent me a cartoon from the New Yorker, and it had a woman who was wearing a fur coat and it had some animal rights people who said, ''What died for you to have that coat?'' And she said, ''My aunt Minnie.''
[Laughter.]
But anyway, speaking of the human face, also in my District is the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Phillips. And I don't understand what he did really to get this Nobel Prize. I am very pleased for him and we honored him here at a Committee meeting. But he got a blackboard and he explained in elementary style for all of us who might not know on this Committee exactly what he had done. And that, to me, is communicating science. And he could take that into a kindergarten, as well as in Congress and we would all understand it.
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So I know that you all know each other very well and I value some of the comments that you have all made in your statements, and I will try to utilize some of it. But beyond this hearing, if there's anything more you should communicate this, I hope you will, because I think the subject is very important and I thank you very much.
Does anybody have any comments?
Mr. EHLERS. Dr. Billington.
Mr. BILLINGTON. I want to pick up on your human face comment, because it's a fundamental one, I think. I think that while we are talking here about science reporting, I would like to interject engineering reporting, and I think many of you sometimes mean that, too, but that's automatically stories.
I mean, the stories of engineering, because they have to involve politics and economics and other things right away. You can't deal with the stories properly if you don't. For example, in your State of Maryland, there is something that was probably not reported very much, and that is the new bridge that goes to the Naval Academy, the Naval Academy Bridge, which was the first engineering design competition held in this country in 100 years.
And it involved the Governor, Governor Schaefer, it involved a very spectacular bridge designer from Switzerland, it involved the chief bridge engineer of the State in a human conflict in a way, which was a fascinating story, which would have made a wonderful story. It was reported partly, a little bit. But I think now that kind of thing grabs people. I know it does. I know it grabs students, because they see right away the implications in the political realm. In their communities, people were concerned about this bridge and so forth.
And I think things like that, and the idea that The New York Times, when it first got founded in the middle of the 19th Century, it had a technology writer, Alexander Lyman Holley, one of the great engineers of the 19th Century, and he wrote regular columns on technology. And he got to science through that.
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In other words, the scientific principles came about, but going through the human face issues of Andrew Carnegie building big steel mills and so forth. And that kind of approach, I think, is a very important one and makes it accessible and gets to the science, as well as the engineering.
Mrs. MORELLA. It's like Bill Nye, the science guy.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. The gentlewoman's time has expired. I would just say in your comparison of Members of Congress speaking to the press compared to scientists, scientists have one big advantage. They generally don't face an antagonistic audience when speaking to the media.
[Laughter.]
Next we call upon the gentleman from Maryland, the second scientist on this Committee, Dr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. In another life, I had the privilege of teaching for 24 years in the science area, of doing basic research. I have about 100 papers in the literature. Some of those got into the third area that I had the privilege of working in. I was awarded 20 patents and had an opportunity to work in the engineering area. So I was very interested in your presentations.
One of the big deficiencies of our society, of course, is our inability to convey to the average citizen what science is, what engineering is, and how important it is. And that's reflected in the fact that of all of the major nations in the world, we commit a smaller percent of our GDP to basic research than any of our competitors. That will ultimately come back to haunt us, because if you're not developing the seed corn, you're not going to have the crop of engineering exploitation.
One of our big problems is—and I found out when I first came to the Congress 6 years ago, we were talking about directed basic research. And I said what is that? Well, that's basic research that's going to have a societal payoff. Well, my question was, how do you know what's going to have a societal payoff?
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And I wonder if one of the best ways to communicate to people how important basic research is is to point out to them basic researchers of bygone years who I'm sure had no notion of the societal payoff of their basic research. And you could add many more to this list, but I think of Pavlov and his research and how that's grown into an enormous field today. Madame Curie, I'm sure she had no notion of where her research would lead. And Watson and Crick, and they had no notion of where that would lead.
How do we convey to the American people and to the Congress that what we need to do is just have an adequate amount of money for basic research—and we do not—that supports an adequate number of basic researchers who are good, and we can be assured that there will be societal payoff and that it is totally impossible, before the research is done, to know where the societal payoff would be. How do we convey that to our people?
Mr. ZOLA. I could respond to that a bit. It's a very profound question, indeed. For all of us as scientists, for legislators, for people who are providing funding, it would be wonderful if funding could be allocated to just those payoff projects, and that we didn't have to fund other projects that may not have any immediate applicability.
But there actually are some ways, and in the course of trying to deal with this animal rights issue, one of the issues was this question about funding research that's basic research that may not be so clearly applicable. And the question is, why should we be doing that as opposed to doing research that's more focused, or funding research that's more focused?
One strategy is that people have actually looked at this issue in the following way. That is, if you take a very critical development, for example, cardiac bypass surgery, and you ask the question, what are the kinds of research components that have evolved that have allowed us to come to this very remarkable development now that is used in many thousands of cases in the United States each year that improves or benefits people's quality of life every year here in the United States, as well as in hundreds of thousands of cases around the world. This critical development, how did that come about?
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And one then can trace, actually, through scientific papers, critical stages that were used that eventually became important for the development of this particular kind of technique. And when one traces back through those papers and different discoveries, it turns out that often it's the case that those discoveries and those critical components had nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of clinical application, nothing whatsoever to do with anything that would ever have been dreamt about in terms of their eventual use.
And so that is the lesson. The lesson is that we cannot predict these things ahead of time. Science tells us over and over again that the beautiful orchestration of this process is that there are different instruments, different players in the orchestra. And they are carrying a tune at one point and somebody else is carrying a tune at another point and then it may come together in the coda at the end.
But we don't know in the end which is going to be the critical thing. And so we have to simply support good science. The question is for us to simply figure out good science and support that. The applicability is going to be less clear in some cases. In some cases, it's going to be more clear.
But the point is there is evidence at least that we know that process works and if we start filtering out, if we start focusing on certain things, it's probably not going to work well for us in the end.
Mr. CHAPPELL. Congressman, I might add to that. Your description of this challenge that you have in the Congress is just absolutely a critical thing, and you're right on top of exactly what the issue is.
I guess in my thinking about it, because one never knows in advance what the benefits are going to be, one has to drop back a step and just say history tells us that all of these benefits will come. It's also difficult to trace the economic impact of specific research because technology finds its way out. It's like roots growing under the surface of the soil. It gets into all sorts of things and it's used in all sorts of ways that nobody anticipated.
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So you have to drop back and say the Nation needs to believe that that's the case, and past history tells us that the return on the investment will be extremely high. And also, one could use some benchmarks and say America should invest a certain amount of its resources in challenging people to create things that have never been created before, to draw the best creative knowledge out of our best people, our scientists and our engineers, in the area, at least, of research.
And maybe use some benchmarks, for example, when we were investing very strongly as a Nation in the mid-1960's and we invested 12 percent of the money we spent every year in research and development, we led the world. We generated 95 percent of the new technology in the world.
Today, when we invest more like 6 percent total, we are not nearly as dominant in technology in the world. We still are a very high-tech Nation, but our competitors, as you point out, are coming up, coming up, coming up. So we can tell that there are some benchmarks someplace between a few percent and 10 percent or so that represent a range which will make us very dominant in the economic technology market or not. I think one has to try to build arguments around benchmarks and about doing things which draw out the absolute best creativity of our people.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Jackson Lee, are you prepared for a question or would you like a few minutes yet?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, what I will do, if I can make a few comments, and listen possibly to some questions, and then I would be prepared if I can use a portion of my time. Would that be appropriate?
Mr. EHLERS. Yes. You can make your comments now. We are beginning our second round of questions and I'd be happy to recognize you as soon as you are prepared.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I am in a markup in another Committee, and I thank you for holding this hearing. My interest in it is not reflected in the fact that I am in another markup. But I did want to add the importance of examining the challenges of effectively communicating topics of an increasingly technical nature to the American people.
I recall at the outset of the 105th Congress, the Speaker of the House requested that this Committee review our national science agenda and develop a new long-range science and technology policy. Our discussion today is to be used by the Committee in gathering that information.
I happen to represent quite a number of entities in Houston, Texas that deal both in technology, but as well, bioscience and a variety of ranges of science and technology. In particular, the University of Houston has a superconductivity lab, and it's interesting to try to communicate to the larger community the value of that lab or that experience and experimenting, and as well, what is occurring there.
I think this hearing in particular is a recognition of the fact that as technology continues to become more sophisticated, it becomes more difficult to disseminate scientific breakthroughs to the American people. This communication is imperative because we cannot fully realize the benefits of this new technology until the people who expect to use this technology understand it.
Finally, I'd simply like to say that we need to emphasize how we communicate to our children in primary and secondary education. And as we communicate to them, we'll become stronger in our advocates for science and the funding for science. One of the points I made to the Administrator of NASA that once the American public understands the kind of research that occurs in space, the International Space Station becomes viable and relevant to them.
So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this hearing and will offer maybe an additional question if time allows. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. We'll start the second round of questions at this point. I have two questions that I want to pose, but they are very closely related.
Dr. Billington, I know you've received some recognition for the course you teach, partly, I suppose, because it's not the type of course that's offered very often.
But secondly, I'm just wondering, have you tried to measure the results and the impact of that course on both your engineering students and the non-engineering students, not only during their academic career, but also what they do with the knowledge in that course after they graduate and leave.
And then the related question for Ms. Blum and Mr. Hartz after that is I'm interested in how you would compare your efforts to communicate with the public to Dr. Billington's effort to his students. Dr. Billington.
Mr. BILLINGTON. You're asking me, I think, if I'm able to measure some impact with the non-technical students and with the technical students.
Mr. EHLERS. That's correct.
Mr. BILLINGTON. The simple and honest answer is no. On the other hand, I have a lot of impressionistic responses. I mean, I get a lot of communication from former students who have seen something in the world that they wouldn't have seen otherwise, some object of technology, and they send it to me, send me pictures of it and things like that.
But I can't claim to have any real statistical study like that. I just know that the popularity of the courses have grown, and they grow by word of mouth from the previous students. So we have that kind of an indication.
Also, there are two courses, and they are gradually being used more or less in other schools around the country, and I am busy trying to write textbooks for them and those are being used. So there is some way of saying that there is a growing impact. But I can't give you a statistical reason for that.
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I think, as academics all know, the only thing that really measures your success is if the course enrollments stay up and if the course has some respect. In other words, not just a pure gut course. And I think that's happening. I mean, I know the enrollments are up, and I think it's not a pure gut course, because they have to do calculations which they don't always like to do right away.
Mr. EHLERS. I appreciate the impressionistic aspect of it, because I've had the same thing with my courses. In fact, it's amusing to run into former students and find out what they remember from the course.
In particular, I remember one demonstration I did every year, Newton's three laws of motion. The first law, of course, is if there is no force, an object at rest remains at rest and the object in motion remains in uniform straight line motion. Most of the emphasis is on the second point, but I always thought the first one was important because it relates to the everyday concept of inertia. To demonstrate that I always pulled the tablecloth out from under a table full of dishes.
That is one demonstration that virtually every student I encounter remember.
[Laughter.]
But I do have to say that the one time I broke a dish is eternally embedded in their minds.
[Laughter.]
None of those students forgot that one. Ms. Blum and then Dr.—Mr. Hartz.
Mr. HARTZ. People who keep calling me ''Dr.'' Hartz—I express my gratitude.
[Laughter.]
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What we do, Mr. Chairman, probably is not that much different from what Dr. Billington does. I think in journalism, we try to use examples, metaphor, analogy, historical illusions and so on to make our stories as interesting as possible. Certainly, as has been mentioned here a couple of times, we do try to put a face on it.
Something that occurred to me as we discussed this, wondering what we could do as journalists in this mixture. It seems to me that there are some examples that journalists could use in recent history in this country and in the history of reporting here that would help them out perhaps. I was thinking, in talking with some friends here on the Hill today, covering the Congress is not that much unlike covering science. It's a very complex place up here. Oftentimes very subtle changes among Members, taking into account constituents in various Districts, affects the larger picture. What we tend to focus on is the B-word—the ''breakthrough''—when you finally pass the bill, when it becomes law and how it affects people.
Similar in science, the scientists kept telling us don't concentrate on the B word, don't concentrate on the breakthrough—concentrate on these important details. The second area is—more recent and maybe more germane in a sense—is what the media had done in recent years with economics. It wasn't that many years ago that an average newspaper maybe had one person covering the business—the so-called business area. Most of them didn't have anybody who did that. Now, in the situation where people are taking more charge of their own economic affairs, especially with a large number of retired people who have quite a bit of disposable income, we've not only newspapers and TV stations around the country develop very good economic reporters, but entire television channels. Now they're on the air 24 hours a day dealing with this one subject—what happens in our economic world?
It would seem to me that there might be some lessons in that for the media in this country that these are both—as I mentioned Congress and economics—very complex issues that by spending the right amount of resources and assigning the right people to cover it, they've been able to interest the American people in those topics. I think the same thing could be done for science reporting if we just—it is more expensive, it's not as easy as covering red lights and yellow tape. It does take the time, it takes the commitment of an editor and someone like—and I don't mean to imply before there aren't very good—a large number of good science reporters in publications and television networks in this country to do a good job. But it takes a commitment that you don't see in a widespread fashion across this country today. Deborah.
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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. Ms. Blum.
Ms. BLUM. Yes, there aren't enough good science writers in the country. I don't think anyone denies that. Probably a paper from about 100,000 and up, you start getting someone dedicated to science and that's not enough. Let me say though—I want to talk about my experiences to be for just a minute, because that's a different audience I write for now. When I write for Psych Today, I write for a sort of self-selected science interested audience. When I write for the Sacramento Bee, I really wrote for people who weren't interested in science. This was the Central Valley of California. It was primarily people who are not interested in science. I really like that. How do you figure out how to connect people who have no interest in what you're writing about and have been put off by it all your life—their lives.
So my answer is going to be impressionistic, too. But I can tell you that I got a lot of phone calls. I got a lot of letters. There was one story I did out of Davis—I think I mentioned it in my testimony about an experiment at CERN involving a particle that they had tentatively called a lepto quark. I pulled out every analogy I could think of to make that story work—with building blocks and all. But I still got phone calls and letters. People—you'd be surprised the number of people out there who have their particle physics theory in their attics that they'd really like someone to read. So I know that people connected with those stories. I am also, as a science writer, trying not to take myself too seriously.
I wrote stories about how chickens lie. There's no application to that fact that male chickens lie to female chickens, right?
[Laughter.]
But it's an interesting story and it makes the world interesting. It makes people see that science is really about how fascinating things can be.
My final comment on did people connect is that a couple of years ago, I wrote a story that made people so mad that they picketed the paper. I considered that a career high. I thought I was the only science writer in the country who had gotten people to picket their newspaper. But clearly they read, they cared about it, and they came down. So I know that people read them and connect with them.
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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. My time has expired. Ms. Johnson, do you have any further questions?
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. I just have one question. Some of the major papers—the Dallas Morning News, the New York Times, Washington Post—have special pages or sections about once a week on scientific advances and all. Do you have any feedback on how well-read it is—those kinds of targeted features?
Ms. BLUM. Yes. I hang out with a lot of science writers and I should tell you that probably in the late 1980's to early 1990's, everyone had a science section. They didn't make any money. So the L.A. Times had one and folded it. I think the Chicago Tribune downsized—lots of people downsized. There's a few papers that just put their money into it and don't care that they don't make money. The fact that they don't get advertising is different from whether they're well-read or not. I think there's an extraordinary amount of readership, it's just that no one has been able to—newspapers or business—and no one has been able to figure well how to sell ads for those sections. So the fact that you don't see a lot of them doesn't reflect reader interest as much as it reflects lousy marketing, which still goes on.
The other thing I want to say really quickly is that I go back and forth on myself on science sections. Science sections take science and they compartmentalize it into one part of the paper. They say this is different than the rest of the world, you know. I go back and forth on whether they're good or bad, you know; do they shuffle science off to one side too much?
Mr. HARTZ. We got the same thing in our survey. The journalistic community was split just about down the middle on that issue. Whether to treat science as news—day-to-day news—which I think it is or whether to put it aside. One reporter told us well that's just one more section they can throw away before they read it.
[Laughter.]
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Sorry. But we did also have some indications that the science sections are well-read. The Tuesday edition of the New York Times, for example, which has the science section in it has the largest newsstand sales of any other day in the week. We were also told by people at Time and Newsweek that science covers sell very, very well. But again, people probably would have to go deeper into than we did, and Deborah is talking about how to find out this difference between readership and how that's translated into a profit for the organization.
Mr. CHAPPELL. I might just add to that. It's a bit of an anathema to me as to why with America having such a dominance of high-tech industry which certainly is involved in advertising their products and its—I don't understand why that can't connect with the media with the respect to advertising and relating the things that they do—the advertising that they do—to encourage public knowledge of science and technology. Not their particular thing, but just science and technology in general. Seems like there ought to be a resonance in there some place and it hasn't—it did surface in the case of the New York Times because they have a very substantial advertising with the computer industry in their science section. Well, they found a resonance there, but it would seem like to me that across the country we have so many high-tech industries that have substantial advertising budgets that one couldn't find some way to encourage or balance reporting and more things both in television and newspapers.
Mr. ZOLA. If I could just add one last comment. It's a little bit ironic, but it turns out in my view that one of the newspapers that covers science—in many ways the best and most frequently—turns out to be USA Today. They invariably, in the last section of their paper, have a science column at least 3 out of 5 days of the week, there's some science discovery that has a significant column of space in USA Today. They do it in a soundbit way—I mean, they're doing it in a sense of what we're talking about—of communicating the essence of it to the public right there in the middle of everything. It's not set aside as a separate section. It's there all the time. That's the source of my scientific information from now on is the USA Today. That's where I get all of my scientific information.
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[Laughter.]
Well, it turns out—I mean, I jest about it—but it actually, I'm surprised at how consistent they are and how actually not bad their reporting is. They have been able to put it together in a very short soundbite way that gives people an essence of what it is. You often hear on the talk shows later in the day—the talk show host are using as a topic one of these things that has come up in USA Today. So we—somebody might want to be looking at that a little bit more.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentleman's time has expired. I would just ask is there a USA Today reporter here?
[Laughter.]
Sounds to me those quotes could be a front-page story.
[Laughter.]
Next, Ms. Morella, do you have a second question?
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The concept is simplify—simplify. I think it's probably awfully hard for all of you to do that because you are scientists and you get so absorbed. It's like we recently had hearings and had legislation just yesterday on fastener quality. Someone said to me I always thought fasteners were like snaps and hooks. Yet the fasteners, you know, when you explain it and simplify it, are what hold the planes together, and the automobiles, and they're the screws and the bolts and the nuts. So I think that's what the USA Today does. It simplifies and it makes it personal to us. We can see the relationship. Whether it's basic science and its long-range connection between the space exploration and breast cancer, quality of precision—whatever it my be. I almost think that in our schools—we always seem to get back to education—I want to get your comment on it. But it seems in our schools when we are teaching science—and I commend the National Science Foundation for the grants they give to schools to help teachers teach it better—but there should be a integration between the English and the science. Maybe the science and another subject. That way these kids can learn they can integrate, they can be writing and learning how to write at the same time when they intersperse the excitement. Does that make sense? That whole concept of working together. Anyone want to comment on that?
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Mr. CHAPPELL. I might decide to. In a small way, that's connected to what we're trying to do in this interdisciplinary course of study at the college level. Where we want to take kids who have skills all across the board and who have integrated their understanding of the world around them and the ability to communicate it and feature that all the way through graduate school. So that we don't force them to go choose one or the other—choose to be a scientist or not—but to develop all of those skills and develop them in an integrated way so that they upgrade what they understand about science and math. But they do it in the context of being able to communicate it. I think that's a tremendously valuable thing to do. Beginning at the—in doing that within the K–12 level is an important—very important thing, as you suggest.
We had a passionate voicemail—it must have been a 15-minute voicemail—after we did one of our panels discussing science and technology that, or communicating it, that C-SPAN carried. It was from a teacher in Merced, California—a science teacher—who said if we can just—she just went on and on—if we can get the media to portray enough science effectively, then our kids will be interested in science when they come to school. They will have heard about it. They will have seen it on television. If they have those interests and innate abilities, they'll begin to sparkle before we have to—before we as teachers get hold of them and try to define those abilities. So she really was tremendously strong on the role that the media can play in stimulating our children to be interested in science outside of the school regime.
Mrs. MORELLA. I would agree. I would think that starting earlier would be very effective. Dr. Billington?
Mr. BILLINGTON. Thank you. Engineer over here. I wanted to stress the fact that you talk about interdisciplinary courses and you're talking about connecting together things. The fact that that is—I have lived through—now I'm usually on panels where I'm the oldest person, so I'm not embarrassed anymore about that—but I have lived through several funding cycles of government agencies funding interdisciplinary work starting in the 1960's and watched how it turned out. I've come to the conclusion that all interdisciplinary studies, from our perspective, really require some very serious scholarships. Just pulling things together doesn't work for courses—they don't last. That means that—we were talking earlier about history—about the history of innovation, the history of scientific development and its relationship to innovation, and those things are really the matters of scholarships that should be taken up more seriously in universities. Because there's a lot of thought—there's a lot of talk about whether you can predict what science is going to give you for society's benefits or whether you can predict it. History doesn't—is not a predictive tool at all—but it does give you wisdom and that's very important.
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But I think that the—this connection is, again, comes back to the fact that you get your stories automatically out of engineering. I know the term science is used often to include engineering, but it really is important to emphasize that there is a real difference here. If you start with engineering, you start with the object that people are already familiar with—the automobile, the airplane, and things like that. You—first of all, you have their interest, I believe. Secondly, you can always get to the science that way. You have to get to the science because it's always in there. It makes it, I think, a very crucial way—and so I'm now talking to journalists—a crucial way to get stories across.
Another thing is, for instance, in the New York Times, there's awful lot of really good technology writing that just is almost there in the business section. When they talk about these big companies merging, they talk about new developments—of course, they're thinking in terms of the stock market—but they get very close to describing what's really going on. They don't have to go much further to make it really interesting from a science and engineering point of view. So I think that's another area where the journalists can make a big contribution that's already there in addition to what they've already said.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do have a question for Mr. Hartz. It's good to see you again. I'm used to seeing you on the Today Show, and Ms. Blum. I refer them to two very—sort of entertaining series that we had, the Pathfinder and the landing of the Sojourner, and what I thought was very unique, by the press capturing the team, its personalities. I mean, I think we saw them clapping. You got to see these young, bright, energetic individuals. I think it made the country very proud. I'd like you to comment on those kinds of theatrics, if you will. Whether or not we, who are advocates of science—and certainly the professionals who certainly are more knowledgeable—need to really work on doing that or actually have someone who is scientifically-based, but focuses on the theatrics and then comment as well at the parallel. The series of Apollo 13 and other types of—I think, the Tom—getting ready to say Tom Hanks—the series that's going on now—does that do what we want it to do? Do we need to do more of that, of course, with information?
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I recall growing up on the whole astronaut's aura. A lot of kids grew up saying that's what they wanted to be. Now to be that—there are physicians, engineers, and various other science professionals—does that help? Just your professional comments—both Ms. Blum and Mr. Hartz.
Ms. BLUM. I'm a big believer in putting a human face on science. For one thing, science isn't a great, blank, boring model. When you get in and you draw up the individual personalities and you let people see them, it allows them in and it allows them to see that this is people like them. It's not something separate. Also, it allows you tell technical stories that you might not be able to tell. If you can build them around a personality—or a controversy, or just someone who's really excited about their work—you sort of sneak the technical details in without people realizing that they're being educated. So I believe in all of those things. But I think there's a mosaic effect in covering science and engineering. We use everything that's available to tell a story well and that's one way to do it.
Mr. HARTZ. We quoted another science writer in our book extensively. We had a very—he's almost retired now—had a very distinguished career and he said his career really took off several years ago when he stopped using the word science in his stories. Because it does turn certain people off. I'm not sure why—and I'm not sure why it's sort of sheik to be turned off by these things these days—maybe that will change. But Deborah's right, there's a way to sneak some of this stuff in. I think a lot of it was sneaked in in the Pathfinder story. I thought, in my own mind, this was going to get a lot of attention. Certainly the timing was proper on July 4th. Rick and I were—Dr. Chappell—were particularly pleased because we had been railing to some friends of ours that it drove Roswell, New Mexico UFO story off the front page and off the television. If you recall, everybody had been out there doing the UFOs. Don't get me wrong, if we ever have a real UFO, it's going to be the greatest science story in history.
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[Laughter.]
It's just that I don't think we've had it yet. I'm not sure that any reasonable person believes we have. But the Pathfinder was a wonderful story. It had several angles to it that we thought were worthy of comment, which we did in our book. For example, NASA had anticipated the interest in this and had setup what I think was a wonderful website which to-date has had almost a billion hits. Nobody is even close to the number of hits they've had on the site looking at the little surveyor—Rover on Mars. Now I'm sure that the interest is building on the global surveyor that's in orbit.
That builds interest, especially among younger people who are users of the Internet I think now, although us older people like it as well. The Tom Hanks series that you mentioned on HBO on the moon flights, I give them excellent marks. One of the things that I was privileged to do in another part of my career was to cover Apollo. Thank you for your comments from Houston, and from the Cape, and any other parts of the country in the world. I think they've done a pretty good job of capturing what it was like to be alive and to be there during that period. I think that's excellent for younger people who didn't get a chance to see it and to live through it. Also for a lot of other folks, it's difficult to remember now it's 30 years later. All that came at very difficult time in our history when we were fighting the Vietnam war and there was a lot of division in the country, and a lot of attention paid to that. Here we were carrying out this incredible—and I will grant that Apollo program was probably more engineering than it was science program. Yet a lot of people missed it because there was this distraction of the perfectly legitimate concerns about the Vietnam War.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. So it's not a violation to add theatrics if we are conveying a message. I found it a very attractive tool.
Mr. HARTZ. I was pleased as punch to see those young people out there at the jet propulsion laboratory whooping and hollering. Because I saw that on the inside of Apollo and other things and it never got on the air because we were a very different kind of reporters, I think, in those days. There was a lot—there is excitement to it and I think it ought to show.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for your indulgence, too. You mentioned that because the moon series that Tom Hanks has does show in the movie—the jumping and the slapping five. I think it humanizes it and I hope maybe we can sort of do more of that.
Mr. HARTZ. It was there.
Mr. EHLERS. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Just a brief note. I, unfortunately, have another meeting I have to go to. So I will be taking my leave. Dr. Bartlett has more questions. I will turn the gavel over to him in a moment. But before I leave, I want to thank everyone for their attendance—members of the Committee, particularly the panel of witnesses. You've been very enlightening and I really deeply appreciate you taking the time to come here. It's been very beneficial for us and, of course, this goes into the record and is helpful to the entire Congress. Also thank all those who've attended. I apologize that I do have to leave. Thank you again for coming and I will turn the chair over to Dr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT [presiding]. Thank you very much. Your focus addresses a major challenge that we have today in the Congress and in our country. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, I spent 8 years working for IBM. We knew that we, at IBM, and our country was probably going to lose its superiority in computers to Japan, for a very simple reason: Every year the Japanese turned out more and better scientists, mathematicians and engineers than we were turning out.
That obviously affects our economic competitiveness. Ultimately, it will affect our national security because we cannot continue to be the world's premiere military power unless we turn out more, better scientists, mathematicians and engineers than anyone else in the world.
So your focus on this communication, this education is very important in capturing the imagination of our people and inspiring our young people to go into these types of careers. One of the areas that we need to address is to give people an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. Several terms were used in referring to scientists—they were confused and gullible. Many people think that we are indecisive and uncertain. That's because when a scientist is called as a witness in a trial, for instance, he never can say—he or she can never say of a certainty. We do not live in a black-and-white world. People do not understand that what scientists do is to have a—is testing a concept and you go into the laboratory to test this hypothesis. You have a certain statistical basis for not rejecting the hypothesis.
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You can if you're a true scientist never be 100 percent certain unless you have run all the tests that the world could ever run, that you are—that this is, in fact, a fact. Do you think that the fact scientists are misunderstood and perhaps intimidated because people do not understand the scientific principle? Could one of the reasons that you found 74 percent of the people in your survey who felt that scientists often do not speak out on news coverage that is biased or inaccurate. Why do we just stand by while these things go on?
Ms. CHAPPELL. I guess my thought would be that the interface between the scientist and the journalist starts off with a—sort of an uncertainty—or not a complete confidence on the part of the scientist that the story will make it through in the correct way. There tends to be then a tendency for the journalist not to give the scientist a chance to look at the draft and there's—of the story prior to its publication—there are reasons for that, for sure. On sort of a discussion, I think, within the journalism side about whether that's a good or bad thing to do.
So the scientist sort of gives the interview and holds his or her breath and hopes that the story will come out fairly close to correct. If it doesn't, I think many would be convinced that a letter to the editor expressing concern about the inaccuracy might not see the light of day. They'd probably make a tradeoff that it's just not worth trying to follow-up. Now I don't have—we didn't specifically ask why on that question about following up, but that would be my guess at why. So if you'd——
Mr. ZOLA. I might say that we have, unfortunately, a rather cynical and pessimistic view of this and that is—that's just the way reporters are. For many of us as scientists, we actually don't have an expectation—don't have a very high expectation—unless it's somebody that we know and trust, but that's rarely the case. It's the local reporter who's assigned to the story and that person may or may not have a lot of expertise in the area of science. But we've simply come to recognize that that's the nature of the beast—as we refer to it. If you want to deal with the media, then that's the kind of chance you're taking, is that it may not come out that way. Nobody—at least my colleagues—don't necessarily feel very compelled to respond because we just think of it as being that kind. Now that's unfortunate; that is really unfortunate. I'm more impressed about how unfortunate it is, as I've heard today. So I think it's the fault of both the scientist and the media in that regard about this perception on either side.
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Ms. BLUM. As covering science becomes more of a beat, and you have sort of lifers like me in the journalism sides of it, then you get long-term relationships in which you do have that give and take. So I think from our end that's clearly something to encourage. To defend the media, however—yes, we turnaround a lot of information everyday, very rapidly and most of it is right. Most of it actually—and scientists aren't the only ones who don't come and ask for corrections. We have that relationship with everyone; no one likes what we do, right? So I think we live in that kind of a framework. We can always do it better—the give and take is important but science isn't the only profession out there that has that problem with the media, that's generic.
Ms. CHAPPELL. There is a perception that you shouldn't challenge people who buy ink by the barrel.
[Laughter.]
You know, it seems, it appears to many people as jousting with windmills and ultimately you're going to lose anyhow. You know, you had that feeling in science and you have that feeling in Congress, I might add.
Ms. BLUM. You know, we don't like to make mistakes. I would rather someone call me up and said you got that wrong so that if nothing else, unless next time I did the story, it was right. I mean, believe it or not, we're fairly receptive to people calling us and saying you screwed that up. I wish more clients——
Mr. BARTLETT. I want to thank you all very much. This was a very important hearing. It will be a part of the record. It is a major challenge—as I stated. We are of the industrialized nations lagging well behind in a commitment—of a meaningful commitment of our Gross Domestic Product—to basic research. We have got to turn that around or ultimately we will cease being the world's premiere science and technology nation. We will cease being the world's premiere superpower. So you know your effort is perhaps more important than you thought it was when you came to our hearing today. This is one of the major challenges which faces our society today in this era of balanced budgets. It is very easy to make short-shrift of supporting basic research and engineering. Of course, one feeds on the other and if you don't have the basic research today, you won't have the engineering applications tomorrow. So thank you all very much for your testimony and thank you for the contribution you're making to our society.
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The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]