So, engaging scientists in physics and chemistry, or in computer science and engineering, was challenging — especially for a medical doctor trained rather narrowly in molecular and cellular biology. My goal was simply to open a conversation and possibly a collaboration with physicists, not to become one. As a relatively small institution with a distinguished faculty in both the physical sciences and engineering, UCSB was, I felt, an ideal place to wade into this territory.
Over the ensuing decade, this risky move has resulted in my sharing many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with computer-science, engineering, physics and chemistry faculty members. These collaborations have greatly broadened the science in all my publications. I devised a few simple rules to help the biologist in me to cross the divide between the life and physical sciences. In learning to talk to physicists, I discovered that I can communicate better with everyone and clarify for myself what I do and do not understand in my own field.
For example, a biologist understands gene transcription by identifying specific transcription factors, their binding sites, the role of RNA polymerase and the genes that get activated.
For the physicist, these crucial facets of transcription — specific gene names and binding sites — are extraneous details. Instead, among the questions they consider important are the probability distributions associated with attracting transcription complexes to specific sites and the quantification of the forces involved in this process.
Clearly, questions of this nature are of keen interest to biologists once we sidestep our love affair with our favourite gene. In my experience, when physicists ask a biology question, they want to apply the thinking of physics to biology; specifically, they are searching for universal, mathematical explanations.
Physicists move away from settled questions. In biology, much less seems settled. Emphasizing what you know is less interesting than saying what you need to learn. Many of the missing pieces in biology are quantitative details, such as the absolute copy numbers of a protein or an RNA in a single cell that kinetically mediates some function, and how the cell keeps track of so many regulatory dials.
Do cells perform regular maintenance on a parts-replacement calendar, as is done for aeroplanes, or is damage the only trigger for replacing parts? Does damage tend to occur according to a clock? Identifying these unknowns in biology is more stimulating than recounting textbook-level information.
I have found that physicists often display a false modesty regarding their knowledge of biology. A physicist will say biology is much more difficult than physics because there is a lot to memorize. They might say: you know an encyclopaedia of detail, and all I know are a few equations.
This lack is the Achilles heel of biology, and affects even the concepts we use every day. It is a rare biologist who can explain the negative binomial used in RNA sequencing, parameterize organelle shape and distance scales when assessing active transport and diffusion, or interpret the phase diagrams that correspond to biomolecular condensates — a surging interest in biology. Deep computational knowledge is a huge asset for biologists, but many have not had the opportunity to hone these skills or even be introduced to them.
In my experience, opening a conversation and sharing students with physical scientists is step one towards bridging this gap. In discussing their own work, physicists will often reach for a formula. After they write the equation and stare at it as if pondering a Mark Rothko painting, they might proffer an explanation.
Surprisingly, there is no difference in science outreach efforts between those who have children and those who do not 66 percent vs. Further, there is no significant difference between scientists with children under age 5 i. Rather, the relationship between science outreach involvement and parental status is split along gender lines. Eighty-one percent of women with children do outreach, as compared to 66 percent of women without children. For men, 50 percent with children do science outreach while 37 percent of men without children are involved.
By discipline, biologists with or without children have comparable levels of outreach participation 54 percent and 48 percent, respectively. Physicists have a much sharper distinction; 82 percent of physicists with children are engaged in outreach as opposed to just 56 percent of those without children. A plurality of scientists who are involved in science outreach are engaged in some type of outreach that involves school-aged children 32 percent of respondents. The majority of these efforts focus on giving presentations to either elementary school or high school students.
Bringing students into their own labs is another way that scientists engage in science outreach efforts although these tend to be undergraduates who are involved in their labs. For example, only a handful 4 percent of those involved in outreach have high school students working in their labs.
A few respondents are involved in classrooms in another way, by working with primary and secondary teachers to develop better practices for teaching science to a younger audience 3 percent. About 21 percent of respondents engage in science outreach efforts that target the general public, via activities such as giving public lectures or writing science books for non-specialists. Another 6 percent aim their outreach at another specific group, such as those in the private investment sector.
Seventy-four percent of respondents list one or more significant impediments to their ability to do science outreach, yet less than half have concrete ideas for how science outreach could be improved.
For the less than 10 percent of respondents who want to dedicate their career to science outreach, most report facing significant disapproval of this choice while completing their academic training during graduate school or a postdoctoral fellowship. The best way you can do it is to keep your mouth shut and keep going until you finish.
The barriers to science outreach are generally attributed to one or more of the three elements that shape science outreach: scientists, the academy, and the public. Thirty-seven percent of respondents place the blame for poor science outreach efforts on scientists themselves.
Twenty-nine percent of all respondents say that scientists are poor interpersonal communicators or that nonscientists perceive them to be uniformly inept at communication, regardless of their actual abilities. Another 5 percent say that scientists are not interested in doing outreach because they do not see it as part of their role as a scientist; these scientists believe that it is not their job to interpret their work for a broader audience.
Examples given include a university outreach organizer or an outside outreach organization. Many believe that scientists are simply not the appropriate people to teach those outside the scientific community about science. The debate centers on whether it is more important for the public to receive information directly from a scientist who is doing academic research or from a third party who is informed by the academic scientist and who may be a more effective communicator than the scientist.
About 31 percent of scientists interviewed think the academy is at fault for poor science outreach. According to these scientists, in a research university system that seems to value research productivity over all else, institutions do not train scientists to do outreach.
Prioritizing research and publications leaves scientists feeling that they have little time to engage in activities that are not directly connected to their academic pursuits. And a lack of outreach program infrastructure and few easy-to-locate opportunities make actually following through with outreach efforts both time and labor intensive for scientists.
Scientists also perceive that they are rewarded little for science outreach work, especially in the tenure process. A theme voiced by 19 percent of respondents in their suggestions for improving outreach activities is that scientists need recognition and respect in the academy for their outreach efforts if they are to pursue these activities. Some respondents suggested that the academy as a whole needs to reevaluate its values if it wants to continue to receive funding from an increasingly skeptical public and private investment sector.
This particular example shows that there was some difference between physicists and biologists in the necessity of outreach to their discipline, with physicists seeing convincing the public of the legitimacy of their research as perhaps central to research funding for physics.
Some respondents not only view outreach as a misuse of time that could be better spent on research, but believe it to even be detrimental to career advancement or prestige. I think that popularizers are really important, and being able to explain stuff to the public is really important.
Views on the status of the popular scientist are mixed, because even as some respondents denounced Sagan, several respondents cited the need for a new figurehead who could lead nationwide outreach efforts. Roughly a quarter of respondents suggest that a central barrier to effective science outreach is the public itself. Of those who mention characteristics of the public as an impediment, 70 percent express a perception of public ignorance, while 30 percent blame a disinterest in science.
Scientists have the perception that a widespread lack of scientific knowledge among the general public is a difficulty in communicating advanced scientific discoveries beyond the borders of the academic science community. This view fits the deficit model of science communication, where scientists view their role in outreach as mainly to fill a void in knowledge among members of the general public. However, some scientists feel widespread disinterest in science and mistrust of scientists is a more pressing issue than a lack of science knowledge among the public.
They believe that the public is simply apathetic or even opposed to learning about science and the scientific process, meaning that outreach efforts will have little impact. Respondents expressed concern about both public ignorance of and disinterest in science, but felt that only issues of public ignorance could be remedied. Scientists argued that encouraging the public to be excited about science might even be a hopeless prospect.
With visions of remedying at least some of the scientific illiteracy that they see as paralyzing the public, however, 8 percent of respondents reiterated the necessity of improving pre-college science education. They place the burden of this work not on the public school system or individual campuses, but instead on scientist themselves, who must make more of an effort to connect with school-aged students.
It seems to me that would be a pretty effective way to reach a lot of people. Additionally, 10 percent of respondents mention technical language barriers.
A central finding of this research is that, among biologists and physicists at top research universities included in this study, women are much more involved in outreach than men. One interpretation of this finding is that, as the number of women in academic science increases, science outreach may increase. A corresponding interpretation is that scientists may have the perception that outreach is a more feminine, care-oriented task, which may further decrease the legitimacy of this pursuit.
And unless science outreach efforts increase in legitimacy at top research universities the academic careers of the women who engage in outreach work may actually be hindered. Though her work lies in the field of biochemistry, she says her methods are rooted in both physics and chemistry.
Physics helps us improve these techniques. Shu-ou Shan, Altair Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, sees quantitative modeling as part of the mindset of a biophysicist. One of her areas of research focuses on how proteins in cells are sorted to the proper locations as well as folded into the correct 3-D structures.
Photo: Max Gerber. Biophysics is also not the primary field in which Michael Elowitz , professor of biology and bioengineering at Caltech, works.
But, he says, his experiences with the principles of physics have given him a taste for a different type of questioning. Elowitz and his lab use this approach to create and study synthetic cellular systems. To find out, they designed a synthetic gene circuit in living cells based on mathematical models and inspired by aspects of natural cell-fate control circuits. The synthetic system establishes multiple stable cell fates and allows researchers to switch a cell from one fate to another.
Elowitz says the approach of building biological systems as a means to understand them takes inspiration from a quote, often cited in the field of synthetic biology, by the late Caltech physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. Michael Elowitz, professor of biology and bioengineering at Caltech, seeks to identify the underlying principles behind biological systems.
Photo: Jon Nalick. Today, a strong current of biophysics runs through the Institute, crossing numerous divisions and sparking collaborations among a wide range of scientists. Photo: Caltech Archives. Back SoCaltech SoCaltech.
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