The many NYSTEM public meetings, and the presentations given during them, are important for public discourse and the most up to date education about the hopes for stem cell research in public health.
As can be seen via its public meetings,the NYSTEM endeavor moves away from any popularizing of stem cell science --which has at times occurred in the past when interdisciplinary policy/decision makers have met together to develop public policy in this new area of scientific research. Why not use a 'popular science" approach to communicate about it in the context of public policy? One consideration follows.
From “The Philosophy of Science, An Introduction” by Stephen Toulmin, page 11, paragraph 1.2, “Popular physics and the layman”.
…there is no doubt that authentic science is being discussed [in books on popular science], but the terms in which it is presented are not as explanatory as they first seem. There is a tendency for the writer in this field to tell us only about the models and conceptions employed in a novel theory, instead of first giving us a firm anchor in the facts which the theory explains, and afterwards showing us in what manner the theory fits these facts. The best the layman can then hope for is a misleadingly unbalanced picture of the theory…
[T]he whole reason for accepting the atomic model is that it helps us to explain things we could not explain before. Cut off from these phenomena, the model can only mislead, raising unreal and needless fears about what will happen…the same goes for the pretty pictures which captured our imaginations: pictures of the electrons in an atom as like bees in a cathedral, the picture of the brain as a telephone exchange and the rest…
… a mode of expression which to the outsider is self-contradictory points to something the laymen needs to be told about the language of physical theories. When a theory is developed , all kinds of phrases which in ordinary life are devoid of meaning are given a use, many familiar terms acquire fresh meanings, and a variety of new terms is introduced to serve the purposes of the theory. ..[T]his has its consequences when a scientist comes to explain some new theory to the layman. For then he may unwittingly use in his exposition terms and a turn of phrase which can be understood properly only by someone already familiar with the theory….So also in popular sciences: the layman is not just ignorant of the theories of science, but also unequipped to understand the terms in which a scientist will naturally begin to explain them…
For the words of scientist are not always what they seem and may be misleading taken out of context. As Einstein has said, “If you want to find out anything from the theoretical physicists about the methods they use, I advise you to stick closely to one principle: don’t listen to their words ,fix your attention on their deeds.
And to that end, I’d like to highlight Dr. Silverstein's interesting presentation given at the last NYSTEM meeting about the role of education in the life sciences. (see archived webcast)
My editorial: Going to a lab, doing the work scientists do, studying AND then solving the problems, is one of the best ways to test your knowledge of the science. And with support, anyone can do it to some extent. And, the appreciation deepens the more time you can spend "doing" the science in the lab and solving the problems it asks.
The other presentation made at the last NYSTEM meeting was also an important building block for public knowledge--more about it in post #2 and some ideas on building scientific knowledge.
(1)http://stemcell.ny.gov/events_full_board_meetings.html
"Secondary School Initiatives" presentation Samuel Silverstein, M.D.
Harper Torchbooks 1960 (first published in 1953- a very readable 170pp.
Its contents- Discovery, Laws of Nature, Theories and Maps, Uniformity and Determinism
Since this book was published in 1953, where was Toulmin's particular thinking coming from? He recommended articles in “The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science” and the “Bulletin of the American Museum for Natural History” …and from 1945 Prof. Popper’s writing in the Rationalist Annual 1949. And his suggested reading leads us to “Classical” sources, Galileo (1632), Newton (1687), Locke (1690), Hume (1739) and Kant (1781). “Modern” sources include among others Mill (1843), Poincare (1902). Toulmin’s “Introductory” readings reach back to 1921- Norman Campbell, 1946- Max Black—the then most recent, Max Planck 1948.
Perhaps the nub of the difficulty in this, that the popularizer has a double aim. For the layman wants to be told about the theories of the sciences in language he can understand, and he also wants to be told about them briefly, “in a nutshell”. These two demands are bound in practice to conflict. For a major virtue of the language of the sciences is its conciseness. If the popularizer is to explain a theory in everyday terms, and at the same time put it in a nutshell, something must be sacrificed: usually the logical asides are the first things to go, and drastic cuts follow in the account of the phenomena the theory is employed to explain. Once this has happened the laymen is given no real entrance to the subject…
His concluding sentence:
Physical scientists do not adopt their models and terminology for nothing and greater conciseness of expression is one of the important advantages they aim at. But it imposes on the popularizer a duty which he is often tempted to ignore—to remember that theories draw their life from the phenomena they are used to explain, and to make sure that, in squeezing his account into a nutshell, he does not sacrifice first what he should retain until the very last: an adequate account of the physical phenonmena in question, and of the manner in which the models used in the theory help the physicist to make sense of them.