Science Communications Article

I was sitting in the front row, on the left side of the lecture hall, and it should have been a great seat. I did end up thinking a fair bit about seats.

I had every reason to believe the scientist I came to see was an interesting person. But I did not see that side. I saw the back side. The back of his shirt had an unusual crease, maybe he had taken a nap beforehand. The belt missed a loop. Did he get dressed in a hurry? It was hard to get into the talk, never mind hear him clearly. His back was turned to me for the whole talk, except for a quick shoulder check on two generous occasions.

So those shoulder checks got my attention. Was he acknowledging us on this side of the room? Or was he validating the room had two halves? There have been cuts at universities, after all.

It is not an understatement to say this scientist was acting as though the slide deck was the audience – pointing to it, walking toward it, speaking to it, laughing with it. 

But can a slide deck laugh back? Can a slide deck get into the riddles you are trying to solve? I am genuinely interested in this stuff and would love to hear your stories. 

Show yourself, dear scientist, and I will be here for you. We the audience came to meet you, to hear you, to see the fronts and sides of you, not your back and not your slide deck (which is another topic altogether)!

I came to this talk to get a glimpse into your world. The world of the very small, through electron microscopes, or the world of the vast, through telescopes, or the world so complex that only data can make sense of it. I can’t visualize these worlds, and I need a guide.

I would love for my guide to have a personality, heaven forbid, even make mistakes, with a sense of humour. Good golly, imagine if you could reveal concerns, the labours involved in being a scientist, life in the field and lab, your efforts to make people laugh, filled with stories and unexpected observations. There’s colour in your world. Are you keeping this from me because you think it is not interesting? Quite the opposite.

Scientists are taught to have sharp critical skills. I often wonder if this culture of critique is one of the reasons scientists are compelled to build overly detailed slide decks, impenetrable like a shield. No human being here!

But the human being is what changes lives. An accomplished physicist once told me about a single decisive moment that sparked her passion for astronomy. She was in her living room, not even 10 years old, watching a documentary about a team of astronomers hiking up to an observatory. At a rest break, one of the scientists was showing what she had in her backpack, and it included sandwiches. The young girl watching thought, “Sandwiches? I can do that.” And in that moment, a world of possibility opened up for her, all because of a small relatable detail. 

Showing something of your everyday life as a scientist can literally change lives. There is no need to put your slide deck centre stage. In fact, have you ever noticed that the strongest public speakers do not have a slide deck at all? Yes, this takes a lot of skill and experience. And it could be you. Because you are much more interesting than your slide deck.