Comment by graemep
3 days ago
I think the benefits greatly outweigh any dangers. I far prefer to read something like this than something written up by a journalist.
> I acknowledge that not everyone involved in science has or wishes to acquire the skills needed to write blog-form content.
They should. If your research is publicly funded you should make it as available to be public as possible. Academics should be able to communicate, and I very much doubt they are unable to acquire the skills
> I'd also be worried about a world where researchers are evaluated based on the virality of their blog posts, vs. how impactful their work was
Given how bad the measures of impact and the distorted incentives this produces I am not even sure this would even be a bad thing.
If nothing else it improves transparency about what they are doing, again with public money.
>They should. If your research is publicly funded you should make it as available to be public as possible. Academics should be able to communicate, and I very much doubt they are unable to acquire the skills
So in addition to being:
-professional researchers
-professional teachers
-professional project managers
-professional budget specialists
-professional scientific writers
-a failed idea away from losing it all
They should also become:
-professional PR managers
-professional popular writers
While still being paid (poorly) for a single job of all of these.
We have similar demands for folks in other professions. I know software engineers who are still coding day to day who also have to manage team budgets and track hours/projects, write patents, write blog posts to make the company look good, mentor juniors, sometimes teach internally or even to external audiences, present at conferences, etc.
They should not being doing a lot your first list, and should have specialist help available for some of the rest.
I am not suggesting they become PR managers, and the writing skills I am suggesting they acquire is simply that required to do things like blogging. I am not suggesting they achieve the standards a professional writer would have, just the ability to write clearly and make the effort to do so.
Academics should be highly skilled people.
In fact a lot of the problem is not they cannot do it, but of distribution. A lot of universities to have academic blogs and subsites about departments and individuals research. Its not anything like as visible as the journalists write ups about it
Yes, in a perfect world there would be professionals doing this instead of putting it all on the academic.
However, we live in an imperfect world. When people say "should" in these contexts, they're not describing some ideal way the world works. They're prescribing actions that are realistic based on the current system we live in.
The world sucks. It's more useful to work with the small amount of control one has, than to do nothing because the action doesn't solve a wider systemic problem.
yes
> They should. If your research is publicly funded you should make it as available to be public as possible.
The public can access it by becoming subject matter experts. If the government or the public to which it is responsible requires a popsci treatment they can pay other people with this skill set.
I don't doubt having this skill set is useful I merely disclaim any sort of obligation on the part of the scientific staff to possess or exercise such a skill.