The four articles all focus on the issue of communicating science. It has been found (by Nisbet and Mooney) that laypeople do not have the background necessary in forming educated opinions on topics of scientific interest. In fact, what people tend to do is pick news sources that concur with their system of belief and only pay attention to information that is relevant to their daily lives. This creates a challenge for scientists in communicating information to the public. They need to be aware of not only what is supported by testing and theory, but in the best way to frame it for consumption by the general public. There is still work to be done in figuring out how to do this, and as Reddy points out, public outreach is not a significant facet of the academic tenure process.

I think we need more exhibits such as Dark Universe which combines visual and aural elements to educate the public about a topic that not even PhDs know very much about. In addition, advanced concepts and ideas should be introduced early on in the academic career so that all laypeople have a basic idea of such things as climate change or evolution. I believe introducing programming into the curriculum will allow us to see how certain ideas follow directly from easily acceptable postulates, as is the case for evolution.

The hardest part would be to try and reduce the effect that cultural identity has on assimilation of and belief in scientific ideas. This seems to clash with the notion of indigenous knowledge, which we have established is important within the framework of informal science learning; for indigenous knowledge is inherently a part of one’s cultural identity. Depending on what scientists wish to accomplish (and how they frame their communication with the public), we may see either a trend toward rejection of accepted scientific knowledge and acceptance of indigenous knowledge, or likewise rejection of indigenous knowledge and acceptance of scientific knowledge. I’m not sure at this point how the two may be reconciled, but I predict that it will be instrumental in improving public outreach by the scientific community.