lized language helps us cover more ground so that we can get to the scientific punch line in the time allotted. Its true that scientists are often guilty of crimes against language. But when addressing an audience of scientists, technical terms help us communicate more efficiently. Jargon has its place.
The greatest challenge of the Pale Blue Dot III workshop, at least for the scientists, was that we were expected to be clear for a non-specialist audience, but also be technically rigorous and groundbreaking.
Such a hybrid talk is hard to give, but a joy to listen to and for the most part the speakers were up to the task. The result was astrobiology bliss. I learned more at this workshop, both about science and communication, than at any meeting in recent memory. I even learned the meanings of terms that I don't normally ask about because I assume all scientists except for me already know them!
|A view of Earth from Voyager 1, at a distance of more than 4 billion miles. Earth is the dot in the middle of the bright streak.
Image credit: NASA/JPL
Another unusual feature of the conference was that we were held captive the whole time. At other meetings, you attend some sessions and then take breaks to rest your brain or get other work done. Talks are often held at the hotel where you are staying, so it's easy to duck out. But in this case there was no escape. We were picked up from our downtown Chicago hotel every morning at 7:30 AM and taken to the Adler Planetarium, where we were fed breakfast, lunch and dinner, with long morning and afternoon sessions in between. By the time we returned to our hotel, it was dark outside. This forced immersion was the subject of many jokes and some grumbling.
The Adler is a not a bad place to be trapped - it is a museum of astronomical delights built in an impressive location, on a peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan. During our lunch breaks I would look longingly out at the stunning views of the city skyline across the sparkling water, or at the trees surrounding the Field Museum and Chicago's famous Soldiers Field where Jerry Garcia played his last show in 1995. It was all so near, yet so far away. We were like museum specimens encased in glass, subjects of a 3-day experiment in science communication.
Astrobiology is now a decade-long experiment in overcoming disciplinary boundaries, forging collaboration between scientists. This workshop seemed like an attempt to push the experiment one step further. Can we go beyond the traditional boundaries and include journalists, educators and social scientists in the process of science? Or should they remain on the sidelines, watching and reporting on our scientific activities? Including others does lead to better communication, but it also requires patience, since it takes time to explain everything to the uninitiated.
Inevitably in a program this experimental, there were a few problems. To stay on schedule, after each science talk we were only allowed to ask "questions of clarification". Then, at the end of the session, we would supposedly get a chance to ask more substantive questions about the science during a panel discussion with the respondents. However, the panel discussions often went in different directions due to the respondent's opening talk. Thus we couldn't always ask the questions we wanted to ask, and we lost some of the give-and-take of a normal science workshop. This was frustrating, as many of the talks stimulated questions I wanted to ask, and I wasn't the only one who felt this way.
For example, Sara Seager from the Carnegie Institution gave an excellent talk about "vegetation's red edge". Green plants (trees, plankton, and other species that use chlorophyll to capture the energy of sunlight to manufacture food) are brightly reflective in the near-infrared. Seager's attempt to find out why struck me as a great example of astrobiology in action. Astrophysicists interested in the spectral signature of an inhabited Earth-like planet have become aware of this spectral feature of green plants, but biologists have never tried to