Stefan:
> It has always been my opinion that a scientist who is unable to express
> himself in a way a layman can understand, suffers from some basic defi-
> ciencies. (Express yourself! - Madonna ;-))
> If one can talk about an issue only in scientific "chinese" my first
> guess is, that those people aren't really understanding what they're
> talking about.

It depends. Some parts of science are easier to popularize than others. Jean
Dieudonne, a well-known French mathematician (who died a few years ago) has
written a book "Pour l'honneur de l'esprit humain". He considers that
mathematics are impossible to explain to laymen, because the concepts are so
abstract that to have an accurate mental picture of them, it requires several
months of hard work for someone who is not completely ignorant and is smart
enough. A typical example is "sheaf cohomology": to make that concept
understandable to a layman, it would require many pages of explanations.

Another example: a few years ago (I think it was the year I finished high
school), the Field's Medal was awarded to V. Jones, and immediately some popular
science magazines began to write about "knot theory", because it was one of the
exceptionally rare mathematical objects that the intuition can still grasp
easily. But what they didn't say (or didn't say clearly), was that V. Jones
didn't invent knot theory, he just made the link between "braid groups" and the
"classification of type II subfactors", which refers to Von Neumann algebra
theory...

And even in physics, that are supposed to deal with the concrete world where we
live, I found, by reading magazines when in high school and then learning more
afterwards, that popular science remains very superficial, and often the images
or analogies are imperfect and lead to confusions.

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Now, since we are talking about science, here is a funny anecdote:

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater
Idaho  Falls Science Fair, April 26.  He was attempting to show how
conditioned we have become to the alarmists practicing junk science
and spreading fear of everything in our environment.  In his project
he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total
elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."  And for plenty of
good reasons, since it can
    1. cause excessive sweating and vomiting
    2. it is a major component in acid rain
    3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
    4. accidental inhalation can kill you
    5. it contributes to erosion
    6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
    7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.
Forty-three said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the
chemical was water.  The title of his prize winning project was, "How
Gullible Are We?"  He feels the conclusion is obvious.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
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