because science is fundamental in the 21st century
Our mission is to give the people a voice who are working on making the world better using evidence. With the twitter rocur account @SfPRocur we simply hand over the mic!
Email us who you are and what you want to tweet about to info@scienceforprogress.eu! We will check if it's a good fit!
“How was I supposed to explain what I study to my mother, who went to a vocational school and didn’t even have a clear idea what a molecule, a cell, or DNA actually is?”
Stephanie Kainrath is a molecular biologist who is working on her PhD at the Institute of Science and Technology, in Austria. She wants to spend her life learning new things, and a PhD seemed like the perfect opportunity to turn learning and discovery into a full-time job.
Stephanie is particularly passionate about communicating science to lay audiences. She has no other scientists or academics in her family. Thus, it’s a necessity to her to be able to explain her work in simple terms. She realized that science communication reaches its limits where primary education had already failed.
We are constantly bombarded with ‘facts’ and have to decide whether they are true or not. In order to deal with this situation, people need a basic grasp of the sciences. This is why Stephanie tries to give lay people a better idea of what our world is made of and how it works. Stephanie used to spend a lot of time, for example, on social media arguing with people who don’t ‘believe’ in the existence of antibodies, viruses, or even infectious diseases. Her goal wasn’t primarily to change the minds of these people. More importantly, she challenged these misguided believes publicly, to convince silent readers of the scientific evidence.
On @SfProcur, Stephanie will discuss the necessity and impact of early science education, and how ‘science outreach’ could actually reach those who aren’t already interested in science. She doesn’t have a solution to these problems, but wants to identify the core problems.
Stephanie believes that lay audiences without a scientific background, need to be reached, most of all. Thus, she wants to motivate other scientists to do science communication as part of their daily lives. More scientists should feel encouraged to explain their work to people without a background in science.
“Scientists, make yourself visible, audible, and approachable!”
Lars (@Dittrich_Lars) is a German neuroscientist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease. There he studies links between sleep and ‘prion diseases’, that include, for example, ‘mad cow disease’. He uses his Facebook site “Lars und die Welt”, as well as his youtube channel to share his passion for mind-blowing secrets of nature, and to inform about cognitive biases. He is concerned that so many people fall victim to their own cognitive biases. Lars is convinced, that everybody can learn to avoid many such mistakes by learning to think scientifically
Lars is also concerned about the public view of animal research. A majority of people seems convinced animal research could (and should) be abandoned without loss. The reason for this lack of understanding stems from a lack of communication from research scientists in the past. To change this situation, Lars joined Pro-Test Deutschland e.V., a small group of professionals in animal research who are determined to speak up and inform.
Lars takes part at science communication competitions such as ‘Science Slam’ and ‘FameLab’. He also appeared in ‘Bill Nye Meets Science Twitter’, a short segment at the end of each ‘Bill Nye Saves The World’ episode.
Update March 15, 2018: Lars just won 2nd place at the FameLab Germany SciComm competition, and received the prize for the audience’ favorite performance! Congratulations!
First curator for our Twitter ‘rocur’ (rotating curation) account is Dennis Eckmeier. Usually he tweets as @DennisEckmeier (and @SciForProgress) During his week he will tweet about his goals for Science for Progress, which he initiated.
Dennis is passionate about using scientific, empirical evidence for everyday decisions, big and small, personal and global. He believes that if we as people based our world views on empirical evidence, the world would be a better place.
Instead, he says, as humans we usually put our world views and ideologies first; sometimes to the point at which we deny reality. Philosophers developed the scientific method to overcome this tendency. But it is no accident that it took humanity so long to device the scientific method: it goes against our natural thinking, and common sense. It is very hard for everybody, including scientists who are trained in it, to not fool themselves. It takes patience and discipline.
With Science for Progress Dennis wants to convey to people what sciences are and what academia is. He wants the people to support basic research and to embrace the fact that it can’t promise specific outcomes. And he wants governments to first assess what the realities are, and to keep them in mind when they work out political compromises.