So now I'm wondering about #scicomm responsibilities. SJ Gould & Dawkins made masterful contributions to the public understanding of science, but they also separated everyone from the source material for their ideas, to the point everyone credits them completely for their evolutionary views.
You have to get down to the root to see the problems. Great communicators seem at their best explaining the twigs and leaves.
@pzmyers I disagree about "twigs and leaves." There are concepts and questions at the core of science that have made great fodder for high-profile #scicomm, like the quest for a theory of quantum gravity. Just like in conservation ecology, there are charismatic megafauna of #scicomm, subjects that are overrepresented due to the hold they have on the public imagination. But, to mix metaphors, I don't think those megafauna tend to be farther from the trunk of the tree of science.
