I’m bridging science and practice (or at least I try…) for half of my life now. But last week, I had one of these eye-opening experiences pushing me to do better. It was at the annual meeting of the MEDIBEES project on beautiful Malta. I do their social media as part of their extension work. It started with a very interesting talk on honey authentication by DNA metabarcoding. With all the technical vocabulary that comes with molecular biology.
That would have been ok if we’d been only scientists. But, there was a delegation from Jordan Beekeepers Union. They’re a partner in the project, supported the proposal, so they assist to the meetings. During this talk I saw them talk to each other and one shrugged his shoulders. I was sitting next to the coordinators, so I asked if it was ok that I “translated” after the talk what the practical application of all this was. They obviously agreed.
The practical application, actually, is very relevant for beekeepers. It helps to avoid honey fraud. With the new method, it is possible to specify not only the botanical origin, but also the honey bee subspecies (sometimes also called “race”). This means that we can tell the plants the bees foraged on and if the bees were the native to the region. And this makes it much more difficult to make simple sugar syrup seem “honey”. Which is a big concern for beekeepers all over the world right now.
Know your audience
One of the most important things to keep in mind when your presenting complex things is to keep your audience in mind. During the MEDIBEES meeting this was complex by itself, because even in the group of scientists not everybody was familiar with the methods of molecular genetics. I’m more field person myself, so before giving my “translation to practice” I told the colleague to correct me if I was saying something stupid. Fortunately, I didn’t…
A little phrase that helped me a lot to improve the way I explain things is “curse of knowledge”. Which is a bit counterintuitive at first sight. Knowledge, usually, is supposed to mean power, isn’t it? And I also always insist in the power of education. This means something different though. It’s from the point of view of the “teacher” or “expert”. If you know something, then it becomes obvious. You may not even consider that the person you’re talking to doesn’t know. Can’t know. Otherwise they wouldn’t ask. So, you have to put yourself in the shoes you were wearing when you didn’t know. And that’s very difficult.
Bridging science and practice, though, is very important. Today perhaps more than ever. “Bullshitting” is taking over a lot of discussions, which means that it doesn’t matter anymore if something has any foundation in reality or not. This happens in a lot of contexts, also in beekeeping and bee health. It concerns me. So, I’m trying to get better in communicating.
New skills in communicating complexity
As the rational and somewhat nerdy person I am, I looked for papers on the matter. And actually, there are quite a few. One of them attracted me: Why facts don’t change minds. This is quite mind-boggling for a scientist. We’re convinced that presenting evidence should be enough to change behaviour, opinions, or whatever. But the human mind doesn’t work that way.
It’s extremely frustrating to talk about biodiversity loss, climate crisis, or good practices in beekeeping – and very often that doesn’t change much. Because the bridge to the practical application is missing. That’s one of the solutions the authors of that paper propose: To give concrete examples on how to apply the facts to the reality of the audience you have in front of you. Honey bee researchers should have some practice in this, as we often interact with beekeepers. But you always can do better.
This is something I’m trying to apply already for a while. In my real life courses and talks, I try to change perspectives according to the reactions I see in the audience. To interact with them instead of just preaching. A paper I read some years ago gave me the idea of those three levels of responsibility I’ve talked about in the context of varroa treatments. I’ve experienced very often how important associations are (the community level) to make beekeepers adopt better practices. Using the social context for changing individual behaviours is a skill I need to develop and improve. This also makes it easier to build those bridges, because groups learn from each other.
The necessity of bridging science and practice
My father used to say that knowledge isn’t worth anything if you don’t know how to apply it. Both my parents encouraged us to build those bridges between science and its applications.Possibly in different contexts. Like the results from a development like that method for honey identification – scientists are interested in the methods, beekeepers in what it means for them. The presenting colleague, by the way, reacted enthusiastically to my “translation” as also most of the other scientists did.
This isn’t always the case. Science communication, translating complex concepts into practice, is often viewed as distraction from the “real science”. But how can you convince people to change their behaviour and beliefs if you don’t make a step towards them?
In addition, I also think that it’s in the responsibility of scientists to show why their work is important. This may be easier in my field than for a mathematician whose work is applied in some sort of insurance system. But for those of us who want to make things a little bit better, communicating complexity isn’t a distraction, but a necessity. And this meeting on Malta reminded me of that.
