Pop science doesn't reach a "general audience"

I've spent the last several weeks traveling to research conferences and talking with scientists. And when I mention that I'm a science journalist, there are generally either two reactions: enthusiasm ("I became an astrophysicist because of reading Scientific American!") or suspicion ("Aren't you worried over-sensationalized headlines are eroding trust in science?")

I'm finding that the suspicious crowd can immediately be brought around with a single sentence: I write for Quanta.

Scientists love Quanta. I get the sense that it's the favorite pop sci publication of the physics-y corners of science — their idea of what pop sci should look like, if science really does have to be "dumbed down" for the public at all. (Many scientists, I get the sense, are caught in a paradoxical catch-22 of believing that their research is so esoteric that no non-scientist could ever understand it and also not understanding that, actually, many non-scientists can't do math, many can barely read, and most couldn't understand their research unless it was greatly simplified.)

And I get it. I, too, love Quanta. It was one of my favorite science magazines before I started writing for them, and it's one of my favorite science magazines to write for now as a science journalist. They are truly unique in their willingness to tackle complexity, they give journalists the resources and time to really go deep on stories, they're not over-sensationalist, and they take real care to ensure factual accuracy — including hiring dedicated fact-checkers, a rarity these days.

But the thing is, Quanta — or Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast, or New Scientist, or pick your favorite erudite pop sci medium — is not doing what many scientists seem to think it is doing. Researchers often seem to have this idea that if only all pop science were like the science media they like best, the ignorant masses would be illuminated by the light of reason. Everyone would trust scientists, lose their misconceptions about science and the scientific process, trust experts while simultaneously embracing scientific uncertainty, support a carbon tax, buy an electric car, and get their kids vaccinated.

I'm being a bit facetious here, of course. But I do think it is fair to say that many (not all) scientists who haven't thought much about scicomm do believe that if only pop sci generally looked more like Quanta, many of the problems with "trust in science" would be solved. There are so many problems with that idea that I feel I'll have to come back to it in future posts. But for now, let's stick to one issue: Even if it were perfect, pop science couldn't do any of the magical things we might want it to do for trust in science because it is not actually "pop" at all.

Popular science has an audience that is overwhelmingly university educated, politically left-leaning, and wealthy. I think most scientists — and science communicators, frankly — have truly no clue who the "general audience" actually is and what communicating with the wide public would look like.