Science a GoGo's Home Page

Popularizers bring ‘Power to the People’

Popularizer is a word I heard historian William Norton Smith use when discussing American Presidents on C-Span. He did not elaborate significantly but it was apparent to me that he used the word to describe individuals who make popular the books of authors who write about significant concepts that are seldom disseminated throughout the population.

Our educational system prepares us to become good producers and consumers. However, in the name of efficiency, our educational system leaves us ignorant of many domains of knowledge that are vital to our comprehension of matters that seriously affect the health of our culture and of the world. Psychology is just one example of such a domain.

Mr. Smith and I agree that it is essential that someone carry to the people these vital concepts that I mention.

Do you have any desire to be a popularizer?

Isn’t the Internet discussion forum an ideal medium for popularizers to perform their function?

Interesting idea. Isn't there a danger that popularizers will simplify and distort what the original author meant? In my experience, the internet provides an ample supply. But, done right, I agree.

There was a time when I think the term 'popularizer' was meant as derogation. I recall hearing someone describe Carl Sagan to me as a "mere popularizer" of science.

The problem with popularizers is that very often they have a feeble or flawed grasp of the subject they are trying to communicate. Many - and probably MOST - of them are out to make a quick buck. We can see this in the technical realm by a careful examination of the available books on latest buzz words. It's not so much that ideas like "structured programming," "top-down design," and "object-oriented programming and design", "Extreme programming", and "rapid prototyping." It doesn't matter what the topic is, if it's new there will be a lot of people to step up to the plate to tell you how to do it the right way, but few of them will actually know what they're talking about. It's not that any of these ideas is bad - it's just that not all of the people who are popularizing have a good understanding of it. They communicate their flawed understanding to others who in turn attempt to pass on this 'knowledge' or implement it. Before long there are people saying "X was just a fad." Well, yes, X was a fad, but it wasn't necessarily JUST a fad. Its essential ideas were correct, but the popularizers and their acolytes failed to deliver, because their understanding was superficial and flawed.

This is not unique to technology. It happens in the self-help industry, the history and social science industry. It even happens in nonsense industries like astrology and numerology.

But sometimes, now, we find an author who actually DOES understand his subject reasonably well and who has drunk deep and pondered long and has carefully considered how to connect the dots so that a person who is not an expert can catch a correct glimpse - no matter how fleeting or fuzzy - of how things actually work. Enter the Carl Sagans and the Isaac Asimovs, the Richard Feynmans and the Stephen Goulds.

Unfortunately, the publishing industry as a whole is about making money and you make money on quantity. So next to Gould's books and Sagans you will find others of lesser thinkers and poorer explainers. How can the layman know which is good and which not so good?

My daughters have noticed something in school that I myself noted when I was their age. Most of the time other students will judge the quality of a teacher, not by how well the teacher teaches, but by how well they like them. "Oh, I got an A in that class! That teacher is SOOOOO good." Thank the self-esteem publishing industry for legitimizing a very stupid technique of evaluation.
Meanwhile the teacher who gives mostly Cs, but whose students actually UNDERSTAND the subject is too often marked as a poor instructor.

The same thing happens in books. People praise books that tell them what they want to hear and that over-simply intricate subjects to the point of misrepresentation.

I think of a popularizer as a person who is studying a bit of disinterested knowledge and wants to help the world to comprehend this marvelous concept as well as s/he. I think of a popularizer as being like a tourist who sees a marvelous land scape and wants to share it with someone. Or who has found a great place to get BarBQ and wants the whole world to enjoy it.

Fiend

Popularizer would be a person who had studied something they thought was important, such as art history, and decided they wished to share with others this great history.

Imagine that you and many other colorblind people live on this isolated island. All inhabitants are colorblind from birth and know nothing about color; there is no word for color in their vocabulary.

Assume Fred is a health nut who exercises constantly and is always advising others to start a strict exercise routine for their health. Fred is well liked but most people on the island think that he over emphasizes the value of exercise.

One day after pursuing a specific exercises routine Fred become conscious of color. He is shocked and frightened and discontinues the exercise. Many weeks later curiosity gets the best of him and he returns to the exercise routine and there again appears the perception of color.

Fred experiments with this matter and concludes that when he performs the afore mentioned exercise routine he can perceive color constantly.

If you were Fred would you inform your friends and acquaintances of this occurrence?

How would you explain this perception to others?

How would others respond to your efforts to explain what happened?

Picture your self as Fred in this little fantasy. Picture that your inspiration is not color but art history. Could you try to popularize art history by writing about it on the Internet discussion forum?

I guess that more than one million individuals visit an Internet discussion forum each day.

Off the top of my head I guess that there are more than 100 Internet discussion boards and that there are on average 15 forums per board. I also guess that every day more than 100 thousand members visit their board.

"How would you explain this perception to others? "

All interesting questions. Don't know how I would explain, but I know it has been done. There are people with synesthesia. who have done a similar thing.

"Popularizer would be a person who had studied something they thought was important, such as art history, and decided they wished to share with others this great history."

Most people want to share what they think they know. This is a good thing. Many popularizers are very knowledgeable and make excellent contributions to the Great Conversation. Some popularizers make 'contributions' that are more of a distractive or destructive influence. Brain cells that might better be spent in other pursuits are wasted on assimilating anti-knowledge.

When I first began using the Internet, more than 25 years ago, long before the vast majority of its current users ever heard of it, before even many of them were born, it had already existed for some time. In those days most of what was published was not well organized, was not easily accessible, and could be extremely difficult to find. Usenet, OTOH, existed, and there anyone could post anything - and they often did. All sorts of opinions were expressed. All sorts of facts were related, but many of those facts were not facts. All sorts of arguments were presented, but many were fallacious. Still, if one were patient and careful, one could sort through and find the kernels. Still, a great mass of "information" was either distractive or destructive.

However bad it was then, it is even worse now. There is a LOT Of good stuff out there today - facts that are true, analyses that are thoughtful and profound - but there is a LOT that is drivel. There are tools that can help - search engines, sites with good information - but they are not perfect and the person who uses them must be more wary than ever.

The burden of the seeker is to discover the precious and genuine and worthwhile, and discern it from that which is counterfeit, flawed, noisome. He would like to do this without wasting too much of his time on things that he would later determine to be not worthwhile.

Fiend says--"The burden of the seeker is to discover the precious and genuine and worthwhile, and discern it from that which is counterfeit, flawed, noisome. He would like to do this without wasting too much of his time on things that he would later determine to be not worthwhile."

Well said. I am afraid that the great amount of information does lead to a very small anount of understanding. I fear that few people every experience what Carl Sagan spoke of "Understanding is a kind of ecstasy."

In a very interesting book, "Insider's Guide to Environmental Negotiations", by Dale Gorczynski, he describes various roles people play in the process of resolving environmental issues. One of the most important roles is "translator". Essential to enable decision makers and the public to understand the arcane points of the environmental issue under discussion. This (according to the author) is one of the rarest, yet most precious players in environmental issues. Sounds like a popularizer to me! But it is very difficult to do effectively in the age of spin and mass media marketing.

Mike

I think you are correct. A popularizer is a translator, s/he takes the work of the specialist and translates it into a product that the people can easily consume. S/he brings power to the people.

"A popularizer is a translator, s/he takes the work of the specialist and translates it into a product that the people can easily consume."

That's exactly what a popularizer does. He can also synthesize, assimilate, and help others in assimilating. Those popularizers who actually understand their subjects and do not misrepresent or misanalyze provide a valuable service. However, many popularizers spread misinformation: Jason Lisle, William Dembski, Whitley Strieber, et. al.

Fiend

I am not famaliar with these popularizers you speak of.

Dr. Jason Lisle with a Ph.D. in astrophysics is a speaker and "researcher" at the new Creation Science Museum in Kentucky.

Dr. William Dembski is the author of "No Free Lunch" a distortion of legitimate research in information theory.

Whitley Strieber wrote a number of a books, among them "Communion" which purports to be a true story of the authors experience with extraterrestrials.

Fiend

It is my view that we have originators, translators, commonizers, and popularizers.

Freud is an originator, those who take Fraud’s work and smoothes out the rough edges and provide more organization and detail are translators, the commonizers take these matters and write popular books that the aggressive layperson reads and comprehends, the popularizers take all of this to the people in small digestible bites often hiding the profound within simple common language.