Based on my experience in academia, I don't think there will be a significant boon to public culture because of this. Most academics are very specialized within

Based on my experience in academia, I don't think there will be a significant boon to public culture because of this. Most academics are very specialized within their fields and are not used to having to explain, or justify, the fundamental theories of their fields to the general public. They work within a community in which everyone already accepts those things as the default position, and they assume that their audience has a deep background in the field. In other words, most academics spend their careers preaching to the choir, and making little tweaks to their field in very specialized areas within an established framework -- what Kuhn refers to as "normal science." Successful engagement as a public intellectual requires a different set of practices.