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I'm sorry that this is what you got from my comment, because it wasn't my intention. I was trying to say that the nuance in the article will be completely lost

by dawg- 7y ago

I'm sorry that this is what you got from my comment, because it wasn't my intention. I was trying to say that the nuance in the article will be completely lost in the media. Even commenters in this thread who "believe in" climate change and claim to subscribe to the scientific orthodoxy are missing the distinction between ice sheets and ice cliffs, which was one of the main points of the article. And HN is one of the rare places on the internet where people actually read things, so imagine what the conversation will look like when someone posts it on facebook. Ultimately I was trying to raise the question of whether it's even possible to communicate science to the general public. And this thread so far is answering that question with a big fat "NO".

NateEag 7y ago
It's inherently impossible to communicate advanced scientific research results in a quick, meaningful way to a layperson. By definition a layperson doesn't understand any scientific field in depth. Since they don't, they do not have the tools to truly understand anything in the field's research - you need to understand the field's current state to understand what's going on in the latest research. Ever tried to explain something highly technical to non-technical management? That's another instance of this problem. They're both special cases of the general problem that only experts can really understand and appreciate great work in their field, and that a very fortunate person might get to be an expert in four or maybe five fields before they die.