Ocean expert helps scientists speak plain English

From a story by Jeff Barnard on OregonLive.com:

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Besides keeping tabs on how global warming is changing the world's oceans, Jane Lubchenco — one of the world's leading marine biologists — is teaching her fellow scientists to drop the academic-ese they use among themselves and speak so regular folks can understand them.

Lubchenco is a member of the Pew Oceans Commission that recommended steps to overcome crippling damage to the world's oceans from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change.

She is also founder of the Leopold Leadership Program, named for conservationist and author Aldo Leopold. It puts 20 scientists from colleges and universities through a communications boot camp.

"The philosophy behind it is that a key role of science is to inform people's understanding and decisions. Not to dictate those decisions, but to inform them," Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology and zoology at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The first week of the boot camp is low-key in a retreat setting. The second is in Washington, D.C., where the scientists go through simulated press interviews and congressional hearings.

"Most of them won't even return journalists' phone calls because they're afraid of them," Lubchenco said of scientists. "They don't want journalists misquoting them."

She said that when scientists talk about their research, they "typically start with history, methods, materials, who did what in the field." Then they describe their experiments, "and only at the end get to their conclusion."

But scientists are beginning to see "that's not a very useful way of communicating with people who want to know first and foremost what is the bottom line, why should I care, and is this relevant," she said.