Actor Alan Alda Partners With Scripps Research To Improve How Scientists Communicate

Speaker 1: 00:00 What's the power of science if only other scientists understand it. We've seen issues like climate change and even school vaccinations develop into controversies in part because of a science communications gap. In recent years, one of our most well known and celebrated actors has been working to close that gap and make science accessible. Alan Alda, who came to fame in the 1970s TV series mash first took on the role of science translator as host of the PBS show, scientific American frontiers. Now he's bringing the message to San Diego announcing a new partnership between script's research and his nonprofit Alda communication training and that's to train scientists and how to talk about their work to the public and mr Alda joins us now. Welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:50 Thank you. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1: 00:52 Now, as I mentioned, you hosted a scientific American frontiers on PBS TV. Is that what got you interested in founding your communication training company? Speaker 2: 01:03 Yeah, it is, and I think that's something I've learned while we were doing this show was that I was, I had found a way based on my training is inactive or my experience as an actor and particularly as an improviser. I loved improvisation. To me that's the most important thing I learned about acting because it puts you in contact with the other person in a very personal way. It's not improvisation for the sake of getting labs or coming up with Cod guide text. It's the connection between you and that's what I found I was using on scientific American frontiers and I wasn't translating those science for them. I was making contact with them so that they could speak their science in ways that I could understand and therefore the audience could understand. And then I began to realize we could probably train scientists to do that and they wouldn't need somebody like me standing next to them. They could make that same personal contact with the audience. Speaker 1: 02:08 Do you see? What is the ongoing denial in some quarters of climate change in part? Is that that the result of this science communications gap, do you think? Speaker 2: 02:19 I don't know. I think a lot of smart people were trying to figure that out. One of the things that I hear that sounds to a great extent resonated was what we're trying to do is that when climate change, scientists are able to establish a conversation based on trust with their audience, whoever they're writing into and show that they understand what really matters to the people like good soil or clean water. They don't have to say the forbidden words of climate. They can talk about things that can be done to improve those conditions, but that the idea of establishing trust has to happen in a way that's personal. You can't say, trust me because I know and you don't know. It's not this. Not a good way to start a conversation, I don't think. Speaker 1: 03:22 Do you encounter any resistance from the scientists who are not used to communicating in this way to other scientists? Speaker 2: 03:31 You know, you bring up an interesting point is that it's not only is communicating with the public then improves, but communicating with other scientists improves too. And uh, do we get pushback because they're not used to thinking this way. Once in a while we do. We've got, we used to get more now in after 10 years of teaching this, people are coming to us because they realize the importance of it because once they get the idea, which is not conveyed to them through lectures, we don't talk about it. We do things, we do him very carefully crafted exercises. They take them from a basic level to a much more sophisticated level, one at a time. And once they begin to engage in that, they start to feel how good it feels to be connected and to really be understood. Speaker 1: 04:26 Mr Aldo, may I take a moment to ask about how you are, I know you've been open about living with Parkinson's disease. Are you feeling well these days? Speaker 2: 04:35 Yeah, I shake a little, but uh, I'm doing, I'm having fun trying to figure out what I can do to slow the progress in the best way possible. And, and I, you know, something I that I, that is kind of hardening is that when I decided to talk about it in public, I, I did that because I wanted other people who had recently got a diagnosis to realize that the world hasn't come to an end. There's a lot you can do to slow the progress and live pretty much a normal life. I mean, it takes me longer to find the arm hole on my jacket than it used to or button my shirt. But the, the art and the thing is, I've, I've gotten many messages from people who said, I'm so glad that I followed your lead and I talk about it. It takes a great burden off you hiding, hiding something that's actually evident to a lot of other people. Speaker 1: 05:35 Well, your acting career is still going strong. You're featured in the movie marriage story that's nominated now for an Oscar. Is that something you, you, you get excited about? You've had so many awards and so many honors. Speaker 2: 05:49 I, well, you know, I get very excited about being in a movie like marriage story. That is so good. It's so powerful and uh, I'm very proud to be in it. And you're right, I still managed to do a lot of things. I spent the season acting with Liam Schreiber, Ray Donovan and I do my podcast, which I love and will allow me to mention this thing that I love. It's called clear and vivid and I've talked to some of the most interesting people about communicating and relating to other people, including somebody who's coming up soon. Paul McCartney, we had a wonderful talk together. He's a great guy. And, and scientists and comedians, diplomats, but they all have something to say about what you and I have just been talking about, which is how to connect with another person and make you're relating to them actually happen. And so it's a, it's, I'm having a lot of fun doing these things that I never know I'd be doing. I 50 years ago, if you had told me, you and I will be having this conversation, I wouldn't have known what you were talking. Speaker 1: 07:00 Uh, I want to close on something that that relates to the older communication training. I'm wondering what do you think we, the public can do to boost our own ability to understand and evaluate what scientists tell us about their work? Speaker 2: 07:15 Sometimes you have to help the person communicating with you communicate a little better and you have to say, what do you mean by that? I don't quite get that. It's very important. If you're talking to somebody who seems to know more than you and really does know more than that, just operating on fantasy or wishes, ask them more about it. Where did that information come from, what studies showed it, that kind of thing. But most of all do that from a real sense of curiosity. I think we all are curious if we were always curious about nature and the way it works as we are about gossip, we'd be so much farther along. Speaker 1: 07:56 I have been speaking with actor Alan Alda, founder of all the communication training, which is coming to Scripps research. Mr Alta. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: 08:07 Thank you. This was fun talking to you.