It’s not as easy as it looks

Abstract

Amid the many miscommunications and misunderstandings about how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have been called on to do a better job of explaining their work to the public. In the United States, John Holdren, former science adviser to President Obama, has gone so far as to call for every scientist to become a trained communicator in an army of ambassadors for the whole country. That all sounds good on the surface. But just what do we expect these scientific emissaries to accomplish? Is it education? Is it advocacy? Is it changing behaviors?