Editorial :
When your job is a research job
it is easy to spend plenty of hours in the lab and to work in international environments far from your
hometown mainly developing friendships with other people involved in a research
job leading to multicultural communities where it is possible to share ideas hypotheses
and even more simplythe genuine passion and amazement that move every researcher
to pursue his studies despite all the frustrations which come as the other side
of the medal. This looks like a beautiful
scenario but it leads to some crucial consequences that should be taken into
account. For each honest researcher every step of investigation independently
on the research field is governed by the rule of the scientific method and every
advance from a single experiment that works to the rare and great discoveries that
allow the big jumps in our knowledge is welcomed with curiosity optimism and enthusiasm
and with the pride to be even if as a little drop in the ocean part of the team.
But what is missing? For an insider it is crystal
clear that science tries to explain natural phenomena and to apply the current
knowledge to ameliorate technologies and life style and that every theory is just the starting
point to push forward the scientific progress. But despite all this especially
in the high-tech and wealthy western societies we are facing a symptomatic and anachronistic war against
the scientific discoveries and we assist to the rise of movements which if at
the beginning could be considered just as funny or pathetic are now having an
impact on the society itself. Just to make an example we can consider the anti-vaccination group:
there is no scientific reason to follow this theories still we are assisting to
the representations of former eradicated pathologies and the consequences of
that are there for all to see. As a neurophysiologist
talking about my research in non-scientific environments I face a
sort of dualistic reaction: there is an innate curiosity and interest in my interlocutors
which is often followed by a general worry/disbelief about the technologies we
are now able to use to manipulate at least in rodents the brain functions. Given
all the efforts every single researcher puts into his studies and considering
that science is for the whole world I started wondering… what if in all these
efforts we are forgetting something? Life sciences more than
other fields are closer to the everyday life: to think about the body
physiology the brain functions the immune system function
is morehuman-sized more familiar than debating about subatomic particles or
galaxies. This sort of proximity however sometimes leads to the belief that
everybody can be in charge to formulate his own theories but science is not
based on democracy and the consequences of these are recapitulated in the
paradigmatic case of the antivaccination group. Unfortunately too
often the scientific community is seen so far away by people and it is easier
to follow non scientific accommodative conspiracy theories than getting closer
to the realism of science.
I think that this is first of all a point lost for the scientific community.
And that is why from higher to lower levels each person involved in a
scientific career should make an effort and reconsider the vital importance of
an effective and capillary divulgation system. Sometimes we are too locked in
our labs in our little groups of science friends which we do not even realize
that most people have no idea of what we are doing. Even in conferences in the
field sometimes the levels of specialization are so high that is difficult to
follow the presentations of researchers. anti-vaccination, optogenetics, immune system, anachronistic, brain functions, neurophysiologistMaking The Connection: Are We Forgetting To Communicate?
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