Speaking for Science: Why Engagement Matters More Than Ever
Speaking for Science: Why Engagement Matters More Than Ever
By Rong Li
It is hard to ignore the uneasy paradox of our moment. Science, along with vaccines, played a decisive role in bringing the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Few global challenges have ever demonstrated so clearly the power of biomedical research, rapid translation, and evidence-based decision-making. And yet, rather than a surge of gratitude and renewed support for science, we are witnessing something closer to the opposite: rising skepticism, anti-vaccine sentiment, and, more broadly, anti-science and anti-research attitudes.
There are many political and social forces driving this trend. They are complex, and I will not attempt to dive into them here. Instead, I want to focus on a different question, one that is closer to home for us as scientists: What can we do, beyond lamenting the situation?
For many of us, the intensity of anti-science sentiment is genuinely shocking. Part of that shock, I suspect, comes from the fact that we take the importance of science almost for granted. Within our professional lives, the value of discovery, evidence, and sustained inquiry is self-evident. But that assumption can leave us unprepared when the relevance of science is questioned – sometimes not by strangers, but by friends, family members, and colleagues outside our field.
Recently, I found myself in a conversation about science with a group of non-scientist friends who are highly educated and clearly intelligent. At one point, one of them said something along the lines of: You scientists have been working on this problem for a long time. It’s already in textbooks. The fact that you are still working on it suggests that you still don’t really understand it. So what’s the use of continuing the research?
My immediate reaction was exasperation. I felt an urge to disengage entirely – to leave the room with the sense that anything I say would be futile, like 对牛弹琴 – “playing the piano to a cow.” But later, in quieter reflection, I tried to take the question seriously. Not because I agreed with it, but because it revealed a genuine gap in how we communicate what science is and how it works.
To scientists, the idea that inquiry is endless feels natural. Every dataset raises new questions. Every model reveals its own limitations. In biology especially, mechanisms are rarely absolute; they play out differently across tissues, organisms, developmental stages, and disease contexts. What we call “understanding” is often provisional and partial, not final. Progress in science rarely comes from declaring a question closed, but from learning how to ask it better.
Outside science, however, uncertainty is often interpreted very differently. To many, the continued refinement of ideas can look like indecision, or even failure. The fact that knowledge evolves – something we see as a strength – can be misread as a lack of competence or clarity. Bridging that gap in perception is one of our central challenges.
How do we convey this to the public? How do we explain that the fact we are still studying something is not evidence of failure, but the need to dig deeper and acquire more clarity, and that sustained inquiry is precisely what allows knowledge to mature, become reliable, and ultimately become useful?
I do not have a perfect answer. But I do know that simply asserting the importance of basic research, or delivering a lecture on its value, is rarely effective. I learned this very clearly during periods when I was involved in fundraising for scientific communities I have led. Potential donors were often accomplished, thoughtful people, but not scientists. What did not work was a dogmatic explanation of why basic research matters. That approach almost always led to disengagement.
What worked better was starting from something they already cared about: aging, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer…, or simply the desire to remain healthy and independent for as long as possible. From there, I would slowly trace those concerns back to a research question—carefully and without assuming prior knowledge. Even then, technical jargon and specialized language easily created distance rather than engagement. Analogies drawn from everyday experience, by contrast, opened doors.
Once, I was trying to explain how having too many or too few of some chromosomes can affect cell function and, ultimately, cancer behavior particularly in the context of why metastatic cancers can be so difficult to treat with chemotherapy. I knew that the person I was speaking with was a baseball fan. So I offered this analogy: imagine a baseball team that goes onto the field missing an outfielder but with an extra shortstop. Against some teams, this imbalance would be a liability – especially those that hit a lot of fly balls. Against others – those with more infield hitters – it might confer an advantage. The team is still playing baseball, but the altered numbers change how it competes.
That simple analogy helped him grasp, at least intuitively, why chromosome number matters, and why errors in cell division can produce cancer cells with new abilities to survive therapy or evade immune surveillance. He did not walk away with a detailed mechanistic understanding—but he left with a sense of why the problem is difficult and why continued research is necessary. Sometimes, that is a very good outcome.
There are encouraging examples of public engagement happening at a larger scale. The Healthy Longevity webinar series at the National University of Singapore, for instance, has attracted sustained interest from non-scientific audiences by anchoring scientific discussions in questions people already care about. Even when the content becomes advanced, the framing invites curiosity rather than intimidation. It shows that the public appetite for science is still there – if we meet people where they are.
I am not offering this as a comprehensive solution. There is no single script that will work in every situation. But I do believe that we, as scientists, need to invest more creativity and energy into explaining not only the importance of science, but also its excitement, its uncertainty, and its humanity. This work often begins in the most ordinary settings – over dinner, in a taxi, at gatherings with friends who may not share our assumptions but do share our curiosity about the world.
Is it work? Yes.
Is it easy? No.
Is it essential? Absolutely.
As a community, ASCB is committed to making public engagement a priority. Through several committees and programs, the Society supports members who want to communicate the value and excitement of science beyond our own field. The Science Communication, Outreach, and Public Engagement (SCOPE) Committee provides practical resources to help scientists explain their work clearly to non-scientists, while the Public Information Committee promotes public awareness of advances in cell biology and the importance of basic research. For trainees and early-career scientists, the Committee for Postdocs and Students (COMPASS) offers outreach grants that support hands-on engagement with local communities. We welcome our members to participate, to experiment with new approaches, and to bring fresh ideas into how we connect science with society.
At a time when science feels under siege, retreating into silence is not an option. If we want public trust, we must earn it – not through authority or an air of intellectual superiority, but through clarity, empathy, and conversation. That responsibility belongs to all of us.