Earlier this month, hard science led the news for a whole week. On 5 October the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded for “discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”. The Physics prize followed the next day, for detecting high-energy neutrinos from deep space, then Chemistry for “non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”.
To most readers those words mean nothing. Yet all three stories were covered around the world, because the Nobel committees do something most science-led companies don’t.
The Medicine prize was headlined “Light-seeking algae gave us a switch for nerve cells”. The Chemistry winners became “They made chemistry choose a mirror image”. And the Physics prize was reported as a hunt for ghost particles in the Antarctic ice.
That is the difference between simplifying and dumbing down. Simplifying chooses which true and interesting thing to build a story. Dumbing down says something untrue because it is easier, and that can lose you supporters.
The public still values science. In the latest Public Attitudes to Science survey, 82% agreed scientists make a valuable contribution to society. But the share who feel informed about science has fallen from 51% in 2019 to 43%. The survey’s authors describe “a new backdrop of uncertainty, ambivalence and loss of trust” since Covid-19, and say the trust scientists gained during the pandemic proved “short-lived”.
The figure that should worry pharmaceutical bosses and tech startups alike: only 48% believed scientists in private companies could be trusted to follow the rules, down from 57%. In the US, Edelman puts trust in healthcare chief executives at 27%.
When a sceptical audience cannot follow you, it does not assume you are clever. It assumes you are hiding something.
So what works?
- Start with what it does, not what it is. “A switch for nerve cells” comes before “light-gated ion channels”.
- Use an analogy. A “multifactorial therapeutic” becomes a “Swiss Army knife”.
- Retire “breakthrough”. A specific, well-articulated claim is more persuasive than an oversold one.
Not sure how to explain what you do? Let keithbishop.com help you find the words, so that investors and the public see your work for what it is.