MASH star Alan Alda partners with Australian National University to boost science communication

Extract from ABC News

666 ABC Canberra

Updated yesterday at 3:51pm

Photo: Alan Alda says better science communication is essential to ensuring public understanding of science. (Supplied: Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science)

Map: Canberra 2600

Television legend Alan Alda has partnered with the Australian National University (ANU) as part of a global push to bolster science communication, which he says will counter the thinking behind movements like anti-vaccination campaigns.

Best known for playing Hawkeye in the lead role of the iconic television program MASH, Alda has also had a long association with science communication, hosting the documentary series Scientific American Frontiers for 12 years.
He is also the head of the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science, which has entered a partnership agreement with the ANU Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.

Take the vaccine debate ... It's a communication problem when people make their minds up based on rumour, and don't think in a way that relies more on evidence.

Alan Alda, science communication advocate

The agreement is the first international partnership the Alda Centre has entered into.
Alda told 666 ABC Canberra the centre had made several novel approaches to bettering scientists' communication skills, including providing training in improvisational acting.
"I experimented with a group of engineering students, and within a few hours I saw an improvement in the way they related to an audience," he said.
"It puts you in touch with the mind of the person you're communicating with."
Alda recognised the importance of clear scientific communication while conducting interviews for Scientific American Frontiers.
"It was a chance to talk with scientists all day long while we were shooting these interviews," he said.
"There was something about the way we were doing it that made the science come out with more clarity and more vividness.
"We were having a genuine conversation ... and that made them much more available to me, the real them came out."

End goal to get public 'thinking like scientists'

Photo: Alan Alda has experimented with using improvisation workshops to improve scientists' communication skills. (Supplied: Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science)

Alda said there was a renewed push within universities to ensure important, and often complex, scientific ideas were explained to the public.
"Universities now are really understanding that you can make true progress by teaching communication to scientists," he said.
"It's possible to get them to be clearer, more generous with their thinking, more personal with their presentation, and more understandable with their language.
"What this does is not just enlighten the general public, but it makes it clear to the policy makers and the people who grant money for scientific research ... what you want the money for."
The end goal for the push is to get more members of the public thinking like scientists.
"It'll bring about more of those people who think in a way that is based on evidence," Alda said.
"Take the vaccine debate ... It shouldn't be a debate.
"Scientifically the issue is settled, vaccinations do not bring about some of the bad effects that people are worried about.
"And yet it's a communication problem when people make their minds up based on rumour, and don't think in a way that relies more on evidence.
"Better communication will help us think more like scientists."
Alan Alda will visit Canberra next month, and give a public talk at the ANU on March 9.