The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s useful to think about those changes, both for people who generate and consume science communication. The big change, of course, is social media, which has disrupted journalism and communication in general.

Prior to this disruption the dominant model was that most science communication was done by science journalists backed up by science editors. Thrown into the mix was the occasional scientist who crossed over into public communication, people like Carl Sagan. Science journalists generally were not scientists, but would have a range of science backgrounds. The number one rule for such science journalists is to communicate the consensus of expert opinion, not substitute their own opinion.

Science journalists are essentially a bridge between scientists and the public. They understand enough about science, and should have a fairly high degree of science literacy, that they can communicate directly with scientists and understand what they have to say. They then repackage that communication for the general public.

This can get tricky when dealing with controversial subjects. This is one of the challenges for good science journalists, they must fairly represent the controversy without making it seem more or less than it is, and without giving unbalanced attention to fringe or minority opinions. They need to speak to enough experts to put the controversy into a proper context.

Now let’s transition to the post-social media world. One of the best things about social media is that it makes it much easier for scientists to communicate directly to the public – for scientists to become journalists. While I think this has created a lot of fantastic content, of which I am an enthusiastic consumer and producer, it has created its own challenges.

The big challenge for science journalists who are not scientists is getting the science right. The big challenge for science journalists who are not journalists is getting the journalism right. Part of the challenge is that scientist science journalist blur the lines between of expertise. This is because expertise itself is a fuzzy concept, and is more of a continuum. Expertise, in fact, is more of a pyramid.

At the base of this pyramid we have all scientists, who have some level of expertise in science itself – scientific principles and practices, and basic concepts like hypothesis, theory, experiment, and data. They should also have some knowledge of statistics and how they are used in science. So any scientist is in a good position to discuss any science to the general public. But “scientist” is also a broad and fuzzy concept. Are engineers scientists? Are clinicians? These are often considered applied sciences, but they may or may not be researchers.

A scientist also has topic expertise in their particular field. So they are especially well positioned to discuss topics within their field of expertise. But “field of expertise” is also a continuum. Using myself as an example, I am a medical doctor, so I have some level of expertise in science itself, a higher level of expertise in medicine, and then a specialty in neuroscience. Within neuroscience there are different subspecialties, and I have fellowship level training in neuromuscular disease and also am certified in headache medicine. So I am more able to comment on these areas than Multiple Sclerosis, for example.

At what point am I considered an “expert”? This is obviously not a binary. I have high level training in biological concepts, in medicine in general, but have a higher level of expertise in clinical neurology and even higher in my subspecialties. So when I am communicating about such topics, am I communicating as a scientist or as a journalist? The big difference is that scientists, when commenting without their field of expertise, can exercise their own scientific judgement and include their own opinions. Non-scientist journalists should never do this. The scientist journalists have a spectrum of expertise – so where is the line for when they can start to weave in their own scientific opinions?

There is no right or wrong answer here, only judgement calls. Within academia – when communicating with other scientists – the general rule is that you should only communicate from a position of maximal expertise. When communicating to the public, however, there is no such rule (nor would it be practical). Scientist journalists, therefore, have to constantly be shifting their approach to a topic depending on their relative level of expertise, and this can be tricky.

For me, I do my best to understand what the consensus of scientific expert opinion is on a topic and to align my communication with that consensus. I try to be humble and to avoid substituting my own relatively less expert opinion for those with more expertise than me. I leverage my expertise, when I have it, to helping understand the topic as a whole and to put it into a helpful context.

There is also another layer to my science communication – I am a scientific skeptic, and I think it is reasonable to consider myself an expert in pseudoscience, science denial, conspiracy thinking, and critical thinking. I often am communicating science through this skeptical lens. This is a type of expertise that is orthogonal to topic expertise. It’s like being a statistician – you are an expert in statistics regardless of the field of science to which they are applied.

There is yet another layer here which can be extremely helpful – we are not all just individual scientist communicators. We are part of a community. This means that we can check in with other scientist communicators with different topic expertise to check our understanding of a topic outside our expertise. This is one of the best things about the SGU podcast – I interview other scientists and ask them questions about the consensus of opinion within their area of expertise. I also have access to lots of colleagues in different fields so I can check my understanding of various topics.

Sometimes this also means that different fields of expertise have a different perspective on a topic that spans multiple fields. In the recent discussion of biological sex, for example, there is clearly a different approach for evolutionary biologists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and medical experts. All these views are legitimate, but they contain different perspectives. Again, as a scientist communicator it’s important not to confuse your perspective with the correct perspective.

This can all strengthen our community – if we are all individually willing to be humble, understand and explore the limits of our expertise, listen to our colleagues, and be open to different perspectives. We can also discuss the meta-lessons of how to be better science communicators.