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DRAFTMetaphorigins - S5E8
00:00 / 45:27

Details and Transcript

Buzzsprout Affiliate Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=891796​

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Timestamps​

  • 00:00 - Introduction

  • 01:10 - Segment 1: The Mean Machine (Short Story)

  • 13:27 - Segment 2: The Origin of "Poetic Justice" (Metaphor History)

  • 27:40 - Segment 3: Trust in Science (Communication Topic)

  • 44:23 - Segment 4: Talk With *** (Guest Interview)

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References

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Theme Music​

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Transcript

 

To my law-abiding family and friends. Near and far. Old and new. This is Kevin Mercurio on the mic. And welcome to the 48th episode of the Metaphorigins Podcast.

 

To show support if you find yourself enjoying wordy scicomm content, please take a few seconds to rate and subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify or whatever platform you are listening to this on, as it truly does help independent podcasts reach new people, through essentially minimal effort. You can always leave a lengthy review as well, and follow @metaphorigins on Instagram, that’s @metaphorigins, where I will be posting all updates, as well as on my personal website: kjbmercurio.com/metaphorigins. There is now a Metaphorigins LinkedIn Page as well, so check it out and give it a follow if you like passionate scicomm initiatives. Like every season, I will hold a  prize draw on my 50th episode for… some exclusive never-before-seen merchandise. Have a listen in later episodes for more information about this Metaphorigins historic relic, whatever it ends up being.

 

Okay. For today’s episode, I’ll be talking about a literary device that has been used in parallel to karma, where the punishment fits the crime and that good ultimately prevails in triumph.

 

Aaannnnnddd proceed. On the table in front of you, you gather the administrative files and testimonial documents, place them one by one on top of each other, and shuffle them into a neat stack. On the left side of the room, the open window lets in a gentle, cool breeze, much desired on this scorching summer day. In front, the judge finally enters the room, waves at the two legal counsels, and proceeds to begin the final day of the trial of the decade.

 

The judge for the trial is the Honourable Jim Tyler, a fairly tall, certainly wide, man reaching his late 60s, typically fair in regards to the evidence presented in his courtroom. He has proceeded over many notable trials in the town of Maybrush. Five years ago he convicted the River Strangler to life in prison, and just last year, Judge Tyler sentenced a woman who left her 10 dogs in her car to 20 years in jail, serving the maximum number of years for each dog who died due to her neglect. The town of Maybrush, though small as it is, believes that Judge Tyler is a good man who understands that the punishment should fit the proven crime.

 

You were called by Judge Tyler to act as the defence lawyer for the man sitting to your right, a refugee by the name of Tim Robertson. Robertson is a large individual in his own right, but not in the same way as Judge Tyler. Robertson is stoic, strong and intimidatingly muscular. He is wearing his typical overalls, t-shirt and long farming socks, over which he has on his only pair of footwear, working boots he used everyday in the fields collecting various crops. He was a refugee from Central America, seeking shelter from the civil wars happening in the region, ending up in Maybrush as one of Luke Diaz’ workers.

 

The prosecution rests, finishing the examination of their final witness, Billy Esmell. Esmell is, for lack of a better term, one poor son-of-a-bitch, both in finances and in character. Esmell once worked as a trash collector around the town square, but because of his constant drinking he was fired for dropping more trash than he was collecting. Him and his family reside in the land right outside of the town dump, in a dwelling he created with himself after Mrs. Esmell demanded that they stop living under the trees. They somehow ended up having 8 children, all of which only attend school for the first day of every year, ensuring that they are registered to the educational system, and that they reap the social welfare support. Life took an even more unfortunate turn when, recently, Mrs. Esmell was found dead on the house’s front steps. A small switchblade was found stabbed into her back, and Billy Esmell had accused Robertson of first-degree murder.

 

Judge Tyler indicates that it is time for the defence’s cross-examination. This would be the final testimony before the jury is sent out to deliberate. You nod to Robertson, who stares forward, eyes locked in a state of worry and sadness. Of course, you realize the weight of this moment, a moment that has the power to decide the fate of one man, and his life going forward. You know, deep down in your heart, that Robertson is innocent, but that doesn’t mean jack squat in the court of law. You have to find a way to convince the 12 people of the jury, citizens of this beloved small town, that Robertson’s conscience is completely free of these heinous acts of humanity. You had one idea, one sole idea, that you thought could work based on the testimony provided by the prosecutor.

 

You stand, and walk towards the middle of the court, in-between the counsel’s tables, Judge Tyler, and the only witness to the crime, Billy Esmell.

 

You begin the cross-examination, “Mr. Esmell. Thank you for being present today as the main witness to the murder of your wife, Mrs. Esmell. Firstly, my condolences to you and your children for losing the one who is often the rock or glue to a family. Now, I know that we have dilly-dallied around the events of that dreadful evening. But in front of the court today, one last time, can you describe what happened, as clearly as you can?”

 

“Sure’s can. But yours honour, I don’ts like the sound of this one’s words. He makes it sound like he better than me.” Mr. Esmell complains, looking up at Judge Tyler.

 

“I beg your pardon?” Asks Judge Tyler.

 

“He’s usin’ those big words like candolecies and deadfal, words I know nothin’ bout’. Makin’ me feel stupids is all, and acting all nice for that murderin’ buck.”

 

Judge Tyler shakes his head in annoyance, “Now you listen here Mr. Esmell. The defence is not doing anything of the like. They are simply stating that they respect the deceased and are asking you to share your account of the evening of the murder. Now you will answer the question.”

 

Esmell looks back at you and squints. “Alright. Well anyways, I was in the woods, just opposite to there dump, gatherin’ kindlin’ for my family. Man’s gotta provide for the famleeeee. I come outs to the clearin’, in view of the side of the house, and all of a sudden I hear a scream. It was ma beloved, a scream so sharp it felt like I gots stabbed on my own.”

 

“And you saw it was Mrs. Esmell screaming, did you?” You ask.

 

“Well no, I was at the side of the house. Screams comin’ from the front. Then I drop the kindlin’, rush over to there porch steps, and there she was, gaspin’ for air, switchblade in the side. I grabbed her then, could feel her losin’ her air with every breath, it was bad. I look up and see that murderin’ buck running down the street to the refugee settlement. That murderin’ buckin’ machine!”

 

You hold your hand to interrupt. “Okay, hold on now, you said you heard her scream, grabbed her, and looked up to see that murderin’ buckin’ machine running down the street?”

 

Esmell nodded, “That’s exactly right.”

 

You continue, “When you heard her scream, and went around the front, how’d you grab her, like a doll figurine?”

 

Esmell looks at you confused. “Well… Yes, yes, I grabbed her like I was picking up a prized toy, doll, whatever.”

 

“And when you grabbed her like a figurine, after her scream, you looked up and saw a murderin’ buckin’ machine, running down the street… Pretty fast I reckon, must of been a man, mean and lean?”

 

Esmell closes his eyes trying to remember what you asked. “Ye… Yes, a man, mean buckin’ machine, runnin’ really fast down the street, lean, to the refugee settlement.”

 

You push further for more details. “And what was the mean, buckin’ machine wearing, you reckon? Seems like you got a good look after the scream, holding Mrs. Esmell like a doll figurine. Can you make any detail? Was he wearing shorts or jeans? Flannel shirt or long-sleeves? Were the shoes seen, trainers or loafers of brown or green?”

 

Esmell presses his pointer finger to his right temple, showing an indication of head pain on the right side. “Umm, jeans I think. After the scream, I held her tight, looked up, and saw that murderin’ mean machine in jeans and long-sleeves. Runnin’ fast, so I didn’t seen no shoes that eve.”

 

You nod, “Okay, and when you were holding her like a doll figurine, holding her tightly, were you keen on the switchblade or was it careened to the left side of her back?”

 

Esmell says, “I saws the switchblade only later, shoved into her left side of the back.”

 

“Okay,” you state calmly, “Thank you for that divulgence. One last thing, Mr. Esmell, can I ask you for one last thing?”

 

“Whatever you want.”

 

“Good,” You continue, “Mr. Esmell, can you read and write?”

 

Mr. Esmell looks at you for a moment, eyes squinting, trying to understand the question. “Why yes, Mr. Fancy, I cans read and write.”

 

“Good.” You walk to the defence counsel’s table, pick up a pen and a blank sheet of paper you placed at the top of the pile, and walked back to Mr. Esmell. “Then will you, write your name please, on this piece of paper here?”

 

Mr. Esmell grabs the paper, seeming confident of the task at hand. He takes the pen into his left hand and signs the paper with his name in large, bold font. He gives you back the piece of paper, and you slowly walk back towards the defence counsel’s table.

 

“What’s so interestin’ about that?” Mr. Esmell asks.

 

It is Judge Tyler who responds, “You’re left-handed, Mr. Esmell.”

 

You turn around, “Mr. Esmell, in your testimony you said that you had come from the woods to the clearing by the side of your house, dropped the kindling after hearing Mrs. Esmell scream at the front of the house, ran around and saw her laying on the porch steps, grabbed her and held her tightly, enough time to look up and see a lean man running in jeans and long-sleeves down the street in the direction of the refugee settlement. How you can assume it was Mr. Robertson, I have no idea, based on that description. And in the police report, officers had found only wood chippings on your clothes. You said you had held her tightly. There would have been blood on your clothes if that were the case, as the stabbing had been done so fresh. And now, you had just shown the court that you are left-handed.”

 

Mr. Esmell stands up shouting, “What’s that gots to do with anythin’? You gots to watch them tricky lawyers like this one, writin’ and rhymin’ gots me all confused in a hairball!”

 

Judge Tyler hammers his gavel, “Mr. Esmell, you will sit down in my courtroom!”

 

You reply, “The articulation was just a bit of poetic justice.” You pause, nodding to the jurors. “The switchblade was found on the left side of her back, which means that the murderer was likely left-handed if the victim was attacked from behind. Mr. Robertson, could you raise your left hand please?”

 

Mr. Robertson, quiet with eyes forward the entire cross-examination, looks at Mr. Esmell and raises his deformed left arm. It had been amputated at the elbow, from a farming accident two years prior, when his forearm got caught in a combine. There’s a gasp in the courtroom.

 

“You damn lawyer with ya tricky cues! I’m gon kill yous!”

 

Mr. Esmell flies over the banister and tries to grab you, trips on his long jeans and green loafers, and falls headfirst into the defence council’s table edge. Still holding the pen, he falls on top of it, piercing the front of his body on the left side. He is knocked out cold but wheezing to breathe, Judge Tyler calls order to the courtroom and demands a recess.

 

Alright, that was a bit tougher than I expected. Had to summon the greatest fictional lawyer in all of literature for that one, luckily finishing Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird just a few weeks ago. Anyway, surely you caught that idiom, one that is used to describe the feeling surrounding the just consequences of wrongdoing.

 

What’s the origin to the expression, “Poetic Justice?”

 

*Theme Music*

 

 

Most of this information was obtained from many articles and videos discussing the uses and origin of this expression. All sources will be mentioned in the description.

 

We forget how minuscule we are,

like a smart car in this Universal Vehicular Show.

Subpar, we travel slow,

day-to-day trying not to know:

we are but a small piece of the puzzle.

Muzzled,

not by choice but by uncorrected routines.

Ruffled,

not by unprovided necessities,

but by meaningless amenities.

Scuttled,

like cattle from place to place.

Home, work, school, webspace,

depending on the case-by-case.

Strict schedule, we try and lace

a daily scheme like a new skate.

Pace ourselves, hoping we don’t stray away

from our self-made play.

Okay,

this sounds morbid,

but I frustrate such hate for I can’t stand the insipid.

For the river of time is rapid,

and I know there are others trapped in.

So I share you my story.

 

That was the opening verse of one of the very first poems I ever wrote called Viridity. In it, I talk about my development over the years from early life to the time I wrote the poem in 2016, how much my innocence and naivety towards how the world functions gets warped to follow the norm and systems put in place to organize people. It wasn’t until becoming more educated that I became aware of the harsh reality of everyday life, the cruelty of human beings, and how the system is designed to look more hopeful in hindsight. Though what about making changes now? I proposed towards the end of the poem that the solution to our collective problems is the same process that allowed me to become more informed of the current state of the union with this planet, that being education.

 

The use of language in a thoughtful manner has always interested me. There’s just something magical about articulating a concept through a flow of precise vocabulary, word order and grammar that I can’t quite put my finger on. When I hear beautiful prose or meaningful vernacular at the right moment, I feel like my cheeks flush and something in my mind falls into place like a puzzle piece completing a jigsaw. I smile, knowing that what was presented was something completely novel and yet so simply put, I am almost surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself.

 

In terms of art, no other form of literary work encompasses these notions the most than poetry. Poetry in fixed or free form demonstrates to me the true wrath of lexicon, that words in fact do have the power to hurt like sticks and stones, but can also have the power to move you in the direction of empathy and love. Poems like Requiescat by Oscar Wilde or When the Two Parted by Lord Byron, both about specific loss and the aftermath of such an event, bring about emotional trauma to the surface of individuals young and old. While poems like Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson, or Sonnet 18 of William Shakespeare’s collection containing arguably the most famous line of any love poem, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, both poems inspiring a sense of growth and optimism. Poetry almost gives instantaneous feedback that perhaps prove the existence of linguistic relativity more than any Arrival of alien heptapods named Abbott and Costello ever could.

 

Poetry has such weight, even with such range of content like spanning two words or an entire epic storyline. Once asked by Harvard Graduating students during a speech to tell them a poem, Muhammad Ali uttered one of the shortest poems ever created, “Me, We”. It’s no Paradise Lost, no chaotic battle between good and evil with the redemption of one day being invited back into the Garden of Eden once more, but it is a conceptional poem with themes regarding temptation, loyalty and hope. So what makes something a poem? In a 2017 Ted-Ed video about this exact question, reminding viewers that “the word poetry actually began in verb form, coming from the Ancient Greek ?poeacis?, meaning to create”. They narrow the descriptors of poetry to 3 foundational criteria:  1) Poems emphasize language’s musical qualities through rhyme, rhythm and meter, 2) Poems use condensed language, and 3) Poems often feature intense feelings.

 

But if poetry does possess formless entities, when we view poetry more as a concept, does it appear more often, even in instances so mundane as average life? I would say yes. The essence of poetry perhaps is most obvious under coordinated, almost omnipotent occurrences, themes like reward and punishment often talked about in poems themselves. Which brings us to our idiom for today. The term poetic justice is described by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “an outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded usually in a manner peculiarly or ironically appropriate”. It is evoked when life seems to be perfectly scripted, presenting an elusive force that provides a kind of balance for fairness. In a 2024 Medium article titled, Poetic Justice: Examples from real life and literature, the author provides a real example of those who succumbed to poetic justice, such as disgraced financier Bernie Madoff who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history whose life of luxury crumbled down after he was found guilty of fraud, money laundering, and other related crimes. 

 

Poetic Justice has been an idea propagated through our pop culture media for quite sometime. Before the colossal beef between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Audrey Graham (more commonly know as Drake), they collaborated on a title featured in Lamar’s breakthrough album as an artist Good Kid, m.A.A.D city called Poetic Justice. Writer for radio station 107.7 The Bounce, Dawn Palmer-Quaife, elaborates that the song emphasizes themes of trust and self-reflection in modern relationships, mixed with the importance of communication and commitment, contributing to a narrative arc by Lamar growing up in the notoriously dangerous streets of Compton but finding it difficult to escape its imprinted effects in later life. This idea of past experiences shaping ones negative trajectory is echoed in the 1993 movie by the same name, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, both learning to love and trust others again after strong instance of traumatic loss or abuse. Sometimes in our development to become our fullest potential, we need to confront that inner dialogue preventing us from leaving rock bottom.

 

Writing as a practice for self-development in the creation of self-reflections or moralistic stories is actually a method being used for redemption today. The US non-profit Poetic Justice is a proud example of using restorative writing to, as described on their website, “bridge between one’s experiences and their ability to transform those experiences into a life filled with meaning, purpose, and dignity.” There’s also the US Poetic Justice Institute whose goal is, “Tapping the transformative power of poetry for diverse communities, we value radical collaboration, joyful creative process, and the vitality of human connections”. These projects provide their communities and the marginalized a structure and platform to share their stories, working through their early experiences and providing insights for those crafting their own narrative arcs and contributions towards a better world.

 

One thing about Poetic Justice is our strong feelings towards when such a circumstance presents itself, a kind of “Serves you right!” sort of exclamation, ending with a sense of catharsis. In a 2017 Conversation article by the University of Johannesburg Professor of Philosophy Thaddeus Metz, he introduces the opposite concept of Poetic Injustice and the juxtaposition of despair. Metz provides examples of his undergraduate classmate who had been shot in a school shooting resulting in paralysis from the neck down, living a just life of charity work until her 40s when she unfortunately died due to breast cancer; or the American Fulbright student Amy Biehl, in which, “She was a young anti-apartheid and pro-democracy activist who was stabbed and battered to death outside Cape Town by a group of black people because she was white.” Sometimes the universal script is written in such a way that would put George R. R. Martin’s Red Wedding to retreat in shameful horror.

 

Okay, I digress. Where does the term Poetic Justice originate from? InterestingLiterature, PhraseFinder and Bibisco all attribute the origin to historian Thomas Rymer all the way back in 1678, with the publication of his essay “The Tragedies of the Last Age Considere’d”. Stated in PhraseFinder, “Rymer had strong views on how tragedy should be written and performed and wrote extensively on the subject. Poetic justice or, as Rymer expressed it, poetical justice, demanded that those of good character were rewarded and that the evil were punished. He was also of the view that plots should not be implausible and that dramatic works should have a moral.” Indeed, he was a staunch critic of some Shakespearean tragedies, believing some characters were redundant in their contribution to the protagonist’s moral development, which makes me curious about how Rymer would critique the gritty outright diabolical novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. There are other synonyms used today that reflect similar ideals to that of Poetic Justice. Stated on Bibisco, these include terms like Karmic Equilibrium, Retributive Fate and Moral Equilibrium, though to me, they just don’t role off the tongue as poetically as poetic justice.

 

In any case, the existence of poetic justice as a literary device to guide a plotline begs the question of whether it should be used at all in writing, as it reflects the reality shattering notion that bad people do in fact get their “just desserts”. In a 2015 article in Connotations, A Journal for Critical Debate titled, Poetic Justice: A Few Reflections on the Interplay of Poetry and Justice, author Angelika Zirker writes about two camps of writers, “On the one hand, it has been seen as a fulfilment of the demand that literature should be ethical, useful and instructive, and, on the other hand, it is said to show the inappropriateness of such a demand.” She further includes a quote by renowned writer Salmon Rushdie, in which he states, “[A] story’s amorality makes it more attractive to us than a clear moral message would.” Personally, in my own collection of literature, I value both sets of stories, those that give me hope that goodness always prevails, and those that provide insight into a chaos that we have no control over. Perhaps it’s because reality falls somewhere in between, that for the most part goodness does triumph over all, and that lives will ultimately come to an end, because if the latter is true, why not perform the former? That to me is real poetic justice, now put in a song, alright…

 

 

*Theme Music*

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For the communications segment, I want to plunge into a colossal topic that has been on my mind for many years now as I viewed what seemed, to me, a reality that did not align with my understanding of how science intersects with society. From environmental disasters to pandemic response policies, there’s been a growing concern in my mind that science is not perceived by the public in the way I had once thought. And that topic is trust in science.

 

Ever since I was a wee little lad, and as I grew and developed within the Canadian early educational system, science has been a foundational course each year of my learning. From understanding the solar system and our planet’s place within it, to grasping the water cycle, to visualizing the organelles of the most basic form of life called the cell, to Newton’s laws of motion, complexity has built over time in scientific subject after subject until I’ve reached quite close to the the top of a pyramid, its vertex scraping the current frontier of our collective knowledge. And throughout this time, the impression that was instilled in me about science was it’s blatant significance, blatant in how obviously important this knowledge was in shaping how we view our society, our world and the universe as a whole. Even if science is not a general interest of yours, as indeed it was not for me during my adolescence, there’s no denying that learning science is a useful and safe bet to progress in life with general informed awareness and a plethora of professional opportunities.

 

As I grew older, I noticed that the integration of science in larger and larger communities begins to break down, and views on matters of societal importance involving science become more nuanced. Perceptions on science move from that blatant significance to something sort of like a pretentious yacht club, where most people stand by a tall, chain-linked fence looking at expensive boat after expensive boat wondering what in the world do these people do to allow such financial spending? This lucrative metaphor has a double meaning, as indeed scientific research is, for the most part, so institutionalized that people don’t, and probably never will, experience the procedural methodology that created the electronics in their daily-used smartphones, or the genetic profiles of the meat and vegetables in their daily meals; while they are, in some way, funding this exact scientific research through their tax dollars and donations to charities or community institutes like disease foundations or hospitals. Yes, this has been the case for many years, long before we even existed, and that balance regarding positive or negative perceptions of science has shifted, and this has consequently affected overall trust in science.

 

I trust science not because an individual or group of individuals told me to, at least not to the extent of participants in the famous 1961 Milgram Experiment on obedience and deference to authority, but because the process of scientific discovery is rooted in systematic methodology to uncover objective truths. No counter solutions, whether that be deification of natural occurrences or demagogue epiphanies, has ever appealed to me as worthy of consideration. But for a public majority that may not understand fundamental aspects of scientific methodology like statistical significance or experimental controls, most people will need to trust the words of scientists, at least scientists who choose to shoulder the responsibility of public engagement. How is this trust described in the current climate of political polarization, particularly in countries like the U.S.? Mentioned in a 2025 article by the American Society for Cell Biology (or ASCB), “Data shared by Jenny Luray, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Engagement at Research! America during a recent ASCB webinar […] while there are some differences in public trust depending on political affiliation, most Americans hold a generally positive view of science and scientists. […] These data suggest that the public is, by and large, receptive to science and trusts those who conduct it. According to Luray, the [trust] issue lies not in public skepticism but in the visibility of science and scientists. Research! America found that most Americans cannot name a single living scientist—or even a research institution. This lack of visibility is striking when paired with another finding: a majority of U.S. adults believe that scientists should communicate their research to the public. Taken together, these findings suggest a receptive public—but an invisible academy. It’s hard to build public engagement when the bridge between scientists and society doesn’t yet exist for many people.”

 

This lack of visibility is telling, since people have shifted more to acquiring information from digital platforms, particularly ones rarely curated for integrity and evidence-based discussion, scientists are in essence competing against a level of communicative noise unprecedented in the history of human existence. And worse, already being a minority in the general populace, not all scientists participate in these public forums, and those who do may not be equipped to handle the consequences, whether that be positive follow-up questions or negative backlash. In a 2024 article by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, writer and Director of Science Education & Outreach at the MDI Biological Laboratory Elisabeth Marnik lists four major barriers to public outreach that scientists need to overcome: 1) Concerns about perception, 2) Lack of institutional support, 3) Time constraints, and 4) Lack of confidence and training. All of these barriers have one theme shared, in that the training of an individual to become an expert in a scientific field does not prioritize anything but advancing research, an institutional flaw regarding productivity metrics in the academic system that must change in order to improve public trust in science. More details on scientific metrics will be discussed later in this season.

 

On this topic, one particular question I ask myself is, why should science be trusted? In a 2021 talk organized by the Royal Institution, speaker Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, goes into great detail about this question regarding her 2019 book, Why Trust Science?. Science in itself has an intrinsic level of uncertainty that cannot be ignored. There can never be absolute truth in scientific discoveries, but that certain mechanisms exist that will occur almost all of the time, so much so that the possibility of other consequences is so minute that is should not be weighted in our decisions for subsequent actions once attaining new knowledge. Oreskes mentions a statement by famous scientific historian David Joravsky in which, “The world’s scientific communities cannot claim absolute truth, but they can claim that they are closer than anyone else to genuine knowledge concerning their particular fields of study.” And it’s this attribute that experts should have the most weight in the decision-making process that should be of popular opinion, and of course designating one as an expert in a particular topic is by no means an easy choice for the general populace to make. However, for some problems we face collectively as participants in a society, by not making this choice, we may inevitably lead ourselves to dire consequences for which we cannot return from. Oreskes compares trust in scientific experts to the philosophical bet known as Pascal’s Wager, a famous thought experiment by mathematician Blaise Pascal on why one should reason to believe the existence of God, “Like Pascal, we assume risks of accepting most scientific claims are smaller than the risks of rejecting them”. For example, if climate change is accelerating due to human interventions, which the consensus among the scientific community agrees that this is the case, then accepting this claim will in fact need harsh pivots in energy harvest and lifestyle management, but rejecting this claim will overall lead to a world less prosperous and resourceful.

 

This begs the question of whether trusting science can indeed have relatable value for the average citizen. In a 2025 article published by Cambridge University Press, authors Angela Potochnik and Melissa Jacquart state that, “Arguably, science is the predominant framework through which Western societies understand our experience of the world, and it guides our decisions about how we structure society through public policy. It makes sense, therefore, that scientific literacy, public trust in scientific institutions, and policies based on science are all generally seen to be of societal value.” So therefore, increasing trust in science and scientific literacy can be achieved by increasing science visibility through public outreach. But this is not easy for reasons already mentioned in this segment, and the blame for these barriers cannot be placed on the individual scientist but on the institutional training as a whole. I would argue that needs to be addressed as an initial step. In what I’ve seen regarding public outreach training, there is still a pervasive ether of some level of inferiority bestowed onto the audience labelled as, The Public. Potochnik and Jacquart emphasize this mistake in their article, “a commonly employed approach of simply sharing scientific knowledge with the public is not as effective in achieving understanding as one might expect it to be. This is widely called the deficit model of scientific understanding, as it presumes the public has a knowledge deficit that scientists can simply fill. Goals in line with the deficit model, like better informing the public or countering misinformation, are common for scientists and other academics to prioritize, but communication research has shown this approach to be ineffective. Instead, as with any education, public understanding of science requires proper orientation to the content, aligned motivations, and active synthesis.”

 

This deficit sentiment is echoed all the way back in a 2003 e-letter in the journal Science by author Alan Leshner, where Leshner states, “Simply trying to educate the public about specific science-based issues is not working. Many science skeptics are already quite well educated, but they relate more to the risks of science and technology advances than to their benefits. Moreover, given the uncertainties in science, the best science-based strategy is not always as clear as we would like and as many in our community might claim. And widely publicized examples of scientific dishonesty, like the Schön case, or unacceptable scientific practice, like the Lomborg affair or repeated unverified claims of human cloning, are not only misleading but seriously erode the public's trust in science.” Scientists cannot view the public as a group of ignorant agents of chaos, obstacles in their trajectory of discovery and progress. Further mentioned in a 2014 article published in Sage Journal, authors allude to a reason for hope, “A clear achievement of more than two decades of research into public engagement has been to shift attention to the ways in which ‘the Public’ has been constructed in public engagement. A public imagined as ignorant and hostile was the impetus for many of the science communication activities in the 1980s and 1990s, and though this transformed into more sophisticated ideas of engagement with multiple ‘publics’ for science and technology, such publics were often still imagined as ‘concerned’, ‘anti-scientific’ or ‘obstructions’ to innovation.”

 

In terms of applying these principle findings into practice, there has been suggestions on implementing changes in the way scientists conduct public engagement. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS) puts forth a Theory of Change and a Logic Model for improved public engagement, with outlined performance indicators. Stated on their website, their reasoning for this is that, “many studies have shown that the relationship between factual knowledge and attitudes on a scientific issue is very weak – and in some cases reversed, where greater scientific knowledge is related to negative attitudes about an issue. This points to the need for an alternative to the deficit model in public engagement, reflecting real world conditions where publics’ interpretations about implications of science are tied to mental models, personal identity (such as political affiliation or religiosity), and other factors”. Their model suggests 5 types of public engagement activities: 1) Deliberative (addressing issues at the intersection of science and society), 2) Dialogue (direct interaction to address personal-level changes), 3) Knowledge Co-Production (building scientific skills), 4) University-Led Cooperative (expert consultation and collaboration within communities), and 5) Informal (daily life interactions, arguably the most frequently experienced and least studied type of engagement). And thus, this practical method of public engagement can ultimately correct historical pasts that have harmed trust in science, as they mention, “In settings from deliberative forums to citizen science, the development of publics’ trust in scientists and the scientific process were important outcomes, particularly in instances that dealt with controversial topics. The idea in the theory of change is that publics first view scientists as relatable people and fellow citizens. With time and relationship-building, publics come to identify scientists (and scientific institutions) as trusted and respected sources on par with the trust placed in family, friends, or other respected peers. Research shows trust in scientists is one of the strongest correlates of other positive attitudes toward science.”

 

Building relationships with the public is crucial if trust is the end goal of public engagement with science. There’s no doubt that the average citizen will find science more trustworthy if there’s some characteristic of relatability to scientific topics, which there most certainly always is, but is never stated due to the blatant significance science often carries itself with. Furthermore, by developing deeper relationships with an engaged public, the scientific community as a whole can better navigate the complexities of what it means for science to be integrated within whole societies, better understanding how social identity, religious or ethnic culture, and political ideology influence perceptions toward science and even accessibility to certain scientific topics. This is incredibly beneficial and can help align the importance of science with those who have been engrained to deny science for generations. 

 

Most importantly, public engagement has the benefit of demystifying science and finding an inherent value in the process of science, of systematic methodology to find answers for yourself, and have that be an enjoyable experience. Potochnik and Jacquart further this claim, “While promoting the value of science because of the benefits it offers is one version of the aim of demonstrating science’s value, another version might focus on developing an appreciation for science in and of itself – for enjoyment or fun. For example, someone might enjoy watching a nature documentary, even if they don’t learn any new scientific facts from it. Likewise, a young child might visit a science museum or participate in a science booth event at a local market and come away simply with a sense of having enjoyed themselves. A legitimate aim for public engagement with science initiatives thus is participants walking away from the experience with positive feelings because they had fun”.

 

My reflection on my early education around science made me remember how much fun it was to participate in that learning experience, and how grateful I am for science to be a part of an educational system that received such societal attention. From organizing school trips to museums, to appreciating the accessibility of public libraries, to inviting engaging educators of all backgrounds to showcase live experiments, it was all laying down the foundation for how one should think. For me, trust in science doesn’t mean trusting in a single individual or group of individuals, its trusting a process that allows anyone who doubts scientific findings the opportunity to test hypotheses for themselves, either arriving at the same conclusion, or producing a new finding that brings humanity one step closer to understanding reality. If trust were to lay on categorized persons, then the trust is in a community of free thinkers open to challenge findings whenever possible, pushing our understanding further with the right checks and balances. Now that’s a yacht everyone can get on.

 

 

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