Jonah Lehrer, the author of popular science nonfiction books such as "How We Think," first came under scrutiny following allegations of self-plagiarism in various web and print publications. The allegations soon led New York University journalism professor Charles Seife to investigate the contents of Lehrer's Wired.com blog. Seife demonstrated that Lehrer had, on multiple occasions, eschewed facts, misrepresented quotes and plagiarized sometimes outright from other bloggers and journalists. I had devoured Lehrer's books, which pushed me to join The Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science in hopes of developing the skills necessary to communicate to the public as a future scientist. It was difficult for a former fan like me to witness his fall from grace, and Lehrer's deception is sure to have disappointed his many readers. The success of Lehrer's books could be attributed to the fact that they fed a market that craves accessible forms of academic literature. The realm of pop-academia has been lorded over by bestselling authors such as The New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "Tipping Point" and "Outliers," and Stephen J. Dubner, the journalistic half of the duo behind the nonfiction phenomenon "Freakonomics." Yet while these pop-academic books have succeeded in making scientific concepts more widely available, the outsourcing of complex academic ideas to professional journalists leads to thorny caveats. For instance, while Lehrer's misconducts may place him at the extreme end of the moral spectrum, journalistic misrepresentation of academia is nothing new, given the formidable challenge of condensing a substantial volume of research into a magazine article or a 200-something-page book. Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard University and a pop science author, criticized Gladwell's "Outliers" in The New York Times Book Review as a work that lacks rigor and "consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies." The co-authors of "Freakonomics" were subjected to similar criticisms from the American Scientist, which charged that their book contained an array of mistakes "from back-of-the-envelope analyses gone wrong to unexamined assumptions to an uncritical reliance on the work of ["Freakonomics" co-author Steve] Levitt's friends and colleagues."
The misrepresentations underscore the pattern of oversimplifying academic material to appeal to the lowest common denominator of readership, a trend that is driven by the pecuniary incentive to engage as many readers as possible. While the authors and the haplessly oblivious public may be happy with such an arrangement, the misrepresentation is a black eye for academia and serves to dilute, rather than enhance, public understanding of the topics toward which scholars have dedicated their careers.
The solution to this quandary would be to turn to the experts. Scholars have no better publicists than themselves to advocate the significance of their specific field to the general public. While academic and popular writing differ in style, some scholars have begun to bridge the divide and accept the role of shaping public debate through popular media outlets.
This past March, several Dartmouth professors introduced the Op-Ed Project to learn how to give their academic research a voice in public forums by writing articles suited for the public ("Pilot program guides professors in op-ed writing," Sept. 12). Following the seminar's positive reception, two professors sought to organize a one-year pilot program to encourage Dartmouth faculty members to add their voice to public discourse. This isn't an isolated anomaly; the Op-Ed Project also works with other universities like Stanford University, Yale University and NYU. By learning how to communicate to the masses, researchers from a vast spectrum of fields will be able to enhance public knowledge of the continuing development in academia.
In addition, colleges and graduate programs should consider implementing writing courses designed to allow future researchers to bring the ivory tower to the wider public. Considering the trend of specialization and growing complexity affecting almost all facets of academia, instilling current students with the capacity to communicate clearly earlier in their training will enable future generations to convey the importance of their research to those outside of their respective fields.
To avoid simplifications and distortions of their own findings, scholars should take control of how their research is transmitted to the public. Academia must learn to speak for itself.
