Most people don't understand that most PhD scientists are incapable
of writing so that normal people can understand them.
In large science agencies, institutions, universities, etc., the scientists
hand over their material to a PR team who translates the dry, pedantic, academic
word salad into something comprehensible and interesting to lay people.
When I was working on my PhD at a large research university, we were trained
to write in a very academic, highly stylized, very technical way.
Professors every now and then, would aggravate the crap out of us us by ordering us
to write an Aunt Fanny report or article. This was something your Aunt Fanny could understand,
and of course it was the hardest thing in the world to write.
When you read about something a university scientist has discovered, that scientist was
required to hand their material over to the university PR department. In fact, at my university all PhD
dissertations had to be automatically handed over to the University PR department. They went through
all dissertations, God help them, to determine if anything should go out to the popular press.
We always got a kick out of how the material was twisted and changed for public viewing.
A friend of mine had an interesting dissertation and it hit the popular press and she got a real kick
at what the PR department had done with it. We all kidded her about it.
Later when I wrote psych reports to courts, probation departments, attorneys, physicians, I always
had to translate the my findings into something they could understand.
So when we see all these press reports from climate change scientists about being stunned and shocked we
know it is all disingenuous. 100% certain scientists are not surprised in the least by what
is happening, they have been warning us for decades. And scientists don't talk this way about their emotionally
when making a report. This is all the PR team.
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