ABSTRACT
In the past, many scientists chose their profession because they were more adept in dealing with ideas and facts than with the unpredicTable ferment of human relations. Communication, other than with their scientific peers, did not have a high priority: indeed, it was often actively avoided. The resulting lack of empathy with the general public led them into many false assumptions—‘they’re not interested’, ‘they wouldn’t understand’ and, by way of contrast and in the words of one eminent scientist passionately advocating immunisation, ‘Show them the Figures—how can they fail to understand?’ How, indeed? It is the role of the science communicator to explain to the scientist how ‘they’ can fail to understand and, to the community, what the scientist meant.
