• Question: How important is communication in the realm of scientific discovery?

    Asked by anon-244771 to Sam, Samantha, Nicol, Lori-Ann, Liam, David on 16 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: David Sobral

      David Sobral answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      Incredibly important. Communication is what makes data and some thoughts become “a discovery” and have much deeper meaning. Without communication scientific discoveries have little to no value to society. I am also a stronger advocate of all science being always fully public, including all data and outcomes.

    • Photo: Lori-Ann Foley

      Lori-Ann Foley answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      Communication is really, really important. If you make a discovery, other scientists need to hear about it, so they can test your work and see if it relates to theirs and affects it. Plus just knowing new things is really important to everyone. And communication is really important these days because often the teams working on projects are in different places and they need to talk to each other to organise their work and check results and publish their papers. So learning to communicate is one of the key skills of being a scientist. Also scientists needs to be able to communicate with the general public, so they understand what the latest discoveries are and their impact on people. And that’s why scientists and students taking part in projects like this is so important, because students who might want to be scientists can then talk to people working in their fields to find out what it is really like.

    • Photo: Samantha Faircloth

      Samantha Faircloth answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      Hello Astro, it is incredibly important. If scientists communicate and collaborate to help each other then more discoveries are made and we have a better understanding of science! 🙂

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