Guest Post by Miguel Jimenez, 2024-2025 Sustainability Leadership Fellow, and Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, & Conservation Biology and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at Colorado State University

How a trip to the mechanic gone wrong made me rethink communicating scientific work

Brake check

I was sitting in my mechanics office with the intention of getting a brake pad replacement when I received bad news: they were recommending additional work. Worse yet, it was a big one. It was a subframe replacement.

Naturally, I was skeptical. It’s everyone’s worst fear. You bring your car in for basic work, only to be told that you need to shell out cash on a much bigger, more expensive job. It’s like going to the dentist for a cleaning and being told that every tooth is rotting from the inside out and needs a root canal. Yet, unlike my teeth, which I can touch and feel, the innerworkings of my car are, frankly, an afterthought at best. I can change my oil or swap out a flat tire in a pinch. But, like most people, beyond that I just want the car to start when I turn the key and safely get where I’m going.

So, I had questions. What is a subframe? What does it do? Is this something I need to do now or can I put it off until I’m no longer a broke graduate student? As someone on the less-than-lucrative career track of conservation biology, can I put it off forever?

Cue Mike. Mike is a mechanic that I’ve come to trust. He rarely recommends big, expensive jobs, so if he was pushing for this, I figured he’d have an explanation. Mike started by explaining that the subframe is like the “skeleton of the car.” It’s the structure that holds key components, like the engine, suspension, and transmission together. In doing so, it also distributes the weight of those components across the car when turning or accelerating. He took me into the garage, where my car was on a lift. His coworkers showed me the extent of rust damage on my subframe, even encouraging me to touch it to see how it flaked off. Mike said, ultimately, whether to make the replacement was my call. But he expressed that it was a “significant safety concern” and, if I didn’t get the work done, I should think of my car as having a weak skeletal structure and be careful driving, particularly on rough terrain.

As a customer, I said I had to think about it. But as a PhD Candidate studying urban ecology at Colorado State University and a SoGES Sustainability Leadership Fellow being trained to communicate science, this interaction has stuck with me.

“Science Communication”

Often when we talk about science communication, we approach it as though our challenges are unique. Yet, what hurdles do we have that Mike did not? Mike had to navigate jargon and used a biology metaphor that I could quickly latch onto. Mike had to show evidence, leading me into the garage so I could see the problem firsthand. Mike regularly deals with a skeptical audience. No one who brings their car into the mechanic wants to spend more money than they have to. Most importantly, Mike had to relay uncertainty, giving me his assessment and leaving the decision of taking action in my hands.

I don’t love the term “science communication” – not because of the important process it describes, but rather because of how it qualifies it. Believe me, I do understand the difficulty in explaining scientific work and its relevance. Many of the concepts we devote our careers to are unfamiliar to nearly everyone outside of our field, including other scientists. Our work is fraught with obscure ideas, terms, and acronyms. We have to compete with growing misinformation and public distrust in science.

But communication is communication. Anyone who dives deep into their craft inherently explores niche concepts and hyper-specific terminology that they share with a small community. Describing that craft to people outside of that community and convincing them of its value is universally difficult. This task and its challenges are not specific to science.

My gripe is more than just semantics. It’s ideological. As scientists, we often talk about a gap between our work and public audiences. However, I wonder if we create that gap ourselves when we assume that the nature of communicating our work is inherently different than it is for other professionals. I wonder if we’re making a boogieman out of an everyday occurrence, putting our work on a pedestal that prevents us from thinking about it in general terms, getting in our own way. At my most cynical, I wonder if we’re projecting a pretentious attitude onto something that people around us do with regularity.

Putting it in gear

My intention is not to bash science or science communicators. It’s difficult work and I certainly don’t claim to have it figured out. On the contrary, my intention is to submit that it may benefit us to draw on the ways other professionals communicate their work. For instance, a key difference I recognize in Mike’s position and my own is practice. Communication is built into Mike’s job. His interaction with me felt routine because it is his routine. As scientists, how often are we stepping out from behind our computer screen and talking about our work? Is that interaction built into our roles? Should it be?

Relatedly, not everyone working in the garage came out to talk to customers. Mike and a few others served as conduits between the garage and the customer. Who are the conduits for our work? Is it every scientist’s job to communicate to a public audience or should people specialize in that interface?

Finally, Mike recognized that he couldn’t make my decision for me. Instead, he gave me his clear, unmuddled opinion about what would happen if I didn’t take action based on the evidence he had. He gave me time to think about the problem and process the information I was given. How do scientists create that space for our audience? How can we better communicate the certainty of our predictions? How do we leave our conversations with landowners or agencies when they don’t take the action we recommend? These are big questions and, again, I don’t claim to have definitive answers. But they all stem from seeing a successful communication system in the unassuming setting of my mechanic’s garage.

In the end, after weeks of pondering – and saving – I did get my subframe replaced by Mike and his crew. It was expensive. Paying that bill hurt.

But I did it because of the information Mike was able to relay to me. I did it because he was able to clearly convey how inaction might affect me. I did it because I trust his expertise on a topic I know little about, and I didn’t feel swindled or deceived into doing so. I did it because now, when I turn my key and my car starts, I am more confident that I can safely get where I’m going.

I think it’s helpful to take a step back sometimes and consider that, as scientists, perhaps that is the essence and simplicity of what we are striving to achieve.