Storytelling matters in science

For those of us trying to communicate science to a wide audience, the common pitfalls are that we’ll bore, confuse or patronise our audience. And, let’s be honest, sometimes we’ll slip up and misinform them too.

All the same, the attempt feels worth making; indeed, it’s vital to maintaining well-informed public debate. It’s sobering, then, to learn from a recent preprint that the old adage ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ might be true.¹ Federico Francisco and Joana Gonçalves-Sá report evidence that negative attitudes towards science peak not for people who know the least about it but for those whose knowledge is moderate – but whose confidence in their knowledge is correspondingly greater.