American Scientist

In episode four of D&I ComSci—now renamed DEAI ComSci (for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion), American Scientist’s science-for-all podcast—we're discussing how science fiction films and television promote science curiosity.

Research suggests people who are science curious are more likely to accept scientific reasoning, even for topics such as climate change where political party views differ widely. (N.B. A short bibliography of research informing this podcast is available below the transcript.)

Hear from science communication practitioners and scholars Reyhaneh Maktoufi, Thomas DeFrantz, and Stephanie Castillo.

image collage by Robert Frederick from Black Panther, Armageddon, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Transcript

[music]

Jordan Anderson: Science Communication. Inclusive science communication. You're listening to American Scientist's D-E-A-I ComSci, the science-for-all podcast where we aim to explore how science communicators are making science more reflexive, equitable, and engaging for audiences. In this episode, building science curiosity through science fiction film and videography. We'll hear from science communication leaders and filmmakers Reyhaneh Maktoufi known for her work on science curiosity, Thomas DeFrantz, my former Afrofuturism professor now teaching at Northwestern University, and Stephanie Castillo, a friend, science communicator, and videographer. I'm your host, Jordan Anderson.

[music ends]

Before we begin, it’s been two years since the July 2020 Black Lives Matter movements and the explosion of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion initiatives that developed as a result. Since then, organizations across the nation have expanded the acronym D&I, for diversity and inclusion, to be more representative. So, we are too. This podcast, D&IComSci will now be called DEAI ComSci. Now, on with the episode.

[excerpt from Everything Everywhere All at Once]
“ What’s happening?
“Evelyn, I’m not your husband. I’m an illusion of him from another universe. I’m here because we need your help.”
“Very busy today. No time to help you.”
[music continues]

Jordan Anderson: In the film Everything Everywhere All at Once by Daniel Kwan, the plot capitalizes on a popular topic in science fiction today: the multiverse. The multiverse is a concept that, though abstract, is a real theory in modern science. And the film’s title—Everything Everywhere All at Once—hints at what the term multiverse means.

Max Tegmark, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describes the multiverse a little more precisely.

Max Tegmark: …space goes on forever, which means there are infinitely many other regions like this, which we call the level one multiverse.

Jordan Anderson: It’s a theoretical probability that if the universe is infinite, then you, me, and everyone has at least one doppelgänger. That would mean there’s someone who exists somewhere in the universe with the exact same anatomy and experiences as you, me, and everyone else, meaning that everything also has a duplicate in the universe, too.

[music ends]

This multiverse idea has been popularized in many films, including the Marvel cinema franchise. Discussion forums across the internet show just how much people are talking about the science in these movies in new, surprising, and sometimes even fearful ways. And that got me thinking. How can scientists and inclusive science communicators use science fiction movies to improve DEAI efforts, building science curiosity in our communities?

[music starts]

Unidentified voice - Reyhaneh Maktoufi: I'm a fan of science curiosity.

Jordan Anderson: That’s science communicator and media producer Reyhaneh Maktoufi.

[music ends]

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: First of all, just the normal reason I'm like, I think curiosity is fun. I'll be bored if I don’t have that curiosity of exploring the world. I just think it’s beautiful and there's so much just awe and beauty that happens just by being able to explore. And we know from research when you have more curiosity, you're more likely to dedicate, you know, resources and energy to explore the world and to explore and to try to understand what the answers are.

[typing/clicking sounds]

Jordan Anderson: According to google statistics, more people searched “Multiverse” in May than any other time in 2022. That’s when Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness came out.

[music]

With this release came a flood of articles that further explore the speculative science in the movie, many of which were from science-accredited sources like NPR and National Geographic. In turn, those articles prompted science curiosity. But is building curiosity enough for inclusive science communicators to reach new audiences, even those hesitant toward science?

[music ends]

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: One of the things that I think really made me think about science curiosity and its importance in controversial topics is a study done by Dan Kahan, and Ashley Landrum, and some of their colleagues, which was about climate change communication and how people believe that there's the risk of climate change.

Jordan Anderson: The paper is titled is "Science Curiosity and Political Information Processing." And it was published in 2017.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: And this was also during the time where a lot of us were like, “Oh, if we just educate people about climate change, they're going to change their mind. And everything's going to be great and jolly, and we're going to save humanity."

Jordan Anderson: Maktoufi says, in addition to looking at political partisanship, the researchers were also looking at people’s level of education.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: Something that their study shows, and these are correlations, right? So, we're not talking about causation, and what caused what. One of the things that their study shows is that the higher educated you are, the more likely that you will be partisan about what you believe with climate change. So, for example, I might think that if a person is highly educated, they will believe in the risk of climate change. But what they showed is that if you're a highly educated Republican, you're more likely to disagree with the risk of climate change. Like way more than someone that has less education. And if you're a highly educated Democrat, you're way more likely to believe in the risk of climate change compared to someone that has less education and is a Democrat.

Jordan Anderson: One interpretation the researchers had was that well-educated people were better at coming up with reasons to defend political views they already had. So education level was not a good indicator of people’s beliefs about climate change.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: OK, so if it's not an education, then let's look at something else. So the other thing they looked at was science curiosity, and that was like, you know, how likely I am to like, go consume news that is about science. And what that showed is that if you're science curious, you're actually more likely to believe in the risk of climate change. And that includes within your political partisanship. So if you're a Republican that is more science curious, you're more likely to believe in the risk of climate change, right, compared to your other Republican friends that might be less science curious. So, there's something to that idea that like this science curiosity is very correlated with us looking for information that is counter to what we believe and being open to that.

[music]

Jordan Anderson: So, maybe what’s happening is that building up science curiosity prompts people to look up scientific facts for themselves, just like I—and millions of other people did—in looking up the “multiverse” on Google after seeing a science fiction film on that subject.

Maktoufi says science fiction can easily catch our attention. Building off of our emotions, like, our fears.

[music ends]

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: I think science fiction builds really well off of our fears, and things that we expect might happen. So, one of the questions people would ask a lot during the sessions at the -- I was at the Adler Planetarium collecting my data, and my field, the topic was science curiosity and what are the kinds of questions people ask -- and something that would come up was like Armageddon.

Jordan Anderson: Armageddon was a popular science film from 1998.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: And it was like, “So there was this asteroid coming to Earth, what should we do if that happens?” It's science fiction, but it's something that we all still worry about. It's still very relevant, because even though it's not as likely, if it happens, it is the end of the world in some ways.

[music]

Jordan Anderson: In addition to fear, Maktoufi also mentioned people also are science curious about the potential of the future like the possibility of visiting or living on other planets, such as Mars. The Martian was one film that explored that idea.

[music ends]

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: We do have conversations about you know, going to Mars and living on Mars and how that's gonna affect us. So, people do ask questions about, you know, what about like The Martian was realistic or no. Like, can we do that at some point? And I think, yeah, the more these things are becoming a part of life as we know it, whether it's about asteroid hitting us or us wanting to just like all move to Mars, they become more realistic. Right? Like, there have always been conversations about things like aliens and UFOs. And are they real or not? Are they like amongst us? So, these are the kinds of things people are really curious about. And sometimes not because it's necessarily important, but because it's surprising and new and novel. And I think novelty is also something else that gets people excited.

Jordan Anderson: Maktoufi also said something that made me think science documentaries and other science fact-based filmography can also use novelty to their advantage.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: So you could be curious about something that is not even relevant to you or important to your life where you’re like, “Oh, this is a completely new idea.”

[music]

And science fiction does that really well. I think maybe with [The] Matrix.

That was something very new that it was a theme that then suddenly everyone was like, “Oh my God, what if I'm in a simulation?” Right? It's still fiction, but it's kind of related to me, and it's very novel, and then suddenly makes you think very differently about the world.

[music ends]

Jordan Anderson: Thinking very differently about the world that we live in is how Maktoufi says inclusive science communicators can foster science curiosity in more diverse spaces.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: I'm Iranian, right? As an Iranian like we are very obsessed with poetry. We all grew up on poetry. So, something that like induces awe in me—like makes me want to cry and like feel like small and insignificant—a lot of times is just like reading poetry. And just taking that—this idea of something like awe is not necessarily something that we all experience all for the same things and it depends on where we're coming from what our culture is—I think the same goes with curiosity. We a lot of times, think of like, “Oh, this is the standard for curiosity.” But that’s because it was always the same people who had this knowledge gatekeeping of like “This is all I know, and now I can make you curious.” But when we bring in different people that have different knowledge and have different access to knowledge and have different experiences, they might also know who are the different communities that would be curious about different topics.

Jordan Anderson: And Maktoufi says people with diverse backgrounds need to be behind the camera, too.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: So, it's not just that, “Oh, I'm going to make a film about diverse scientists,” right? Because that's just my perception of like, “Oh, this is science, and these are all diverse scientists that I'm showing you.” But it's also who's behind the camera that decides these are the narratives that matter, and these are the ways people will be curious, and the topics people will be curious, and I'm going to show you the diversity in front of the camera. But those base important decisions are made by the people that who are behind the camera – the people who are writing the science communications scripts, the people who are hosting podcasts, right? And that matters a lot.

Unidentified Voice - Thomas DeFrantz: So, representation is a great thing that helps us kind of open out space for people to be excited to participate.

Jordan Anderson: That’s Thomas DeFrantz.

[music]

Thomas DeFrantz: I'm a professor in the department of performance studies and theatre at Northwestern University. More importantly, I direct the SLIPPAGE lab. And the SLIPPAGE lab is focused on deploying new technologies towards theatrical storytelling as well as alternative history making, where we world-make using technology, performance, and culture as vectors to think differently about a future that we might all want to share.

Jordan Anderson: Star Trek: the Next Generation, is a future some people want to share. But DeFrantz says creator and screenwriter Gene Roddenberry imagined a future in a way that lots of science fiction does: placing people of color in situations where they’re less than human.

Thomas DeFrantz: So an obvious example is Geordi on Star Trek, and for—I don't know—years, this character couldn't have eyes.

Jordan Anderson: Geordi, played by LeVar Burton, was blind with his eyes hidden until season 4 episode 24 in 1991—roughly four years.

[music ends]

Thomas DeFrantz: And you know, there was not really a reason for that maybe the writers thought he was more of a kind of futuristic Black person, you know, who is embedded in technology himself. But what that that imagery does to us is it puts us in an old trope where we're not quite human, we’re not going to ever have romance, and, you know, I don’t know if Geordi ever had a plot, you know, around romance or the things that might drive human interaction.

Jordan Anderson: Of course, in the original Star Trek, which was produced back in the 1960s, Gene Roddenberry also introduced the world to the character Nyota Uhura, a supporting role played by Nichelle Nichols. DeFrantz says the rise of science fiction in the 1960s corresponds with the rise of the civil rights movement.

Thomas DeFrantz: And the rise of science fiction also meant the rise of people of color in the spaces of scientists and engineers and medical assistants. So that there was this way that even as these movies from the 60s, still had kind of a center of kind of white masculinity -- so if we think about movies like Soylent Green [1973], or the Andromeda Strain [1971], or 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968], you know, there's a kind of whiteness at the center of all these movies -- but in many of these movies, there are also Black femme, Black women, Black men, who are the scientists and engineers who are supporting the plot, and are, you know, inevitably sort of important characters in the movies.

Jordan Anderson: DeFrantz says that kind of representation of people of color continued—in fits and starts—until Black Panther [2018], directed by Ryan Coogler.

[music]

This emphasized the point that Maktoufi made about putting people of color behind the camera, too.

[music ends]

Thomas DeFrantz: And, you know, we finally get a full-fledged, fully budgeted Hollywood movie that's centered on a Black population that's entirely science fiction based, but where we have a young Black woman as the lead, you know, engineer, and the kind of smartest person on the planet is one of the female characters in this movie. And so, we kind of see the other end of things if you will, of things that started in the 1960’s civil rights movement.

So we want to be really suspicious of storytelling that places people of color into roles that are subservient, and also non-human, that deny us a basic humanity, and an ability to change our minds, to be unsure, to make really great decisions and solve things, but also to make mistakes, to fall in love, and to be confused. I mean, we need all of those things to be in the media that is helping us imagine forward towards a science that we all share.

Jordan Anderson: But is science fiction really the venue for imaging a science reality that we all share? Stephanie Castillo works on non-fiction, science documentaries.

Stephanie Castillo: I recently earned my PhD in science communication where I researched representation and storytelling narratives in science media.

Jordan Anderson: Castillo specifically studied the types of science stories that attract young adults and college students.

Stephanie Castillo: I was specifically looking into “How do we tell science stories and what actually gets young adults and early college students attracted to these science stories?” And whether that’s focusing on the research aspect of the science or the people aspect of the science.

Jordan Anderson: With those two categories – focusing on the research or focusing on the people – does it really matter if the science story is fictional or not? Castillo says it’s the storycraft itself that really captures the audience’s attention.

Stephanie Castillo: With industry practice, their goal is to make sure that they're actually producing something that people want to watch and going to recommend other people to watch so they can make the money back from like, what they invested in in terms of like producing the Hollywood film. And, you know, actually creating a story that's actually captivating and people actually understand the characters and like, their arc and the story that they're trying to tell. Those are the same kind of elements that we've seen in the terms of practice of science filmmaking. But I guess we have a different call to action that other practicing science communicators do. So coming back to kind of the conservation efforts or, like, advocacy efforts. If the goal is to get people to sign up to petition to something, or to advocate for legislation, or to change policies, that is a different outcome that they’re seeking rather than just to entertain someone with a good story.

Jordan Anderson: And so when it comes to promoting diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, Castillo says it all comes down to intentionality.

Stephanie Castillo: It's either through, like, who is behind the camera, who is in front of the camera, like, how are you presenting the people that are being presented or even the science that's being presented. Are we being culturally sensitive? Are we actually trying to not project our own biases or stereotypes into the stories that we're trying to tell? Or, even the way that we represent the scientists in front of the camera?

And so, it really comes down to -- by being intentional and thinking about these things, then that’s the way that we’re reducing the same formulas that we kind of fall trap into in terms of if we are looking for documentaries to be inspired by, it’s always like, the white male narrator talking us through these like, beautiful photos. The whole, you know, the person that’s in front of them is like, you know, an older, white, British guy talking about this, or the people behind the camera is a whole team of like, one type of demographic. And so there’s been a bigger push to kind of have more diversity behind the camera. And by having that diversity behind the camera, then we know that there’s different perspectives in the room to make sure that we’re pushing intentionality of how we represent the people in front of the camera, and who’s stories we decide to tell and how we decide to tell those stories.

Jordan Anderson: With science fiction, then, it’s easier to focus on storycraft because the story doesn’t have to be true. But because our goal as inclusive science communicators is to foster science curiosity, the science presented should not fall into the realm of science fantasy.

[spoken clip from The Core]

And that’s where we have our problem. This engine has stalled. The core of the Earth has stopped spinning.

Jordan Anderson: The movie The Core, in which scientists travel to the center of the Earth, is full of fantasy. And in a paper by Michael Barnett, Heather Wagner, and others, the researchers found the movie The Core gave students at a diverse middle school several inaccurate understandings about earth science.

Thomas DeFrantz: When science fiction is not at all believable, audiences and a general public move away.

Jordan Anderson: Again, Thomas DeFrantz of Northwestern University.

[music ends]

Thomas DeFrantz: An example like the movie The Core is a kind of science that most people just don’t know anything about. So while it was science fiction, it was also a bit of fantasy and most of the audience have no idea what the Earth‘s crust is put together of. So the movie could still be successful for its action and adventure.

So I think it’s really a question of science fiction being a bit different from fantasy. Science fiction to be successful wants to build on good science, while fantasy does something else. Audiences are drawn to science fiction when it seems plausible and actually builds from science that most people know to be robustly figured.

Science fiction is definitely better when it stays very close to science. This is why we like the television show Black Mirror so much. It builds on things that we already know to be in motion and then stretches what they can do just enough to make an interesting TV show.

Jordan Anderson: Now, you may be thinking, "Wait, Black Mirror? I find that show disturbing and depressing." A lot of people do. And so for those of us interested in communicating science to inspire curiosity and improve DEAI efforts, media producer Reyhaneh Maktoufi says we should aim to leave our audiences with something positive—if not a solution, then a recommendation, hope, or potential course ahead.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi: So something that we do know is if you constantly bring up themes that are negative and about doom and gloom—we see that a lot of times with climate change communication, and it's like, ‘Well, the world is ending here so you can't be curious about it because we're telling you how it ends'—but what happens is, as humans where we get so much negativity and so much bad news and doom and gloom, you at some point start ignoring the news, right, and you feel that helplessness. So you might just like switch off, or you might go into denial. That's why it's very important, I think, you cannot just have narratives of doom and gloom, even if they're curiosity inducing. You have to have narratives of hope and action that you can pair with those that it's like, ‘Hey, be curious about this because it's happening and it's happening in your backyard and it's happening right now—this climate change thing. But be curious also about these really cool new mind-blowing solutions that we have that are doable, and we have the ability to make them happen. Do you want to learn more about those, right?” So, you need to pair them up together, because otherwise, if you just have the doom and gloom, right, it's like, then “I'll just be helpless.” And it might even backfire. But if you have them connected together, then I understand the urgency of it and I also want to do something about it, because I know I can do something about it.

Jordan Anderson: And if doing something about it means—for you—making your own science videos, science communicator Stephanie Castillo says there are inexpensive ways to enter the field, including borrowing or renting equipment.

Stephanie Castillo: There's a bunch of like tutorials on YouTube that kind of walk you through that process. And so I taught myself how to use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects to make animations. And that's why I kind of made my first video, which was pretty exciting. And then, I sought opportunities at the university. It was like a digital humanities fellowship. And the fellowship was to give you like, a couple hundred dollars just to kind of like develop an idea. And so I pitched to them Phuture Doctors, and that's where I was able, I was paired with an education department on campus that already had like, a built-in like, video studio was there. And so I was able to use their facilities to kind of like host my first science video and get some money to pay for like, the Adobe subscription and stuff like that.

[music]

Jordan Anderson: And, Castillo adds, there’s room for your voice, too.

Stephanie Castillo: It may feel like there's oversaturation of people on YouTube. But like, we need more different types of voices and stories to be covered. So just to pick up the camera and just try it.

Jordan Anderson: In today’s information-saturated world, where false advertisement and misinformation are commonplace, by being science curious, we’re motivated to seek out the facts about the world we live in, the medications we should take, and risks associated with our daily lives.

In this podcast, we’ve learned how science fiction can be a medium to build science curiosity by bringing us into new, surprising, and sometimes even scary universes that stem from the scientific possibilities of today. We’ve also learned it’s also as important for us to stay aware of who is communicating these messages. Do we only think about diversity from those who we see in front of the camera or are we also thinking about diversity in those behind the camera doing the filmmaking?

This episode of DEAI ComSci has been brought to you by American Scientist and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, and was edited by Robert Frederick. For links to the studies mentioned in this episode as well as a transcript, please visit AmericanScientist.org and look for the blog post that accompanies this podcast. Special thanks to Reyhaneh Maktoufi, Thomas DeFrantz, and Stephanie Castillo for joining us today. Today's music choices come from Everything Everywhere All at Once, Amy Water’s Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Theme, The Martian, The Core, The Matrix, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther’s Pray for Me Instrumental Version by the Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar, Epidemic Sound, and the Free Music Archive. Please be sure to check out Maktoufi’s TED Talk where she further discusses science curiosity, SLIPPAGE by Dr. DeFrantz, and Castillo’s Phuture Doctors. If you like what you heard today, follow American Scientist and follow me on Twitter @Jordan_ArtSci. I'm your host Jordan. Thanks for listening.

[music ends]