Hello everyone!
Yesterday was the last talk of the "Year of the Earth" lecture series here in Leuven (see their web page). It is thus in some respect the "precursor" of our lecture series on the "Year of Astronomy" (I have promised more details about this, I didn't forget it!). Yesterdays talk was by Iain Stewart, a famous geologist who is known for his BBC series on geology and its connection to human culture. I have to confess that I didn't know him before. In any case the presentation was very good. He made a few very remarkable points on the outreach activity on scientists.

One important point was that scientists have the assignment to do outreach to make their knowledge available to the society, and to use it for its best. (Unfortunately, this information is often ignored, but this is another story.) According to Stewart, not every single scientist has this duty, but at least every scientific organisation or institute has this very duty. I fully share his opinion. Nevertheless, not every outreach activity is equally good. Sometimes bad outreach is worse than none at all, in particular if the audience gets confused or only gets to hear scientists who do not agree on their conclusions. Also, we scientists have to learn to speak in a language that non-scientist do understand. Words like "theory", "uncertainty", or "hypothesis" are terms that we scientist are used to and know how to deal with them, but not necessarily every man in the street. Scientists have to use such words with caution when communicating with the general public. After all, outreach can be very rewarding.

In conclusion, all scientists are called to get actively involved in outreach events, to help that the knowledge they produce is used to everybody's best.

Read you soon!