Real Communication An Introduction

As a noted astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Plan-

etarium at the American Museum of Natural History, it’s not surprising that

people enjoy asking Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson questions: What happens if you get

sucked into a black hole? Why was Pluto demoted to “dwarf planet” status? What

is surprising, however, is that people recognize Tyson at all. After all, scientists—

even noted scientists—are not often celebrities, and unless you’re a fan of the tele-

vision show The Big Bang Theory, astrophysics is a field that seems far removed

from everyday life. Yet Tyson has, in many ways, become the face of science today,

having written several bestselling books and given lectures around the country. He

also hosts the PBS series NOVA science-NOW and has made appearances on The

Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Jeopardy! Time magazine voted him one of

the one hundred most influential people in the world, and People crowned him

the “sexiest astrophysicist alive” (Lemonick, 2007). He has more than 250,000

Facebook fans and over 1.25 million followers on Twitter.

Tyson’s popularity is rooted in both his cosmic expertise and his communi-

cation skills, which have been recognized by NASA, the Rotary International,

and the science advocacy group EarthSky. He has a particular knack for present-

ing the vast mysteries of the universe in ways that laypeople can understand.

During a presentation at the University of Texas, for example, Tyson noted, “We

have no evidence to show whether the universe is infinite or finite,” before ex-

plaining that astrophysicists can only go so far to calculate a horizon—similar to

the horizon line viewed from a ship at sea. He then continued that comparison:

“Yet a ship is pretty sure that the ocean goes beyond the horizon of the ship, just

as we are pretty sure the universe extends beyond our particular horizon. We just

don’t know how far” (Tyson, 2009).

Tyson recognizes the challenge of informing the general public about com-

plex scientific and cosmic issues that researchers devote decades to understand-

ing: “It was not a priority of mine to communicate science to the public,” Tyson

says. “What I found was that enough members of the public wanted to know

what was going on in the universe that I decided... to get a little better at it so I

could satisfy this cosmic curiosity” (cited in Byrd, 2010).

chapter

Informative Speaking

15

The Goals of

Informative

Speaking

Topics for

Informative

Presentations

Approaches to

Conveying

Information

Guidelines for

Informative

Speeches

IN THIS CHAPTER

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