To Make Science Engaging, We Need a Sesame Street for Adults
This article is part of the magazine, "The Future of Science In America: The Election Issue," co-published by LeapsMag, the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program, and GOOD.
In the mid-1960s, a documentary producer in New York City wondered if the addictive jingles, clever visuals, slogans, and repetition of television ads—the ones that were captivating young children of the time—could be harnessed for good. Over the course of three months, she interviewed educators, psychologists, and artists, and the result was a bonanza of ideas.
Perhaps a new TV show could teach children letters and numbers in short animated sequences? Perhaps adults and children could read together with puppets providing comic relief and prompting interaction from the audience? And because it would be broadcast through a device already in almost every home, perhaps this show could reach across socioeconomic divides and close an early education gap?
Soon after Joan Ganz Cooney shared her landmark report, "The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education," in 1966, she was prototyping show ideas, attracting funding from The Carnegie Corporation, The Ford Foundation, and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and co-founding the Children's Television Workshop with psychologist Lloyd Morrisett. And then, on November 10, 1969, informal learning was transformed forever with the premiere of Sesame Street on public television.
For its first season, Sesame Street won three Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. Its star, Big Bird, landed on the cover of Time Magazine, which called the show "TV's gift to children." Fifty years later, it's hard to imagine an approach to informal preschool learning that isn't Sesame Street.
And that approach can be boiled down to one word: Entertainment.
Despite decades of evidence from Sesame Street—one of the most studied television shows of all time—and more research from social science, psychology, and media communications, we haven't yet taken Ganz Cooney's concepts to heart in educating adults. Adults have news programs and documentaries and educational YouTube channels, but no Sesame Street. So why don't we? Here's how we can design a new kind of television to make science engaging and accessible for a public that is all too often intimidated by it.
We have to start from the realization that America is a nation of high-school graduates. By the end of high school, students have decided to abandon science because they think it's too difficult, and as a nation, we've made it acceptable for any one of us to say "I'm not good at science" and offload thinking to the ones who might be. So, is it surprising that a large number of Americans are likely to believe in conspiracy theories like the 25% that believe the release of COVID-19 was planned, the one in ten who believe the Moon landing was a hoax, or the 30–40% that think the condensation trails of planes are actually nefarious chemtrails? If we're meeting people where they are, the aim can't be to get the audience from an A to an A+, but from an F to a D, and without judgment of where they are starting from.
There's also a natural compulsion for a well-meaning educator to fill a literacy gap with a barrage of information, but this is what I call "factsplaining," and we know it doesn't work. And worse, it can backfire. In one study from 2014, parents were provided with factual information about vaccine safety, and it was the group that was already the most averse to vaccines that uniquely became even more averse.
Why? Our social identities and cognitive biases are stubborn gatekeepers when it comes to processing new information. We filter ideas through pre-existing beliefs—our values, our religions, our political ideologies. Incongruent ideas are rejected. Congruent ideas, no matter how absurd, are allowed through. We hear what we want to hear, and then our brains justify the input by creating narratives that preserve our identities. Even when we have all the facts, we can use them to support any worldview.
But social science has revealed many mechanisms for hijacking these processes through narrative storytelling, and this can form the foundation of a new kind of educational television.
Could new television series establish the baseline narratives for novel science like gene editing, quantum computing, or artificial intelligence?
As media creators, we can reject factsplaining and instead construct entertaining narratives that disrupt cognitive processes. Two-decade-old research tells us when people are immersed in entertaining fiction narratives, they loosen their defenses, opening a path for new information, editing attitudes, and inspiring new behavior. Where news about hot-button issues like climate change or vaccination might trigger resistance or a backfire effect, fiction can be crafted to be absorbing and, as a result, persuasive.
But the narratives can't be stuffed with information. They must be simplified. If this feels like the opposite of what an educator should be doing, it is possible to reduce the complexity of information, without oversimplification, through "exemplification," a framing device to tell the stories of individuals in specific circumstances that can speak to the greater issue without needing to explain it all. It's a technique you've seen used in biopics. The Discovery Channel true-crime miniseries Manhunt: Unabomber does many things well from a science storytelling perspective, including exemplifying the virtues of the scientific method through a character who argues for a new field of science, forensic linguistics, to catch one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in U.S. history.
We must also appeal to the audience's curiosity. We know curiosity is such a strong driver of human behavior that it can even counteract the biases put up by one's political ideology around subjects like climate change. If we treat science information like a product—and we should—advertising research tells us we can maximize curiosity though a Goldilocks effect. If the information is too complex, your show might as well be a PowerPoint presentation. If it's too simple, it's Sesame Street. There's a sweet spot for creating intrigue about new information when there's a moderate cognitive gap.
The science of "identification" tells us that the more the main character is endearing to a viewer, the more likely the viewer will adopt the character's worldview and journey of change. This insight further provides incentives to craft characters reflective of our audiences. If we accept our biases for what they are, we can understand why the messenger becomes more important than the message, because, without an appropriate messenger, the message becomes faint and ineffective. And research confirms that the stereotype-busting doctor-skeptic Dana Scully of The X-Files, a popular science-fiction series, was an inspiration for a generation of women who pursued science careers.
With these directions, we can start making a new kind of television. But is television itself still the right delivery medium? Americans do spend six hours per day—a quarter of their lives—watching video. And even with the rise of social media and apps, science-themed television shows remain popular, with four out of five adults reporting that they watch shows about science at least sometimes. CBS's The Big Bang Theory was the most-watched show on television in the 2017–2018 season, and Cartoon Network's Rick & Morty is the most popular comedy series among millennials. And medical and forensic dramas continue to be broadcast staples. So yes, it's as true today as it was in the 1980s when George Gerbner, the "cultivation theory" researcher who studied the long-term impacts of television images, wrote, "a single episode on primetime television can reach more people than all science and technology promotional efforts put together."
We know from cultivation theory that media images can shape our views of scientists. Quick, picture a scientist! Was it an old, white man with wild hair in a lab coat? If most Americans don't encounter research science firsthand, it's media that dictates how we perceive science and scientists. Characters like Sheldon Cooper and Rick Sanchez become the model. But we can correct that by representing professionals more accurately on-screen and writing characters more like Dana Scully.
Could new television series establish the baseline narratives for novel science like gene editing, quantum computing, or artificial intelligence? Or could new series counter the misinfodemics surrounding COVID-19 and vaccines through more compelling, corrective narratives? Social science has given us a blueprint suggesting they could. Binge-watching a show like the surreal NBC sitcom The Good Place doesn't replace a Ph.D. in philosophy, but its use of humor plants the seed of continued interest in a new subject. The goal of persuasive entertainment isn't to replace formal education, but it can inspire, shift attitudes, increase confidence in the knowledge of complex issues, and otherwise prime viewers for continued learning.
[Editor's Note: To read other articles in this special magazine issue, visit the beautifully designed e-reader version.]
Scientists Used Fruit Flies to Quickly Develop a Personalized Cancer Treatment for a Dying Man
Imagine a man with colorectal cancer that has spread throughout his body. His tumor is not responding to traditional chemotherapy. He needs a radically effective treatment as soon as possible and there's no time to wait for a new drug or a new clinical trial.
A plethora of novel combinations of treatments can be screened quickly on as many as 400,000 flies at once.
This was the very real, and terrifying, situation of a recent patient at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. So his doctors turned to a new tactic to speed up the search for a treatment that would save him: Fruit flies.
Yes, fruit flies. Those annoying little buggers that descend on opened food containers are actually leading scientists to fully personalized cancer treatments. Oncology advances often are more about about utilizing old drugs in new combinations than about adding new drugs. But classically, the development of each new chemotherapy drug combination has required studies involving numerous patients spread over many years or decades.
With the fruit fly method, however, a novel treatment -- in the sense that a particular combination of drugs and the timing of their administration has never been used before -- is developed for each patient, almost like on Star Trek, when, faced suddenly with an unknown disease, a futuristic physician researches it and develops a cure quickly enough to save the patient's life.
How It Works
Using genetic engineering techniques, researchers produce a population of fruit fly embryos, each of which is programmed to develop a replica of the patient's cancer.
Since a lot of genetically identical fly embryos can be created, and since they hatch from eggs within 30 hours and then mature within days, a plethora of novel combinations of treatments can be screened quickly on as many as 400,000 flies at once. Then, only the regimens that are effective are administered to the patient.
Biotech entrepreneur Laura Towart, CEO of the UK- and Ireland-based company, My Personal Therapeutics, is partnering with Mount Sinai to develop and test the fruit fly tactic. The researchers recently published a paper demonstrating that the tumor of the man with metastatic colorectal cancer had shrunk considerably following the treatment, and remained stable for 11 months, although he eventually succumbed to his illness.
Open Questions
Cancer is in fact many different diseases, even if it strikes two people in the same place, and both cancers look the same under a microscope. At the level of DNA, RNA, proteins, and other molecular factors, each cancer is unique – and may require a unique treatment approach.
Determining the true impact on cancer mortality will require clinical trials involving many more patients.
"Anatomy of a cancer still plays a major role, if you're a surgeon or radiation oncologist, but the medical approach to cancer therapy is moving toward treatments that are personalized based on other factors," notes Dr. Howard McLeod, an internationally recognized expert on cancer genetics at the Moffitt Cancer Center, in Tampa, Florida. "We are also headed into an era when even the methods for monitoring patients are individualized."
One big unresolved question about the fruit fly screening approach is how effective it will be in terms of actually extending life. Determining the true impact on cancer mortality will require clinical trials involving many more patients.
Next Up
Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Towart is now working to build a service called TuMatch that will offer rapid and affordable personalized treatment recommendations for all genetically driven cancers. "We hope to have TuMatch available to patients with colorectal/GI cancers by January 2020," she says. "We are also offering [the fruit fly approach] for patients with rare genetic diseases and for patients who are diabetic."
Are Towart's fruit flies the answer to why the man's tumor shrunk? To be sure, the definitive answer will come from further research that is expected soon, but it's also clear that, prior to the treatment, there was nothing left to do for that particular patient. Thus, although it's early in the game, there's a pretty good rationale for optimism.
A Million Patients Have Innovated Their Own Medical Solutions, And Doctors Are Terrified
In the fall of 2017, patient advocate Renza Scibilia told a conference of endocrinologists in Australia about new, patient-developed artificial pancreas technology that helped her manage her Type 1 diabetes.
"Because it's not a regulated product, some [doctors] were worried and said 'What if it goes wrong?'"
"They were in equal measure really interested and really scared," recalled Scibilia. "Because it's not a regulated product, some were worried and said 'What if it goes wrong? What is my liability going to be?'"
That was two years ago. Asked if physicians have been more receptive to the same "looping" technology now that its benefits have been supported by considerable data (as Leapsmag pointed out in May), Scibilia said, "No. Clinicians are still really insecure. They're always going to be reluctant to accept consumer-driven technology."
This exemplifies a major challenge to the growing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) biohealth movement: physicians are unnerved and worried about innovations developed by patients and other consumers that haven't been tested in elaborate clinical trials or sanctioned by regulatory authorities.
"It's difficult for patients who develop new health technology to demonstrate the advantage in a way that physicians would accept." said Howard DeMonaco, visiting scientist at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "New approaches to the treatment of diseases are by definition suspect to clinicians. Most are risk averse unless there is a substantial advantage to the new approach and the risks in doing so appear to be minimized."
Nevertheless, the DIY biohealth movement is booming. About a million people reported that they created medical innovations to address their own medical needs in surveys conducted from 2010-2015 in the U.S., U.K., Finland, Canada and South Korea.
Add in other DIY health innovations created in homes, community biolabs and "Maker" health fairs, and it's clear that health care providers are increasingly confronted with medical devices, information technology, and even medications that were developed in unconventional settings and lack the blessing of regulatory authorities.
Researchers in Portugal have tried to spread the word about many of these solutions on the Patent Innovations website, which has more than 500 examples, ranging from a 3-D printed arm and hand to a sensor device that warns someone when an osteomy bag is full.
When Reddit asked medical professionals, "What is the craziest DIY health treatment you've seen a patient attempt?" thousands shared horror stories.
But even in this era of patient empowerment, more widespread use of DIY health solutions still depends upon the approval and cooperation of physicians, nurses and other caregivers. And health care providers still lack awareness of promising patient-developed innovations, according to Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Michigan who advocates involving patients in the design of healthcare technology. "Most physicians are scared of what they don't know," she said.
They're also understandably worried about patients who don't know what they're doing and make irresponsible decisions. When Reddit asked medical professionals, "What is the craziest DIY health treatment you've seen a patient attempt?" thousands shared horror stories, including a man who poked a hole in his belly button with a knitting needle to relieve gas.
Yet DeMonaco and Lee think it's possible to start bridging the gaps between responsible patient innovators and skeptical doctors as well as unprepared regulatory systems.
One obstacle to consumer-driven health innovations is that clinical trials to prove their safety and effectiveness are expensive and time-consuming, as De Monaco points out in a recent article. He and his colleagues suggested that low-cost clinical trials by and for patients could help address this challenge. They urged patients to publish their own research and detail the impact of innovations on their own health, and create databases that incorporate the findings of other patients.
For example, Adam Brown, who has Type 1 diabetes, compared the effects of low and high carbohydrate diets on his blood sugar management, and conveyed the results in an online journal. "Sharing the information allowed others to copy the experiment," the article noted, suggesting that this could be a model to create multi-patient trials that could be "analyzed by expert patients and/or by professionals."
Asked how to convince health care providers to consider such research, DeMonaco cited the example of doctors prescribing "off label" drugs for purposes that aren't approved by the FDA. "The secret to off label use, like any other user innovation, is dissemination," he said. Sharing case reports and other low-cost research serves to disseminate the information "in a way that is comfortable for physicians," he said, and urged patient innovators to take the same approach.
The FDA regulates commercial products and has no authority if consumers want to use medical devices, medications, or information systems that they find on their own.
Physicians should also be encouraged to engage in patient-driven research, said Dr. Lee. She suggests forming "maker spaces in which patients and physicians are involved in designing personalized technology for chronic diseases. In my vision, patient peers would build, iterate, and learn from each other and the doctor would be part of the team, constantly assessing and evaluating the technology and facilitating the process."
Some kind of regulatory oversight of DIY health technology is also necessary, said Todd Kuiken, senior research scholar at NC State and former principal investigator at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Synthetic Biology Project.
The FDA regulates commercial products and has no authority if consumers want to use medical devices, medications, or information systems that they find on their own. But that doesn't stop regulators from worrying about patients who use them. For example, the FDA issued a warning about diabetes looping technology earlier this year after one diabetic was hospitalized with hypoglycemia.
Kuiken, for one, believes that citizen-driven innovation requires oversight "to move forward." He suggested that Internal Review Boards, with experts on medical technology, safety and ethics, could play a helpful role in validating the work of patient innovators and others engaged in DIY health research. "As people are developing health products, there would be experts available to take a look and check in," he said.
Kuiken pointed out that in native American territories, tribally based IRBs working with the national Indian Health Services help to oversee new health science research. The model could be applied more broadly.
He also offered hope to those who want to integrate the current health regulatory structure into the ecosystem of DIY health innovations. "I didn't expect people from the FDA or NIH to show up" he said about a workshop on citizen-driven biomedical research that he helped organize at the Wilson Center last year. But senior officials from both agencies attended.
He indicated they "were open to new ideas." While he wouldn't disclose contributions made by individual participants in the workshop, he said the government staffers were "very interested in figuring out how to engage with citizen health innovators, to build bridges with the DIY community."
"Why should we wait for regulatory bodies? Why wait for trials that take too long?"
Time will tell whether those bridges will be built quickly enough to increase the comfort of physicians with health innovations developed by patients and other consumers. In the meantime, DIY health innovators like patient advocate Scibilia are undeterred.
"Why should we wait for regulatory bodies?" she asked. "Why wait for trials that take too long? There are plenty of data out there indicating the [diabetes looping] technology works. So we're just going to do it. We're not waiting."