For seven years I had a job where I worked with actual scientists, people with doctorate degrees, and in some cases multiple doctorates doing a particular type of research. You’d think these folks, all of them very smart, would understand the value of PR and getting the general public interested in/supportive of science. And some of them did. There was also a contingent that viewed the general public as idiots (in one particular case not meant as an insult but that person’s assessment of the mental capabilities of others - he was not a really pleasant guy to work with not because he was aggressive and nasty but because he was hugely condescending) and viewed someone like NDT as either a sell-out or a failure who couldn’t cut it in the real scientific world and had to settle for what he could get. There are scientists out there who resent, even get enraged at trying to explain their work in layman’s terms and see it as “dumbing down” what they do to the point of completely getting it wrong or lying to people, and insist the only way to understand what they do at all is to become equally educated and competent in the field - which not only is beyond most lay people it excludes most other scientists who are experts in some other narrow field. Of course, these same people will often whine that no one understands them or the importance of what they do, and why can’t they get funds for research? (If you can’t “dumb down” enough for the folks making the financial decisions to understand why what you do matters you ain’t getting funds, but hey, I’m just one of those laypeople idiots, what could I possibly know, right?)
So… there are folks who believe ANY scientist who can communicate with the general public is a sell-out, not really a scientist, wasting his talents, misleading the public… in some cases there’s a hefty dose of jealousy (why is HE famous and I’m not? I’ve got twice as many publications as he does!) in other cases I think their view is that hyper-focused and narrow.
Someone like Stephen J. Gould, whose professional area was snails, seemed to have a healthy perspective that the most groundbreaking work he could do on snails was not going to have a huge impact on the average human being, ever, but understood that he could serve science as a whole by communicating with the average person. He needed to have the background and experience of being a working scientist and for that snails was as good as anything else, and there’s nothing wrong with being a snail expert - he just understand that snails were not going to be as compelling as a lot of other stories he could tell about science. Most of his to-the-public essays were about other things (he did sneak a few snail-tales into the mix, but only a few).
Likewise, NDT needs his background as a working scientist - in his case astrophysics - to do what he does, but he’s not communicating minutiae about his field to the general public, he’s trying to communicate science in general.
One problem with these scientists is that, since they are often discussing areas of science outside their main field, they sometimes get things wrong. This might be something large - Gould actually has several essays about that sort of thing - or some small detail. At which point other scientists will blast them in the science community or sometimes even in front of the lay public. This is an extension of the extremely viscous in-fighting you can get in a narrow field of science in the professional media of journals and such with alleged adults getting very, very nasty with each other about small things, such that the average SDMB flame war looks tame in comparison. Personal insults are de rigueur and you get hyper-intelligent people using that intelligence to try to destroy each other’s personal and professional reputations. It’s quite ugly, really. But the general public isn’t aware of this sort of squabbling schoolyard atmosphere in science, so when it spills out into the public view folks are taken by surprise.
Of course, plenty of other scientists envy the General Public Communicator/Translator Scientist their ability to explain what they do and have some admiration for a talent they themselves don’t possess. They’ll occasionally wince at this or that detail but conceded that yes, sometimes you do have to simplify to communicate with the general public and anyone getting serious about a particular field will have to learn that that bit there isn’t quite accurate, but close enough for a non-scientist. They understand that if the general public isn’t at least a little excited about science scientists will wind up stocking shelves or flipping burgers to pay the rent. Also, they like when folks have some interest in what they do, just like most of the rest of us.
NDT has the advantage of being VERY charismatic. Maybe at times he also checks the “minority role model” box but affirmative action is not how he became the go-to guy for so many TV/you tube spots. Carl Sagan had that quality as well, as noted, and if anything more of it (one has to wonder if the early relationship between Sagan and NDT was a factor in all this, Sagan was his mentor). and he clearly respected and learned from him a great deal, probably more than just science.
There are many other Science Communicators out there who have the double qualification of heavy academics/professional career and ability to talk to lay people with a dash of charisma. Stephen J. Gould has already been mentioned. I’ll throw Oliver Sachs in there as well. Among the living there is also Sanjay Gupta and Atul Gawande (both medical science explainers). I think it’s no coincidence that most of the science communicators are doctors of some sort - doctors expect to have to talk to regular folks and they’re more likely to discover they have a talent for doing so than a scientist in another area that has little contact with the general public. Which not to say every doctor is a scientist in the sense usually meant, but they certainly deal with a highly technical field that incorporates a lot of science. And I’m sure there are plenty of Dopers who can criticize the performance of NDT, Gould, Gupta, Gawande, Sachs, and others, find instances where they were in error or just flat out wrong (Gould did a few essays on ones from prior eras) but I argue that one error does not wipe out the good they do or the value of the rest of their dealings with the public. I’m aware of Brian Cox also falling into that category, but I’m not very familiar with his work. Stephen Hawking was certainly a brilliant science communicator and while I don’t think his work will have the impact of Einstein’s he wasn’t a slouch in the actual science - I mean, you have to have made a significant contribution to get a type of radiation named after yourself. I’m sure other countries have scientists that serve that role to their general public even if they aren’t known internationally (it would not surprise me if a couple of the folks I name make people in other countries say “Who?”)
So… TLDR… all of these folks are very smart and competent/successful in their chosen fields to a decent degree. They didn’t opt for a media presence because they weren’t good at what they got the high-power degree(s) in. They may not be at the very very top of their fields - but then, neither are most other successful people. They’re still successful. Their work in the media/communicating with the general public does take time they could be spending on science… but even scientists do stuff other than just science, like playing in a band when they aren’t doing science, and sometimes they’re fortunate enough to excel in two areas. Good for them.
