[Constantine XIII]

Is it just me, or have you noticed how most scientists, especially phyisical scientists and engineers love to try to put things as plainly as possible?

It is amazing how many enjoyable books about Huge Engineering Feats and Quantum Mechanics are out there. You'll never find "Derrida for Dummies", though. These guys will never have their own Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking. If they simplified that BS to the point where it could be read, everyone would realise what a bunch of nonsense it truly is!

[jalisco555]

Is it just me, or have you noticed how most scientists, especially phyisical scientists and engineers love to try to put things as plainly as possible?

When you're designing a bridge or a new pharmaceutical molecule clarity of presentation of your idea is crucial. Ambiguity can kill.

[Physicist]

Is it just me, or have you noticed how most scientists, especially phyisical scientists and engineers love to try to put things as plainly as possible?

"Being deep and appearing deep.--Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water." -- Nietzsche

[RightWingAtheist]

As someone in rhetoric and communication studies, I can tell you that the introductory textbooks do their best to simplify these theories, and also to make them seem more logical then they truly are. If they weren't politically useful (at least to the left, but I'm sure the fringe right would find them useful as well), they wouldn't have any currency at all.

[RightWingAtheist]

Part of the reason is that the way science is undertaken practically requires that it be communicated in an inductive fashion if it is to be successful, proceeding from the facts, making the connections, and only then, being able to put forth your explanation. Even when you assume that your audience already has some special knowledge, if you don't follow a certain pattern of argument, you'll lose them. This is characteristic of nearly all the successful communicators from Thomas Huxley and Michael Farday all the way to Carl Sagan and Roger Penrose (who I had the pleasure and privelege of watching give a lecture in person last month).