Fiction Can Improve Communication Between Scientists and Society

Fiction Can Improve Communication Between Scientists and Society

By Anita Chandran

Volume 27, no. 1, Rethinking Science Communication

We look to stories for answers. Irrespective of discipline, readers gravitate towards fiction to entertain them, to comfort them, and to speak to their humanity. We inadvertently look to fiction to learn about our own humanity. We read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall to learn about history, and to learn about revolution; we read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to learn about colonialism, and to learn about family struggle; and we read Giovanni’s Room to learn about sexuality and internalised homophobia, as well as to learn about love and desire. We do this because fiction gives us a narrative anchor, a story which we can relate to, which is memorable, and whose characters we see ourselves and others in. Fiction affords us a looking-glass into other worlds and, in doing so, speaks to us in terms we understand, often about things we would otherwise never encounter.

Fiction about science should be no different. And yet, literary stories that interrogate science are still rare; and science fiction as a genre is treated by many as niche, “nerdy,” and detached from reality. Instead, we seek answers to scientific questions with the idea that science is objective, and try to interpret our rapidly changing world against this backdrop.

Unfortunately, we still lack the vocabulary with which to discuss STEM disciplines, and a two-way misconception has arisen.1 Scientists are perceived as cold, dispassionate, disengaged from the arts and guilty of the pursuit of technical advancement at the cost of humanitarianism.  Perhaps some resentment is understandable. As writers, we can see the consequences of tools like ChatGPT on our intellectual property, livelihood, and creativity. Many of those working on technological game changers appear unbothered by the ethical, environmental, and artistic consequences of these developments, which can be a bitter pill. Meanwhile scientists are less often exposed to education in the humanities, instead viewing artistic creativity as a distinct phenomenon from intellectual curiosity. Creativity is an unknown “quality” that artists have. This mutual misunderstanding has left the arts and sciences treated as orthogonal disciplines, existing at right angles, never destined to interact.

This divide is wreaking havoc on our society. Across the political spectrum, fear and mistrust in science is growing. States and malicious state actors weaponize this fear to roll back civil liberties, resulting in any number of horrors: vaccine skepticism, vandalism of 5G cell towers, harmful rhetoric about the contraceptive pill and intrauterine devices, defunding of climate initiatives. People see science as the other: a world beyond their understanding, beyond their scrutiny, and to which they have no access.

We must close this gap, not just for the sake of advancing human knowledge, but so that we are better able to advocate for our scientific rights, to understand technical information, and to foster trust in science and scientists, and so that scientists can better understand the ethical implications of their research. Fiction is a tool that reaches across disciplines, providing answers to our deepest questions and concerns, and can be used to great effect for science and writers.

The Connection Between Fiction and Scientific Storytelling

For the reader, fiction is a unique medium. Novels, poems, and short stories occupy a place in our cultural ecosystem defined by the idea that they take up mental space and time. They require a depth of focus and participation from the reader less often found in other media. Simultaneously, they allow the reader to empathize with the lives of others. Because the reader engages with fiction on a personal level over a sustained period, that fiction occupies space in the reader’s life: They relate to the characters and retell that story to others.

In practical terms, it is difficult to convince a non-technical audience to devote time to thinking about science. As most scientists will attest, start discussing your research at a party and watch the eyes of your observers glaze over. Part of this comes from an expectation that scientific information is too dry or difficult to be understood by non-experts, and part of it stems from the idea that we already know the basic principles of what’s logical, and don’t need to know more.2 Psychologists sometimes refer to a behaviour known as “cognitive closure,” where we have a desire to reach a conclusion or decision without confusion, experiencing an aversion to ambiguity.3 This behavior is embedded in our relationship to learning about science, and in the way that science is often taught. In science, and the public understanding of science, there is a focus on objective conclusions and clarity, even though the practice of science itself is often imprecise, confusing, and complex. The disconnect between the complexities of science and the desire for a complete and conclusive explanation of science makes the discipline difficult to explain and hard to engage with.

Fiction is a vehicle for reducing cognitive closure, particularly compared with other forms of media.4 By reading fiction, we can side-step our own reservations, considering scientific concepts with a more open mind. Using characters, themes, and narrative, it is much easier to get the reader to afford attention to subject matter that in other contexts they would not. When you pick up Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, you may not know anything about biology but, through inhabiting her fictional world, you might come away thinking deeply about genetic engineering.

Reading fiction is also a slow form of information gathering; it allows for reflection and understanding of nuance. Fiction authors have access to an opportunity that any science communicator would love: sustained audience engagement with scientific subject matter. The narrative keeps the reader focused regardless of the complexity of the science. In Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, he offers a humane examination of particularly difficult scientific concepts such as the Schwarzschild Radius or Mochizuki’s Conjecture, and the subsequent madness those discoveries caused the scientists that made them. Labatut cuts through to the audience in a meaningful way. He portrays science as something tangible that can be related to and discussed. This has lasting impact: The emotions we experience as we read fiction linger after we finish a story and allow those stories to remain with us.5

Fiction can relate factual information to a context that matters for a reader. In doing so, stories make science seem relevant to our lives. Works like Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness concern extraterrestrial civilization, but are really examinations of love, gender, and the threats of colonialism. Fiction can speak to a broad readership, consisting of those who might not otherwise consider reading about science. This is a reclamation of narrative: Readers feel that concepts belong to them, that they are safe subjects to be interested in, and that scientists are people they can relate to.

There is also a hunger for scientific fiction in both public and literary reading spheres. Works like Martin MacInnes’s Booker-onglisted In Ascension have achieved critical acclaim. Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry, a commercial novel considering a woman chemist in the 1960s, sold over eight million copies. And, of course, the 2024 Booker Prize winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey was an intimate portrayal of scientists orbiting Earth. This is to say nothing of science fiction, which itself is a hugely popular genre, and which has shaped our public discourse of science.

Roadblocks to Creative Writing about Science

So, what’s stopping writers? Scientific information is complex. Technical terminology is often unclear, obfuscated through translation between academia and the general public. We are afraid of getting it wrong and misunderstanding the subject matter. And we can often be afraid of having conversations with scientists about our art.

 This gives rise to a firewall between scientific concepts and literature, even present among literary giants. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion, struggling with her daughter’s hospitalization, recalls reading a textbook of neurology: “When I began to read the text itself I could think only of a trip to Indonesia during which I had become disoriented by my inability to locate the grammar in Bahasa Indonesia, the official language used on street signs and storefronts and billboards.” Scientific language frightens and alienates her. By comparison, Will Self’s short story “False Blood” takes the opposite view when referring to a recent diagnosis of a life-limiting blood disorder: “There should be no metaphors in it at all, nothing should be defined in terms of anything else. . . . Nietzsche said that illness was the beginning of all psychology; he might have added that the only possible therapy was a statement of the facts.” While they disagree in their desires, it is my view that both Didion and Self crave the same thing in these works: narrative. The narrators want to be told a story of science that addresses their fears and their grief. They present a similar blockade: Science is a foreign land, a distinct and separate entity from narrative, not fit for the emotional ambiguities of literature and of their lived experiences.

For authors, the barrier between science and fiction is regrettable. Fiction is a tool of expression and consideration, requiring imagination, written skill, and creation of this all-important, compelling narrative. Fiction can also be a tool for investigation, enabling the writer to interrogate themselves, our society, and the world as it moves forward. It is also a vehicle for processing our own struggles, fears, and successes.

Reciprocal Benefits for Scientists and Writers

Fiction concerning science is a rich playground. Without the constraints of reporting, academia, and scientific logic, writers can take scientific questions to their natural conclusions. They consider themes that areoften pressing in our daily lives: our concerns about climate instability, about reproductive justice, or about global pandemics. Writers can interrogate scientific ethics, and conceive of how new technology can benefit and harm society. Fiction is a way for writers to engage with their fears about and hopes for technology, and also to contribute to shaping public opinion of science.

From a creative point of view, scientific fiction gives rise to an interesting artistic space. A well-known adage in writing is that there is “nothing new under the sun.” While this lacks some nuance, the progress of scientific and technological discovery—nonlinear and often surprising—gives writers access to new phenomena and new thinking. Science influences the creative process, creating a world of experiments in language and form. Take Louisa Hall’s Trinity, which concerns the life of Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb. The story’s structure mimics a particle physics experiment, approaching the subject matter without directly looking at it.

In fictionalizing science, writers must also engage in an analogous process to  translation. They must use source material for which they may have a limited understanding, in an unfamiliar alphabet, and render those concepts in a language far from the original. In doing so, they must weave new descriptions and metaphors to deepen the reader’s understanding. Words are textured, evoking sensation, noise, and color. As fiction writers, we pick words that are sensory. We can include artistic visions of science that delight the reader. Not only is this challenging and rewarding, it develops our vocabulary.

The development of terminology and description in scientific fiction also has a significant impact on science. Consider “terraforming,” the process by which we take another planet’s ecosystem and attempt to recreate the Earth’s environment there. Technocrats routinely refer to the terraforming of Mars, and terraforming has become a major talking point in human space exploration. The term first appeared in Jack Williamson’s 1942 short story “Collision Orbit” and was adopted by astronomers in the 1960s and 70s. Today, it’s an important concept for astrobiologists. Similarly, “cyberspace” was coined in William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” in 1982. The term and its aesthetic implications have shaped our vision of virtual reality.

When writers dream of future worlds, and these dreams bleed through into the public consciousness, scientists also take inspiration in their research. The “ion engine,” used by astronomers for jet propulsion first appeared in Donald W. Horner’s novel By Aeroplane to the Sun in 1910.6 More familiar is the concept of “artificial intelligence,” whose portrayals in fiction throughout history have dramatically influenced the efforts of scientists in their quest for machine intelligence.7 Our justified reservations involving AI are also guided by the knowledge we gain from stories.

Irrespective of technological advancement, a relationship to fiction also benefits scientists. Reading and writing fiction gives scientists a different perspective through which they can view their own work. When Kip Thorne and Carl Sagan, both astrophysicists, came together to discuss the science in Sagan’s Contact, they reshaped our scientific understanding of “wormholes.” Writing can engender creativity and fresh insight, as well as improving communication and encouraging empathy with different audiences. This process makes for better, more conscientious scientists.8 On a purely pragmatic level, reading and writing creative fiction also simply makes scientists better at writing, which improves the readability of their papers, not only for the general public but for other scientists. It makes the discipline better.

Challenges for Science Communicators

What is clear is that science and fiction are not orthogonal to one another; they are overlapped. Their intersection also helps those who work to bridge the gap between academia and the lay audience. As science communicators, our job is to engage the public. However, there is a tendency in science writing to take complex concepts and either change their meaning to simplify them, or use scientific words in a way that remains hard to engage with. This creates a lexicon that is sometimes simultaneously both oversimplified and under-explained. This is seldom the fault of communicators, often instead arising from community norms or hard editorial word counts.

As an illustrative example, consider this excerpt from Scientific American on Schwarzschild’s radius (from an excellent piece of reporting, “The Reluctant Father of Black Holes” by Jeremy Bernstein):

In the process, Schwarzschild found something disturbing. There is a distance from the center of the star at which the mathematics goes berserk. At this distance, now called the Schwarzschild radius, time vanishes, and space becomes infinite. The equation becomes what mathematicians call singular.9

Compare this to Benjamin Labatut’s description of the same phenomenon in When We Cease to Understand the World:

He babbled about a black sun dawning over the horizon, capable of engulfing the entire world, and he lamented that there was nothing we could do about it. Because the singularity sent out no warnings. The point of no return—the limit past which one fell prey to its unforgiving pull—had no sign or demarcation. Whoever crossed it was beyond hope.

Note the difference in what the two passages evoke about the black hole center. By using fear, Labatut illuminates the dark uncertainty of the singularity. This sensation takes a shape in the reader’s mind; the idea of the pull invites curiosity. Bernstein is naturally more factual, but the outcome is less easy to conceptualize. I do not include this to disparage the quality of Bernstein’s article, but rather to illustrate that creative fiction has the potential to inform in as meaningful a way as journalistic or nonfiction copy. The flexibility of fiction can expand our ability to describe a scientific concept, and enrich a reader’s understanding in a way that feels personal and memorable. Fiction can inform our conversation with the public, showing us what is compelling and educational, a tool that can be employed by science communicators and scientists to improve their written communications.

In today’s world, fiction can recontextualize the relationship between society and science. It is a medium that can reciprocally reach what seem like increasingly different disciplines, interrogating the plastic space that exists between the two, and acting as a bridge through which the general public can access science in a way that is lasting and important. Well-written science fiction also creates visual responses, in film and art, which can directly make complex ideas more accessible. Fiction humanizes science and scientists, creates an inclusive scientific story, and enriches our understanding of the natural world. In doing so, what was before abstract and frightening can become familiar and spark curiosity. Literature serves as an effective way of reducing the schism between the arts and sciences that has resulted in our current climate of fear and misinformation. But these benefits are perhaps not surprising. The truth is that fiction, when applied to science—by scientists, creative writers, or communicators—acts the way it does in any context: as a lens through which we can interrogate things we don’t understand, and through which we can interrogate ourselves.

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Anita M Chandran: Anita Chandran is a writer and editor. She is an associate editor at Nature Communications, has a PhD in ultrafast fibre lasers, and has worked in historical fiction, science pedagogy, and AI ethics.@anitamchandran (bsky + instagram)

 

Notes

  1. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine
  2. Donald P. Hayes, “The Growing Inaccessibility of Science,” Nature 356 (1992): 739–40, https://www.nature.com/articles/356739a0; Leon Rozenblit, “The Misunderstood Limits of Folk Science: An Illusion of Explanatory Depth,” Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal 26, no. 5 (2002): 521–62, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272954663_The_misunderstood_limits_of_folk_science_An_illusion_of_explanatory_depth.
  3. A. W. Kruglanski and D. M. Webster, “Motivated Closing of the Mind: ‘Seizing’ and ‘Freezing,’” Psychological Review 103, no. 2: 263–83, https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-295X.103.2.263.
  4. Maja Djikic, Keith Oatley, and Mihnea Moldoveanu, “Opening the Closed Mind: The Effect of Exposure to Literature on the Need for Closure,” Creativity Research 25 (2013): 149–54, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247163935_Opening_the_Closed_Mind_The_Effect_of_Exposure_to_Literature_on_the_Need_for_Closure.
  5. P. Matthijs Bal and M. Veltkamp, “How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy?: An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 1: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055341.
  6. “The Magic of Ion Engines,” European Space Agency, https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/SMART-1/The_magic_of_ion_engines#:~:text=Operating%20in%20the%20near%20vacuum,a%20choice%20of%20electric%20guns.
  7. Andrew Dana Hudson, Ed Finn, and Ruth Wylie, “What Can Science Fiction Tell Us About the Future of Artificial Intelligence Policy?,” AI & Society 38 (2023): 197–211, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-021-01273-2.
  8. Aifric Campbell, “Scientists Outshine Arts Students with Experiments in Creative Writing,” Guardian,November 6, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/nov/06/scientists-outshine-arts-students-with-experiments-in-creative-writing.
  9. Jeremy Bernstein, “The Reluctant Father of Black Holes,” Scientific American, April 1, 2007, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-reluctant-father-of-black-holes-2007-04/.

See also:

[a] “STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics): Holistic Approach in Education,” European School Education Platform (course catalog), European Commission, https://school-education.ec.europa.eu/en/learn/courses/steam-science-technology-engineering-arts-mathematics-holistic-approach-education.

[b] Natalia Spyropoulou and Achilles Kameas, “Augmenting the Impact of STEAM Education by Developing a Competence Framework for STEAM Educators for Effective Teaching and Learning,” Education Sciences 14, no. 1: 25, https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010025.

[c] “Storytelling,” Education, National Geographic, updated February 25, 2025, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/storytelling-x/.

[d] Raymond A. Mar, Keith Oatley, Maja Djikic, and Justin Mullin, “Emotion and Narrative Fiction: Interactive Influences Before, During, and After Reading,” Cognition and Emotion 25, no. 5: 818–33, doi:10.1080/02699931.2010.515151.

[e] Isabella Hermann, “Artificial Intelligence in Fiction: Between Narratives and Metaphors,” AI & Society 38 (2023): 319–29, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01299-6.