The tension between popularization and erudition in scientific divulgation

Abstract

Dealing with the issue of scientific divulgation means addressing series of problems that can be formulated in questions like: what is science and what is not science? Should scientific divulgation use an erudite, specialized language that is restricted to specialists, or should it use a simpler, journalistic language that is accessible to the wider public and can be easily understood by non-specialists? What ideological, political and ethical injunctions can be observed in the process of scientific divulgation? It is not our intention in this text to address each of these questions exhaustively, as that would require extensive research. We chose instead, to analyze and reflect on the unresolved tension between these two dimensions of scientific divulgation: on one hand, scientific divulgation is governed by erudition, which can hinder verticalization of the knowledge produced by science, removing from the general public access to historically produced learning; on the other hand, the popularization of scientific divulgation can transform the results of science into mere informative news. In either circumstance, there are absences and presences that indicate an opportunity for us to build an intermediate textuality between these two forms of scientific divulgation.