Bienvenido León: "The great science communicators have managed to change the way we understand the world".

"The great science popularizers in history have been passionate about science, about knowledge, and have believed that it is important to share it with all of society. Through their works they have changed the way we understand the world". The Professor of Science Communication at the University of Navarra, Bienvenido León, summarizes the purpose of his book, Great science communicators: from Galileo to Rodríguez de la Fuente, which was recently presented in Pamplona, in collaboration with the Lilly Foundation. During the event, Bienvenido León held a discussion with Ignacio López-Goñi, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Navarra and scientific advisor to the foundation.

"Communicating science is not easy. However, the ten characters that appear in the book have managed to do it in a masterful way. We can learn a lot from them," said Bienvenido León.

Published by Comares, the book analyzes how scientific language has evolved throughout history and, for this purpose, it includes the narrative techniques of Galileo Galilei, Jane Marcet, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Rachel Carson, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and Jane Goodall. "Beyond their enormous talent for communication, they all agree on the importance of democratizing science, i.e., making this technical knowledge effectively available to all citizens," he explained.

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Galileo Galilei is at the top of the list for being a pioneer in writing scientific works in the Italian of the time instead of in Latin as was common at the time. "This is a fact of great transcendence, since it presupposes an interest of the Florentine genius to reach beyond the circle of experts of that time; that is, it reveals a divulgative intention," commented the author. 

Bienvenido León deals with the important but less known communicating facet of other great researchers such as Humboldt, Darwin or the Navarrese Ramón y Cajal. The book also includes the life of non-scientist communicators such as Jane Marcet, who decided, in a simple way, to disseminate the content of the complex chemistry conferences she attended.

In the twentieth century, Bienvenido León focuses on Rachel Carson, icon of modern ecology; and analyzes the phenomenon by which scientific knowledge even became the focus of television programs followed by millions of people around the world, as in the case of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, the great Spanish popularizer of nature, with his personal style on radio and television; or Carl Sagan, whom the author calls 'the showman of science'.