AskScience AMA Series: I'm Hashem Al-Ghaili, a science communicator with around 20 billion video views. AMA about bringing complex ideas to a wide audience!

Submitted by AskScienceModerator t3_y66y5r in askscience

I'm a filmmaker from Yemen most well known for my Facebook page and my YouTube channel, where I share videos like MIT's interface of the future and the most expensive element on Earth.

My goal is to communicate scientific discoveries and breakthroughs to a wide audience through fun and visually engaging videos. During the pandemic, I used my communication channels to help try to stop the spread of misinformation, sending out daily infographics and updates to followers. I have delivered 4 TEDx talks where I discussed how to cure cancer using embryonic therapy, how can we change education now, how to make science fascinating to the general public, and how science-based decision can change the world.

In June and October 2022 my work was featured in Interesting Engineering, and the publication has helped organize this AMA session. I'll be available between 1 and 6 PM (Berlin time, 7-12 ET, 12-17 UT), AMA!

TEDx Videos:

Username: /u/IntEngineering

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extra_specticles t1_isnn5zj wrote

Hi hashem.

Thanks for doing this. I would like to ask you what are the major mistakes you see most other educators making when trying to convey complex information to a diverse audience?

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intengineering t1_isno81s wrote

Great question! The most common mistake is not relying on visual storytelling. Visuals are key to conveying complex information. Whether it’s part of a video, a book or a PowerPoint slide, without proper visuals, ideas can be lost. Readers and viewers will have a difficult time processing information. You always need compelling visuals to support what you’re talking about. It’s also important to remember that visuals shouldn’t be randomly placed in the material. They should be custom-made because different ideas can be represented in different visual format. Infographics, motion graphics, graphs, etc. They all help in delivering the idea straight to the target audience.

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oscarBrownbread t1_isnog0v wrote

How do you answer these kinds of questions: "yea, but what's that good for? What can we make with that? Why should we waste time on that? "

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intengineering t1_isnpl0v wrote

There will always be those who will undermine scientific discovery. Unless there is an application behind the discovery or breakthrough, they feel there was no point doing it. When I see such comments or questions, I highlight the importance of the research and list some of the applications that come with it. In many cases it works, but sometimes you’re talking about knowledge that doesn’t have a direct tangible application. For example, scientists discovered organic matter in a space cloud in another galaxy. What can we do with that? The answer is, it will help us learn about how life originated on our planet and whether carbon-based life form is abundant in the universe. As you can see, not everything needs to have an application to be exciting or interesting. Sometimes these discoveries help us fill gaps in our knowledge, which alone is a convincing reason to do it.

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AllanfromWales1 t1_isns7au wrote

Hi! How do you deal with issues like the reproducibility crisis and the growth of citation farms?

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intengineering t1_isnvy9g wrote

These are big issues that aren't often addressed. As science communicators, we want to make sure that the target audience receives information from authentic sources where reproducibility is achievable, and citation farms are avoided. There are three main ways to deal with this:

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  1. We ensure the paper is coming from a journal with a high impact factor. Such journals have a rigorous peer review process, which include repeating some experiments and double-checking the results. Sometimes it takes years for a publication to be online in these journals because the researchers are asked to repeat certain experiments.
  2. We look into the people involved in the research. Their affiliation, region, research topic, previous work, etc. A simple background check can reveal if this person is involved in self-citation or citation farm practices. I knew a researcher who used to put his wife's name in every paper he published, and she was doing the same for him. Both of them were research group leaders of different groups at different institutions. They were citing each other and their friends, and getting cited by their peers as well. Their publications were in the thousands! It's perfectly legal, but it's a terrible practice that compromises the scientific method.
  3. A quick check in the conflict of interest. Who is funding the research? Why are they funding the research? Why did they choose these people? Are they only citing their own previous research? These series of questions can help us make the distinction between what's reliable and what's not.
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AllanfromWales1 t1_iso02v9 wrote

While I absolutely applaud your effiorts to make sure the science you report is of good quality, I wonder if there is a need to educate the public about the darker side of science, that these sorts of things do go on and not everything can be taken at face value. My impression is that there is a significant cohort out there who think that if a scientist says something that makes it true. I suspecct inculcating a more critical approach in the general public would be beneficial in the long term.

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intengineering t1_isougsn wrote

Thank you! Occasionally, I cover the darker side of science, like the impact of the atomic bombs, the invention of materials that end up being polluting the environment, the medical experiments that backfire, etc. But I think it's important to discuss these with caution because some people might take them out of context, and they may blame every mistake on science itself rather than the way some people use it. The core of science communication is not to teach people facts, but rather to help them understand and use the process itself. By process, I mean formulating questions and seeking answers to said questions while maintaining a critical mind.

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rotanitsarcorp_yzal1 t1_isnqkog wrote

Hi, what kind of teams do you have working making the amazing videos?

  • What platform do you use? How do you decide what topic to make content on?

  • Where do you get the news from about the new discoveries?

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intengineering t1_iso2e4v wrote

We're a team of 3 people. We make around 3 videos per day, which we publish on several social media platforms (literally all of them, depending on the type of content we make). Sometimes we work on more original content that takes several weeks to finish. The content is published on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok.

Choosing a topic can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, but for the most part, I try to choose a topic that directly connects to people or will change their lives in one way or another. For example, a new potential cancer treatment, or a new way to generate energy, or a new breakthrough in quantum computing. These breakthroughs could change our lives in the future. Sometimes the topic is knowledge-based and has no direct or indirect application, like discovering an exoplanet or discovering a new subatomic particle. There are always people who are interested in learning about those as well. Thousands of discoveries are published every day, it's difficult to cover everything, that's why we need to be selective with the topics. The most important aspect with choosing a topic is that it should be interesting to me as well. If the topic is interesting to me, I'll put more effort in presenting it in the most engaging way possible.

I get the news from several sources. Sometime from press releases published by research insinuations, which are always accompanied by the original paper. Other times I get contacted by scientists before their paper is published. We work together on making a video so that the paper and the video are published at the same time. They're generous enough to provide me early access to their publication. Other sources of information include primary sources such as journals like Nature, Science, The Lancent, etc. We quickly souct through their new publications to see if there is something interesting. And secondary sources like ScienceDaily and EurekAlert.

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vogtforpedro t1_itdq2me wrote

This has been a lovely read, and a lovely experience following the video links you’ve shared. Happily subscribed.

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