Editing 2: What is The Portal (section)

=== Communicating High-Level Science ===

''00:16:47''<br>
Furthermore, I think we're going to talk about science, and we're not going to be dumbing it down. I'm very frustrated that very often when you see top quality scientists going into, let's say, public outreach mode, that they very often adulterate the subject matter in an attempt to make it more understandable.

''00:17:04''<br>
Now of course, that's inevitable when you have people specializing in very difficult subjects that they've studied for years. But I also feel that partially what happened is that we got into a habit of underestimating the intelligence of the audience. Rather than giving the audience the need to look up some terminology, to make some forays of their own with the search engine, we've gotten them into a complacent state where if they don't immediately understand something, then somehow the fault is with the broadcaster. 

''00:17:32''<br>
Well, I think we reject this for a very simple reason. Do you remember when TV was called the idiot box? I know that I'm of an age that that was a very common thing to do once upon a time, but if you look at all of the amazing things that have been happening on TV, it's totally changed the format to watch something like Game of Thrones, or The Sopranos, or Madmen. And why is that? Because the character lines, and the storylines, and the development are so much more complex than anything people are able to do in a smaller format that in fact television, quite surprisingly, became the most distinguished media in which one can now write. Well, likewise, I think we need to do the same thing for the public discussion of science.

''00:18:15''<br>
We need to draw more of you in and count on the fact that we've been underestimating the intelligence of our followers for quite some time, and start playing up to your level. And we may lose you along the way, but I have faith that with our ability to monitor your comments and listen to your feedback, that we can find an entirely new level of explication in which many of you will find that far from being left behind by specialists, you are actually able to participate in conversations that have previously been restricted only to experts. So I think we're going to try to pitch it at a higher level. We're going to try to rescue a business model, so that we can get more people with the ability to experiment in front of a camera as I'm doing now, but we've also decided to explore some topics that I think could break some serious ground.