Hi, I'm Cody Gough with a special bonus episode of Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you'll hear our very special guest Alan Alda talk about what he's learned in his career as a science advocate helping scientists learn how to communicate better.

A couple days ago on our podcast, we learned how Alan got involved in the TV show Scientific American Frontiers.

And today we'll continue that conversation by learning even more

from Alan, who happens to be an award-winning actor, best-selling author, and science

advocate who's dedicated his life's work to improving science communication.

Alan is also the host of Clear and Vivid, which is one of our favorite podcasts.

His Clear and Vivid podcast helps make us all more connected, better communicators.

And it also helps to benefit the research done at the

Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

You can learn more about the Alda Center at Alda Center.org. And here's Alan

on what inspired him to get involved with science communication in the first place.

I realized when we were doing Scientific American Frontiers on television that there was a problem that the public was fascinated about the science that they

understood, the wonder of nature, the amazing new ways that have been discovered to look into nature or to affect our health

and longevity. These things were very important to us. To the extent that we understood

them, and to the extent that we understood them and to the extent that we understood

them science would get funded better and be regarded by policy makers as

important to do, sheer knowledge even, just basic understanding of the universe, basic knowledge, basic science.

That required better communication.

And we've now reached a point where science is actually under attack in some areas,

as though it's just another opinion, as though somebody just gets an idea and spouts it instead of evidence-based research. So it seemed to me very important to help

...