Specialist and layman
Sir: In two ways Mr Vaizey does well (November 18) to cite Geoffrey Crowther's Economist as the exemplar of the process among periodicals of bringing the findings of specialists to lay readers, the process of "significant vulgarisation," of which Paul Barker's New Society is the most lately developed example.
First, Paul Barker came, of course, to New Society from the Economist. Secondly, nobody has described this process of journalistic interpretation or mediation as well (or in as cautionary terms) as Geoffrey Crowther himself did in the Economist's centenary book twenty-nine years ago. "What the journalist should aspire to be," he wrote, "is the general practitioner of ideas ":
"It is not the general practitioner's duty himself to advance the progress of human knowledge. But it is his duty to keep himself informed of what comes out of the clinic and the laboratory and to be ready to use it in daily practice He must be able to see the specialist's work in the perspective of a wider horizon; and to adapt hard ' objectivities of science to the infinite variety of humeri subjects.
"This last duty is the most important of all, And it is more important in social affairs than in medicine, for while the medical scientist, however secluded in his laboratory, cannot for long forget that he is dealing with • human beings, the social 'scientist conjures up his abstractions — 'the consumer," the producer' or 'the elector' — and too often forgets to re-convert to humanity. The journalist has the duty, not merely of interpreting the scientist to the public, but of interpreting the public to the scientist. He is — or should be — the link between the theorist and the politician, between the practitioner of logic and the artist of the humanly possible."
Finally, I would certainly have included Percy Cudlipp's New Scientist in the roster of the significant interpreters.
Donald Tyerman 4). Buckingham Mansions, West End Lane, London NW6
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