Very smart people sometimes forget who they are talking to.
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The style of scientific publications traditionally differs from the style of popular science presentation, however, it seems that this is not an inevitability, but a consequence of prevailing stereotypes. The opinion of V.L. Levy is interesting:
“I don’t place my work in the “achievement” category and I don’t separate scientific activity from medical-psychological and writing work, for me this is one thing. Only the languages of communication differ — the conceptual apparatus, terms, style — depending on who you are addressing. If to a narrow circle of more or less sophisticated colleagues, this is considered a «scientific publication»; if to a more or less wide audience, then it is «literature», popular science or fiction. In fact, it is not so important what language you speak as what you say is the essence; but the simpler the language of presentation, the more accessible, the more likely it is that the truths stated will not remain only on paper, but will take effect. If you observe, think and express your thoughts conscientiously and not mediocre, there is no essential difference between science and literature and there should not be. Let us recall Sechenov’s great scientific work «Reflexes of the Brain», written as a fascinating fiction; works of Darwin and Lorenz, presented in a free narrative manner, seemingly more artistic than scientific. Freud, Fromm, Frankl, Rogers, Lang also wrote in freestyle, not really caring about the rigor of scientific formulations … «Source http://www.psy.su/prof_society/interview/2279/
L.N. Gumilev
Academician V. G. Trukhanovsky explained to me why I was hated in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov recalled. — Three reasons. Reason one. “You write,” he said, “original things, but it’s not scary, you won’t pass us anyway, you’ll bring them to us. Another thing is worse: you prove your theses so convincingly that it is impossible to argue with them, and this is unbearable. And finally, the third: it turns out that we all write in a scientific language, believing that this is science, and you state your judgments in simple human language, and you are read a lot. Who can bear it.»