In practice, “science communicators” tend to be popsci-y; there’s often a focus on entertainment over epistemics, and they’ll often end up misleading or outright wrong as a result (often accidentally). A distiller’s job is more centrally about deeply understanding the ideas themselves, and then communicating the core pieces accurately. Their path-to-impact is through providing useful explanations to researchers, not entertaining laypeople.
What is the intended difference between a distiller and the field of science communication?
In practice, “science communicators” tend to be popsci-y; there’s often a focus on entertainment over epistemics, and they’ll often end up misleading or outright wrong as a result (often accidentally). A distiller’s job is more centrally about deeply understanding the ideas themselves, and then communicating the core pieces accurately. Their path-to-impact is through providing useful explanations to researchers, not entertaining laypeople.
A minor degree of separation. A good communicator writes for an intended audience.