Sometimes the more you know about a topic—medicine, technology, science—the harder it is to clearly and quickly communicate to everyday people about it. It’s called the Curse of Knowledge. The problem is that once we know something, we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. Therefore we have difficulty sharing it with others, because we have a hard time imagining a beginner’s mind: what they are thinking and hearing about the topic we are so immersed in? So, ironically, it takes a lot of effort for experts to communicate effectively about their work with a general audience. And that’s precisely what we do in the Merlin Works Communication Works Program.
