How you explain a complex concept to someone depends vitally on two factors: that person’s level of knowledge on the concept and their receptiveness to an explanation. If the someone to whom you are explaining a concept is ready and eager to learn from you, it is necessary to assess only their level of knowledge before you prepare your explanation. (Below, I will share a rough outline of a rubric I used during several decades of writing mathematics textbooks for students from grades 1 through college level.)
However, if you are attempting to explain a complex concept to someone who already has strong opinions associated with that concept, you have a daunting task. Your likelihood of explaining anything to anyone who has an emotional stake in a particular belief is almost impossible. That’s why it’s fruitless to attempt to change a person’s religious beliefs no matter how much logic you invoke. Your attempts are likely to fail because that person has a huge emotional investment in their current belief. As author Ziad Abdelnour observed,
“For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.”
If you attempt to explain a complex concept such as global warming to a person who is strongly committed to a particular belief on this issue, and says, “The debate is over,” you are not talking to a scientific mind. For the scientist, the debate is always open and that’s why science has theories rather than theorems. Theories are valid pending more observations that may prove them incorrect, and requiring revision or a new paradigm. So, if the person is unreceptive, they will not understand your perspective and you might pour your energy and knowledge into something more productive.
However, if you are speaking to someone who is receptive and eager to learn, much of your work is done. In forming your explanation, it helps to use some of the discoveries that evolved from the work of psychologist Jean Piaget. While educating his children, Piaget discovered that children first learn working with objects, and deal only with concepts that are represented in concrete form. The concept of the
volume
of a container is too abstract a concept for a child. Consequently, if a child observes a litre of milk poured into a tall thin glass and another litre of milk poured into a short fat glass, the child will identify the tall glass as containing more milk.
Later, the child is able to understand concepts that are represented pictorially. Shown a picture of 3 boys beside a group of 4 girls, she is able to say that the picture shows 7 people. Still later, as she moves into the end of middle school, she will be able to understand the ratio of boys to girls is 3:4. This gradual movement from the “concrete stage,” through the “pictorial stage” and onto the “abstract stage” is the way the human brain acquires knowledge. So any attempt to explain a complex concept must begin with locating the person’s background on this spectrum.
During a visit to my college friend’s house, his mother asked, “Hey Bobby, you’re a nuclear physicist; what keeps the moon up in the sky?” Bob turned to me with a look of dread and muttered under his breath, “Where do I begin?” He realized that his mother’s background did not enable him to embark on a discussion of the idea that the mass of the earth creates a Riemannian geometry in its vicinity, so that the momentum of the moon carries it in a circular path around the earth. Instead, he reverted to the “concrete stage” describing a skater at the end of a chorus line being propelled across the ice as the line rotates around its center. He called it “centrifugal force.”
Bob’s mother smiled and said, “I’m so lucky to have such a smart son.” She was much happier with that answer than with a discussion of Riemannian geometry and her perspective might have been slightly changed.
While this approach may appear to be condescending, it’s quite the opposite. We all have areas in which we have some degree of expertise and other areas in which we know very little. The ultimate consideration in attempting to bring someone to a higher level of understanding of a complex concept is to respect them enough to assess their readiness and background before embarking on an explanation.
