I tend to rail against the rising anti-science tide in the US, and I worry about what this nasty undercurrent of anti-intellectualism is going to cost us in the future. I’m not alone, either: an excellent letter in Nature this week pointed out that scientists aren’t helping things: they aren’t engaging the public in the scientific endeavor.

Instead of ranting about cretinous creationists and psilly pseudoscientists, though, I thought I’d say something positive for a change, and mention one small effort we’re making to educate the public. It’s a small step, and right now it’s bigger in Europe than it is in the US, where we need it more, but I think it’s going in the right direction, and we need to encourage more of this kind of outreach.

It’s called Café Scientifique. You might have one near you, too.

The Café is a fabulous idea—scientists in the community get together to do informal presentations about their work in a casual venue. The doors are open, it’s free, anyone is encouraged to come in and chat and ask questions, and the goal is to let everyone see how fun and exciting good science really is…while they actually learn something.

In Minneapolis, the Café Scientifique has been running for about a year, with the sponsorship of the Bell Museum and the guidance of Kevin Williams and Shanai Matteson. They are held on the second Tuesday of every month (the next one is coming up on May 10th), and have been so well received that they are preparing to expand the program to three other cities in Minnesota: Crookston, Duluth, and Morris.

I attended my first session last night, as part of my training in setting up the Morris chapter. It was held in a theater in Dinkytown, which turned out to be a lovely place for an informal meeting.

Below you can see a little of the preparation: Stacie, Kevin, and Laura are testing and proofreading some trivia questions. Before the actual talk, the audience is warmed up with a few science games and door prizes. Stacie and Laura are a couple of our brilliant students of the University of Minnesota, Morris, who are there learning the ropes, too—much of the work is going to be student-managed.

This particular Café Scientifique was a bit unusual. Usually it highlights a local scientist, but in this case as part of a promotion for Nova’s new “Science Now” series, they had flown in Lindsay Shenk Oberman from UCSD to present her research on Mirror Neurons. That’s Lindsay in pink, and Shanai, the student organizer from the Bell Museum, on the right.

This was not your usual theater. The rows of seats had been stripped out, and instead you had small tables and comfy sofas and great big billowy mattresses all around. Everyone—and it was a good crowd, over 100 people—just got comfortable and enjoyed the talk. And it was amazing how much it improved a lecture in science to have barmaids roaming around throughout to bring you beer and food, and to have it all in a candle-lit setting with your sweetie curled on on a mattress with you.

It was spectacular fun, and we learned something about how the brain works, too. It was also great outreach to the community—there was about an hour of questions, and it could have gone on much longer. There really are smart Americans out there who are receptive to new ideas and are hungry to hear more, and all we have to do is provide the opportunity. This is how we combat anti-intellectualism, by getting out there and sharing the world of the mind with others.

Seriously, if there’s a Café Scientifique near you, go. If there isn’t, write to your local university and tell them about it, and urge them to jump on the bandwagon. It’s good for the public, it’s good for the universities, and it’s good for science.