No point in being doomer about it. We try whatever we need to in order to get the population to understand.

And for what it’s worth, it kind of makes sense. Science communication is generally quite poor. Scientists aren’t trained in PR or in communicating with the public. To some extent, it makes sense that the public doesn’t understand. In the longer term, it would certainly be better to raise scientific literacy. In the short term, we simply need quippy talking points that can be repeated to get the message to stick.