Last week Alan Alda was in town and gave a talk at The Technion. Thanks to a Wellesley friend we heard it was happening and grabbed seats to listen. Having a chance to hear from Hawkeye Pierce in person was pretty amazing. What he had to say as Alan Alda was thought-provoking. He was in town as part of his Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science . He and his team were working with a group of young scientists on how to communicate complicated science to the general public. His talk that evening was more general about communication. He said a few things that I think are well worth considering and internalizing. 1. If you are really listening you'll be open to being changed by the speaker. His point is that if we are really open minded and really listening then we aren't crafting our response or counter argument while the speaker is talking. Therefore we've totally opened and cleared our minds and that allows for us to have our opinion changed as a result of the speake...