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High-quality popular science literature explains complex things from the academic world to the masses in an accessible language. It is a good way to convey the latest scientific discoveries and problems to a wide range of readers. The usefulness of such literature for readers is expanding their horizons and entering completely new areas for themselves, gaining an understanding of how certain areas of knowledge or our world as a whole work.
In my opinion, it is very high. And the reason is as simple as an orange!
There is a so-called “scientific community”. It includes all prominent researchers who discuss, discuss, and agree among themselves on issues of fundamental importance to themselves. They often conduct their disputes in a language that the average citizen does not understand. It's more convenient for them – they don't need to say a lot of unnecessary words, if you can replace some of them with a scientific term. So: after thinking about something, they write books, which they then discuss again (however, this is no longer of interest to us). These books can be written in the language of typical German philosophers (read, completely incomprehensible from the first to the last character), or they can be accessible and understandable. The question arises: why write difficult, if you can immediately write clearly? But there is an answer to it, too!
The fact is that books addressed to the scientific community can and should be written in scientific academic language. Otherwise, the author may simply be considered untenable, since he does not know the terminology apparatus. In addition, a more detailed narrative will take up much more space on paper. We should not forget that, for example, in a collection of scientific articles, there is a struggle for each symbol. And there the ability to describe everything concisely and compactly is very useful for scientists. And the same intellectuals, like our hero, and the academic language will be clear – for them, the text will not lose anything, but only gain. Moreover, everyone in science is completely busy, so no one will pour and read “water” (no jokes)
But! The common man also wants to touch the world of science. Moreover, everyone has every right to do so. And it is the sacred duty of research scientists to help ordinary people in this regard, adapting their text for their vocabulary, of course, without taking it to absurd extremes. Thus, it turns out fairly (the author adapts his academic style for mass opportunities, and the reader makes an effort and begins to meet at least the average level of education of the masses)
Khlevnyuk recently published a biography of Stalin – the book, by the way, is translated into more than 10 languages of the world, no less! This means that there is a demand for scientific literature written in a popular language. But there are other, more sad examples
A simple index drawn from e-books shows which best sellers are going unread (we're looking at you, Piketty).
This article indicates that popular science works (in particular, books by Stephen Hawking and Thomas Piketty), and remain unread at least by 10% (that is, they started reading, but simply did not finish reading)
So popular science literature is definitely needed! And it carries valuable materials. But it will only be really useful when books like A Brief History of Time are not abandoned halfway through. So everything is in our hands!