As one of the guys who is neither working in the lab nor intends to do it, I thought about the idea of proper science communication quite intensively.
Science has, in general, a perception as well as a communication problem.
- Perception:
"common people" have to deal with their daily lives, which normaly doesn't involve much scientific thinking. They finished their education years ago and don't want to be bothered to much with huge amounts of dry data and complicated explanations.
This is, to some degree, understandable. As you pointed out - most people don't have this analytical view of life and have indeed more fun at a party than in the lab.
There is one exception, though: Scientific writings, which somehow is affecting their emotions or is addressing issues of their personal lives, can have some success.
Just think about the books written by Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Noah Harari or Sam Harris to name a few popular ones. No matter, how they were received by non-scientists, at least their ideas were read by millions of people and this is much more, than any scientists could hope for.
What all of those authors have in common, is, that their writing is not only about scientific data and theories, but about possible impacts of those at the personal lives of everybody - they establish a connection to their audience, which is then able to relate to the presented data. Which brings me to the next part.
- Communication:
Over the years I have read many scientific studies and papers covering a lot of different topics. Some were written in a way, they were easy to read and understand (without ignoring details) - but most were not. Sure, it's not needed to have an entertaining style of writing to be accepted in Nature or Science, but personally I think, it can't hurt to do it anyway.
If more scientists were indeed more able to communicate their research in a way, non-professionals can understand it, the problem with pseudo-science, conspiracy theories and esoteric bullshit would probably not be as big as it is today.
Every truther and anti-vaxxer is an example for failed science communication.
Obviously, not everybody is a talented author and who wants to pay money for a mediator, who is able to present ones research properly to the masses?
This is something, where Steemit can play an important role:
If you are able to present scientific knowledge in a way, more people can understand it, you will get rewarded anyway.
I just talked a few days ago with a friend of mine about this. A lot of her fellow researchers are not able to communicate their work in a way, non-professionals can get a grip on it.
I do think, we need more mediators. People, who are not necessarily scientists themselves, but who are able to read about a wide variety of topics in scientific studies and to break down the most important findings for a common audience.
Or as Schopenhauer put it once:
One uses common words to say uncommon things.I can agree with this and everybody, who wants to promote scientific content should think about it as well. Knowledge is only then of use, if people can make use of it.