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Isn't the comment in fact praising Derek Lowe as a science communicator? In the second paragraph OP is just posing the questions that one might have when reading about a field not your own, that highlight the importance of reliable science communicators.

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It's a very confusing comment since Derek Lowe is a chemist working in pharma but is being referred to only as a science communicator which I suspect most people would consider to be an implicit insult.

I think it says more about the person reading it as an implicit insult than it does OP. I am, I think, a fairly competent scientist, and know many great scientists. I know very few great scientific communicators.

Derek Lowe is someone whom I greatly admire and his work as a science communicator is a true service to the profession and to science at large. It is not intended as an insult in any way. I've known a great number of competent chemists, but few are as effective as communicators as he is.

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