When people hear the word SciComm or science communication, they often imagine cheerful YouTubers or TikTok creators explaining how things work with excitement in their voices. It feels modern, like something that began with the internet. But when we think about it, humans have shared science for as long as we have wondered about nature. Long before screens or podcasts, healers, philosophers, and explorers were already trying to make sense of the world and to tell others what they learned. The tools changed, yes, but the heart behind it never did. We always wanted to explain, to teach, and to inspire curiosity.

This piece begins a small journey through that long history. It looks at how people in earlier times found creative ways to share knowledge: through verse, through art, and through the printed page—long before science became something we could stream or scroll.

Old Ways of Talking About Science: Stone, Verse, and Memory

In ancient times, science lived inside culture, religion, and daily life. People did not divide the sciences from everyday life the way we do now. They passed knowledge through songs, poems, and rituals because these were easier to remember than plain words.

In ancient India, Ayurvedic healers such as Charaka and Sushruta wrote in Sanskrit shlokas, short poetic lines that explained diseases, cures, and surgical methods. The rhythm of these poetic verses helped students remember complex details. The Sushruta Samhita, for example, described how to rebuild a nose long before modern surgeons learned the same art.

In Greece, Hippocrates wrote that illness came from nature, not punishment from the gods. This idea changed how people thought about medicine and health. Meanwhile, the Babylonians and the Maya looked up to the sky and recorded what they saw on stone or in folded books. They used those patterns to guide planting and religious festivals.

In China, The Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon) joined philosophy and medicine together. It said health came from balance—between yin and yang and among the five elements of nature. The writing was symbolic, but people still found practical meaning in it. They used it to understand how the body and the world stay in harmony.

Back then, science was not something you read—it was something you lived. It moved through music, through storytelling, through memory. It took the form of both knowledge and culture at once.

The Medieval World: Translators, Scholars, and Keepers of Wisdom

As time passed, writing became the main way to disseminate knowledge. During the Middle Ages, the Islamic world turned into a centre of learning. Scholars like Avicenna wrote great works such as The Canon of Medicine, which guided doctors for centuries.

Inside Baghdad’s House of Wisdom, translators worked carefully, turning old Greek, Indian, and Persian texts into Arabic. Their work built bridges between civilisations and kept ancient knowledge alive.

In Europe, monks copied manuscripts by hand, saving ideas about herbs, stars, and the human body. Later, in Spain, the Toledo School of Translators helped move science across languages again, turning Arabic and Greek works into Latin. They added elaborate drawings of plants and constellations so readers could visualize what they were learning.

In India, Varāhamihira’s Brihat Samhita gathered together astronomy, astrology, weather, and even architecture. Many temples built in that period followed patterns of the stars, so buildings themselves became messages about science.

Knowledge travelled slowly, passed from scholar to student, or from healer to apprentice. Most people never carried the texts themselves, but the ideas quietly reached them through culture and custom. Science was spreading in whispers and quiet instructions, shaping lives without calling attention to itself.

The Printing Revolution: When Knowledge Found Its Voice

The fate of knowledge exchange changed in the 1450s when Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press. Suddenly, multiple copies of the same book could travel farther than any storyteller. Ideas no longer ceased to exist when a single copy was lost.

Scientists used this new power of information dissemination to challenge old beliefs. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus printed On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, declaring that the Earth moves around the Sun.

A century later, Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems to help ordinary people imagine that idea for themselves.

Around the same time, Andreas Vesalius released De humani corporis fabrica, filled with detailed drawings of the human body. For many readers, it was the first time they had truly seen what lies beneath the skin.

In 1660, the Royal Society of London began to change how science reached people. Their journal, Philosophical Transactions, appeared in 1665, and for the first time, scientists had a public place to share discoveries and question each other’s ideas.

Science stepped out of private study rooms and into the public world. People discussed new experiments in cafés and salons, curious and amazed. Knowledge, finally, had a voice.

Science and Pop Culture in the 19th and 20th Centuries

By the 1800s, science was no longer hidden in books. It became something people could see and experience. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London drew millions who came to marvel at new machines, telegraphs, and inventions that promised to change daily life.

When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, his ideas spread quickly. They challenged old ways of thinking and made people question where humanity fits in nature.

The 20th century brought a new kind of science communication. Television and radio gave science a voice that could travel anywhere. People across the world sat down to watch David Attenborough’s Life on Earth (1979) or Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (1980) and felt wonder again—almost like looking up at the stars for the first time. Radio shows from the BBC and NPR broke complex ideas into stories everyone could follow. Magazines such as National Geographic and Scientific American turned science into something you could feel, not just read, combining words with unforgettable images.

Children joined in too. Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1999) made kids laugh and learn at the same time. Science fairs, museums, and public events gave families a space to explore together. By the late 20th century, science had moved into homes and hearts. It wasn’t distant or serious—it was something alive, part of daily life and imagination.

Conclusion

When we look back at this long story, we don’t just see progress. We see people. Every age had its storytellers, its teachers, its dreamers who looked at the world and wanted to share what they found. From ancient healers chanting verses to Attenborough’s calm voice on television, the goal stayed the same—to understand, and to pass that understanding on.

The forms changed, but the feeling did not. We still ask questions. We still share our answers. We still wonder together.

This ends the first part of our journey. In Part II, we will step into the present and see how science communication continues online, through podcasts, videos, and even artificial intelligence. The story keeps going because human curiosity never truly rests.