Table 2. Importance scientists gave to different aspects of communication about origin of life.

Aspect	Mean Rating	Standard Deviation
Scientific basics	5.17	1.19
Historical (“old”) theories about life and its origins	4.20	1.35
Methods and processes of research	3.84	1.40
Relationship to religion and philosophy	3.61	1.54
Everyday work of a researcher	3.46	1.41
Relationship to potential applications (e.g. industrial chemistry, synthetic biology)	3.37	1.57

Mean and standard deviation of ratings given by scientists during the interviews. Ratings were expressed on a Likert scale from 1 (negligible) to 6 (essential). N = 46