A technical writing class is learning the alphabet, and does not really touch the nuance, the subtleties in certain topics that make them very difficult to communicate.
Any topic with unknown aspects (to the audience) or controversy require special handling because in that uncertainty people's personalities step in, and that is the seed of misunderstandings becoming institutionalized.
When an individual has gained group prestige from their "theory" being accepted, they then guard that prestige with omissions of information that counteract their position, and deferment of blame when proved incorrect. This is the ordinary human response, and will play out unless the participants have formal communications training that break this pedestrian cycle.
Communications is far more than just "communicating with another". Self communications is the gargantuan invisible elephant yet to be realized by larger society, and is the source of gullibility. Group communications has fractal complexities that play out depending on how many participants are trying to collaborate, and their relative hierarchical power verses one another. Entire careers are spent identifying the categories, and this area is largely unexplored, unexamined. It's too interpersonal and laced with extreme levels of power for honest analysis.
And then there is AI: a communications technology that people think is an automation technology, and our colossal communications tragedy is not going to correct this misunderstanding.
