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How To Make Science Popular Again?
Ars Technica has an interesting look at the recent book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, a collaboration between Chris Mooney, writer and author of The Republican War on Science, and scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum. While it seems the book's substance is somewhat lacking it raises an interesting point; how can science be better integrated with mainstream culture for greater understanding and acceptance? "We must all rally toward a single goal: without sacrificing the growth of knowledge or scientific innovation, we must invest in a sweeping project to make science relevant to the whole of America's citizenry. We recognize there are many heroes out there already toiling toward this end and launching promising initiatives, ranging from the Year of Science to the World Science Festival to ScienceDebate. But what we need — and currently lack — is the systematic acceptance of the idea that these actions are integral parts of the job description of scientists themselves. Not just their delegates, or surrogates, in the media or the classrooms."
You want science to be popular? Just stop the elitist condescension and admit that you don't know it all and that you (especially, the more famous scientists) may be wrong about many things. The public has the right to mistrust scientists just as much as the religious leaders. We don't like to be preached to from on high. We want respect.
As an example, if you ask a physicist to explain why two particles in relative motion remain in motion, you come face to face with bullshit and ignorance. One may tell you that nothing is needed (the magical unseen cosmic hand) while the other may insist that physics is not about the why but the how of things. To a thinking layperson, both answers are pathetically wrong. Learn about why an analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are swimming in an immense sea of energetic particles.
Physics: The Problem With Motion
Ok, laugh at the Republican creationists, but if you really want to see some fancy political tap-dancing on a political issue, just try mentioning the well-documented and annoyingly persistent relationship between race and IQ to a liberal. It's like arguing with a creationist that goes to 11.
I'm an Engineer -- an applied scientist.
Engineers are not applied scientists, anymore than physicians are applied biologists. Science is about a method, not a knowledge base.
To summarize: God is the trivial solution?
You live in New York. That, along with LA and maybe San Francisco are among the most liberal, educated places in the nation. Try meeting some people in Alabama, or Iowa. See what they think about "intellectual" subjects.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
This is a flat-out right-wing lie. Let's see you back up your accusations with some real evidence. And if you think you are going to try to pull a McKitrick on me by citing this paper (http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf), I'm ready to take you on.
The fact that your idiotic, uninformed vitriol got modded "informative" is proof that Slashdot's mod system is failing.
A "first of its kind effort"? Given that it was proven later to be the result of "massaging" the data in order to get the conclusion he WANTED to see, rather than merely showing the data as it should be, it ought to have had him fired and sent off to work somewhere he couldn't do any more harm to the world.
Instead, he's managed to sneak by, popping his head up only when he has fellow-travelers and wide-eyed believers in the Cult of Climate Change (Hm, is it "thermal inversion", "global warming", "global climate change", or something else now? Are we headed direct into a sweltering age, or do we get the great iceball first?) and the Great Prophet Al Gore to protect him.
Hansen has changed his tune, and the data, so many times over the years that he has ZERO credibility left.