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."

Comments

how can it be? It can't

[Nadaka]

Western society in general and American culture specifically is a lost cause. Keeping the majority of people dumb is far more profitable in the short term for corporations, theocrats, bureaucrats and supporters of the police state. And most people are happy with it as long as they keep getting soap opera melodrama and fake reality tv. We are living in a culture where showing intelligence is looked down on, much less encouraged.

Sorry, I am not feeling optimistic today... :(

Re:It's all in the educational system

[Tom]

Yep, and there shouldn't be one. Science and faith aren't incompatible, some great men of science were also men of faith.

Yes, all during times where not being a "man of faith" would get you into very serious trouble very quickly.

If you look into the literature, you'll find a lot of them weren't. It was difficult to be an atheist when your entire world is religious and not believing was never offered as an option, but most of the "great men of science" were as close as you could get without crossing people you didn't want to cross.

And yes, science and faith are utterly incompatible. The #1 question of science is the one question religion can not answer. You can phrase it as "show me the evidence" or "let's try to duplicate those results" or "I wonder if we can prove this". It doesn't matter. Anyone saying that religion is not a deadly enemy of science is merely trying to protect religion from its rightly deserved fate.