Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum: Basic Books This is an edited review from New Scientist.
The rationale for science communication usually goes something like this. In a democracy, the public needs to be informed. Issues like energy policy and healthcare depend on science. Therefore, researchers and communicators need to keep the public engaged with science. All very reasonable. But why should the public engage with science specifically? I don't mean why in a what-is-science-worth sense. Science is obviously important. But immigration policy and foreign debt are important too, and the public does a good job of not thinking too deeply about either. Why should science be any different? The question matters because science, as Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum describe in Unscientific America, remains on the margins of US culture and politics. Climate change could sink cities and cause mass extinctions, yet only around half of US voters rated the environment an important issue in last year's elections. Roughly the same proportion believe that the Earth was created by God in the last 10,000 years. I particularly liked their warnings about the divisive impact of public figures such as Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Myers, who sometimes appear to be on a mission to offend churchgoers. But Mooney and Kirshenbaum don't seem to have asked themselves the "why science?" question. The book is infused with a sense that science does not just deserve a place at the top table of politics, it is entitled to one. When discussing the failure of a campaign to get last year's US presidential candidates to attend a debate on science, for example, the authors accuse the media of ignoring a story that was "news by any reasonable standard". I'm not sure that many people outside the world of science would agree. Worthy is not the same as newsworthy. By looking only at science, Unscientific America misses the big picture. Yes, the latest findings on climate change and other areas of science need to be heard on Capitol Hill and in the media. But so does sound reasoning about America's absurd prison policy or the country's counterproductive efforts to combat drug use. Political and media discussions of many complex issues are, unfortunately, dominated by vested interests and prejudice rather than rational argument. The problem here is not with public engagement in science - it is with public engagement. Thought the book worth mentioning here, partly because our debates, if not crystallizing yet, do extend beyond its contents. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
