John Timmer, over at ars technica, has posted a great article about explaining science to the polarized US public. It is a summary of a few talks given at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Here are a few excerpts:
“most of the presenters advocated some sort of framing of scientific communications. The frames proposed, however, often seemed to run the risk of excluding some part of the large and diverse scientific community from the frame. The two that struck me as the most powerful, however, were the most inclusive. The first came from Barbara King, who advocated separating the communication of science completely from the communication of a belief system, so that discussion could focus on scientific models and their supportive data. The other was Steve Case’s presentation of scientific exploration as giving us a reason to feel optimistic for the future. ”
“Perhaps the best way to communicate science is simply to remind people about some basics of the scientific endeavor.”
At the end of my last entry, I started to ramble about the popularization of science. This article explores a few routes for delivering science to the public.
I couldn’t agree more with the last quote above, which also happens to be the last sentence of the article. The sole thing that bugs me about public knowledge of science, is that they don’t understand the scientific method. I don’t expect people to be able to draw out a flowchart with hypotheses and theories, but it is valuable to know a little bit about it. The most important thing about science is viewing it as a method as opposed to a body of knowledge.
You know, I’m all for scientific exploration, but we’d better be damn quick about it. I’m not too optimistic. The world is at a point of becoming so chaotic that helpful exploration of any sort will soon be impossible. It seems, too, that our history is one of monetizing and weaponizing all that science that we find. That will be a tough nut to crack.
The most important thing about science is viewing it as a method as opposed to a body of knowledge.
That is an interesting statement. Perhaps if schools delivered science in that fashion, fewer kids would be groaning about the amount of material that they have to memorize in order to ‘pass’ a science course. One wants them eager to learn more…that’s the cool thing about science…there is so much to discover..
I think one of the mistakes, and it has been made in this discussion, is that science has been generalized. When most people think of “science” they think of the general science classes they took in high school..and then never think about it again until the media comes up with some sort of snippet about a new scientific discovery or the old argument of scientific theory (Darwin) versus Creationism creeps in again. Science is just a broad term that covers so much more. Scientists in their varying fields need to find a way to communicate how their work effects the every day person in very simple terms. Scientific theory and proof is experienced every day by every single person every time they turn on the TV or the radio, or open their refridgerator, or turn on their water faucets, flush their toilets, turn on a light, etc.
I have to agree with that last statement and the comments made by cinzanopaws…if scientists want science to be viewed by its varying methods, then schools need to teach it that way.
Adrian, you should check out your Alexa.
You’ve gone up like 6500% in one month.
Thanks for checking that out Patrick. It seems like that’s too high of a number.