Let's be Clear About Science Education and Engagement
By Melanie Smallman and Simon Lock,
The Guardian
| 07. 08. 2013
In last week's blog piece "
The public don't want to be involved in science policy" Hannah Baker used the recent Wellcome Trust
Monitor Survey to argue that rather than involving the public in decisions around science, we need to be focusing on educating them.
"Although this simple knowledge deficit model [which assumes that increasing knowledge about science will reduce scepticism] has now been largely discredited in the academic sphere, we should perhaps be wary of concluding that ignorance or misunderstanding of key areas of modern science doesn't matter," she says, going on to argue that involving the public in decisions around science and technology "is only possible if it is underpinned with a good base of science understanding, delivered through our education system".
Very few of us in the "academic sphere" referred to would disagree that science education is important, nor argue that misunderstanding of science is not – you only have to look at the
recent measles outbreak in South Wales to see the tragic consequences of such a misunderstanding. And this is only going to become...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Yelena Biberman and Jonathan D. Moreno, Bioethics Forum | 04.16.2024
A quiet biological revolution in warfare is underway. The genome is emerging as a new domain of conflict. The level of destruction that only nuclear weapons could previously achieve is fast becoming as accessible as a cyberattack.
Now for the...
By Eric Schmidt, TIME | 04.16.2024
Imagine a world where everything from plastics to concrete is produced from biomass. Personalized cell and gene therapies prevent pandemics and treat previously incurable genetic diseases. Meat is lab-grown; enhanced nutrient grains are climate-resistant. This is what the future could...
CGS is excited to announce the launch of a new anti-eugenics initiative that has been years in the making. Legacies of Eugenics in Science, Medicine, and Technology kicks off with a monthly essay series published at the Los Angeles Review of Books that will expose and contest the reemergence of eugenic ideas in contemporary health sciences, human biotechnology, public health, and medicine. Community and campus-based events featuring the authors are also being planned. The project is a collaboration among CGS...