``...While crucial social, economic, and health issues now facing the public are being profoundly influenced by new scientific research, a startling number of Americans cannot answer even basic scientific questions:...''
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I am not sure it makes much difference what people know or don't know, since our President, Congress and Judiciary can't or won't answer these same questions correctly.
Therefore I think, the article mis-states the problem:
``..The survey reveals a scientific knowledge gap that is particularly distressing at a point when science literacy has become essential to participating in our democracy and supporting the economy. Recent debates over arsenic levels in drinking water, testing for salmonella in school lunches, oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Kyoto global warming agreement, as well as the California energy crisis, illustrate the type of science-based issues the country confronts every day....''
Obviously the ability to count with whole numbers, understand that arsenic is poison, figure out that tainted food is bad for kids, and that pumping crude oil into a frozen wilderness fucks it up, has been a problem for our political leadership and its high court, so I don't understand why we should worry about the technical literacy of the general population. It seems more sensible to me to worry about our fearless leaders first.
For any scientific question I believe the standing government policy is to buy more studies until an answer has been discovered that resembles something more politically or economically acceptable than was first thought. That has certainly been the policy results in education, health, reproduction, environment, energy, not to mention basic economic and social questions.
However, it seems a closer look at the percentages listed indicates where the public believes this knowledge gap exists---read as the proportion of what these groups know and will tell the truth about:
Scientists 64% Teachers 15% Reporters 6% Government Officials 3% Business Leaders 3%
Which, means that the public at least understands the problem.
Evidently, giving business, government, and news organizations the tools to evaluate scientific arguments, hasn't improved their grasp of material reality or their ability to articulate it. One can only speculate where judges and lawyers would fit in this list. And, it would be interesting to see how typical high school students fare, probably up there with their teachers or about twice the level of the average government or business official. However, if government, business, and media news are any indication of what the results would be for a more general improvement in technical literacy, then I suspect this would be merely throwing more money away at an intractable problem. After all, how much time and money has already been spent on explaining science to governement and business, and what good has it done the rest of us?
How exactly do we get our public officials, business leaders, and media to understand scientific knowledge and then act on it in a responsible, positive manner for the public good? That's the question. Obviously, education isn't enough. Perhaps it's time to try tough love?
In any case I think we need more study. I hope the California Academy will devote themselves to these problems in the future.
Chuck Grimes