

Saving science from "Unscientific America" - edw519
http://arstechnica.com/science/reviews/2009/09/unscientific-america-surprisingly-unscientific.ars

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jonathansizz
This book appears to be pretty poor: their main argument is that we need more
PR people to 'inform' the public about science.

Given that ridiculously exaggerated press releases, written by PR people -
which become the basis for overblown media stories with titles like 'cure for
cancer discovered' or 'scientists find fat gene' - are probably a large factor
responsible for the skepticism that a lot of people have for science, I'd say
we actually need _less_ PR people.

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hughprime
Or maybe we just need _better_ PR people.

A world with a few more Carl Sagans, Richard Dawkinses and others who are
seriously scientifically literate but spend a great deal of their time working
on explaining things to the public at large could hardly be a bad thing.

~~~
whatusername
Perhaps not quite in the same league as those mentioned, but have a look at Dr
Karl ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kruszelnicki> ) He does exactly that
- and while not completely a household name, he is reasonably well known.

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hughprime
Yes, I'm familiar with him -- his office used to be two floors down from mine,
in fact!

And yes, I kinda had him in mind too, when writing my comment. More
Kruszelnickis as well as more Dawkinses would make the world a better place.

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restruct
One way the general public is kept scientifically illiterate is from locking
up scientific journal articles behind subscription walls.

When peer-reviewed science articles are on lock down, and pseudoscience
webpages can freely proliferate on the Internet, pseudoscience wins.

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hughprime
Of all the people who currently believe in wacky pseudoscience, how many do
you think would be convinced otherwise if only they had free access to
original scientific papers?

~~~
skolor
None, they're mostly a lost cause. On the other hand, the locking down of
actual research makes it that much easier to make wild claims:

Turns out there is a cure for Cancer. They did a paper in XXXXXX about it,
called "BioFlavin shows recession of cancer cells in multi-celluar
automotons".

Being able to easily check up on that would make the argument a lot less
convincing as a "Cure for Cancer". As an anecdote, there was recently a
discussion at my workplace about alternative cars, specifically alternative
storage mediums. Due to some quoting of a research paper done that had shown
some amount of energy could be stored in water, and be returned to electrical
energy at a later point, everyone was eventually convinced that Big Oil just
stifled the story. If that paper was readily available (and probably read
"very small amounts of energy can be stored in water"), we all could have
taken a look at it.

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astine
_All these observations are true, but the reason behind them isn’t that we’re
an unscientific society. It's because we're a capitalistic society; money
makes all the difference._

Or rather, we are a society made up of people who's goals aren't always
identical to proper explication of scientific principles. Science is hard;
people are flawed; why should be expect any different?

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brg
The title makes an incorrect claim. Science does not need to be saved, and
America is no more unscientific than any society has ever been. It is also not
capitalism that hinders a scientific society, as the author claims. A simple
examination of the current world would allow the author to see this. Germany
has a cultural fascination with psychics and esp, Russia has long had
institutional studies of supernatural powers, and throughout Asia
participation in acupuncture and astrology is considered normal.

Science is hard. It is a process which requires work and time. People don't
want, and don't need, to spend every second of their day researching claims
and questing beliefs. After all, it is far easier to believe in the
unsubstantiated claims of acupuncture, astrology, chiropractice, or
traditional medicine than it is to do the footwork to see that these are based
upon incorrect hypothesis which are easily falsified. And belief in such
baloney has very little effect upon anyone's everyday life.

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lamby
A good UK take on this is in "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre, which tries to
explain why the media is so bad at covering science. He also claims that
they've already won.

