Posts tagged with ‘scientific literacy’
The processes of decision making in science policy requires public engagement, participation, and broad-based deliberations. Multicriteria Mapping is a way to ensure the reasoning behind choices made are transparent and well understood.
Randy Olson’s new global warming mockumentary,
Sizzle, burns into your mind a lesson about how to reach broader audiences with science.
Sure, it would be nice if we could better educate members of Congress about science. But why not go further by electing more scientists in the first place—and training unelected Ph.D.s in the politics of influence?
Last Friday,
Science Progress kicked off the launch of its inaugural print edition with a gathering of distinguished science policy experts.
Last week Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) spoke to students about his efforts to facilitate discussions between Congress and top scientists. To make informed policy decisions about scientific issues such as stem cell research, nuclear energy, and global climate change, lawmakers need better scientific advice than what they’re currently receiving.
The Associated Press quickly picked up on a report released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealing that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists who responded to an online survey indicated that they experienced political interference with their work at some point in the last five years.
The “markets” for scholarly works are changing, and scholars in the humanities and social sciences – and the institutions where they work – need to both take control of how their works are published and distributed and become much more actively involved in setting the terms for the digital publishing world.
A quick look at some of the policy-related posts in the science and technology blogosphere: suggestions for best practices in science blogging; the need for more hurricane research; vaccines and public fears; and new research centers to study parallel computing.
“It is much easier to say we need more scientists and engineers than to talk about equity issues,” explained David Goldston yesterday at an Urban Institute on science and engineering education, quality, and workforce demand.
October 4 marked the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, and as we leave that milestone behind, 21st-century America needs to prepare for the century of science and engineering. One pathway is adoption of a new National Defense Education Act.
Andrew A. Rosenberg on how “emphasizing what we don’t know often drowns out what we do know.” Also, a new Urban Institute study claims that the U.S. has more than enough scientists and engineers.
The National Science Board released a plan on October 1 for the national coordination of science, engineering, technology, and mathematics education. Despite congressional support for the plan, critics counter that federal coordination could trample local educational autonomy.
Science journalists gathered at USC Annenberg on Monday to address the question, “Does Science Get a Fair Shake in the Media?” Their answer, unsurprisingly, was no.
The American public’s limited interest in science news and troubling grasp of basic scientific knowledge would seem to threaten sound and ethical policymaking whenever policy turns on science. But go beyond the immediate polling data and there are reasons not to despair.
