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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...
"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...