The public misunderstanding of science

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 110-116

  Fischer, Ernst Peter ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ   (Germany)

^b NONE   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041752358     PISSN: 03080188     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/isr.1996.21.2.110     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. In this review the term 'science' is understood to mean the natural sciences (e.g. physics, chemistry, biology) unless stated otherwise. Social sciences and humanities are not automatically included.
2. J. R. DURANT et al.: 'The public understanding of science', Nature, 1989, 340, 11-14.
3. Public Understanding of Science - an International Journal of Research in the Public Dimensions of Science and Technology, published by the Institute of Physics in association with The Science Museum in London; Vol. 1, No. 1 appeared in January 1992 (ISSN 0963-6625); for a review of the journal see Nature, 1993, 365, 589.
4. Public Understanding of Science - an International Journal of Research in the Public Dimensions of Science and Technology, published by the Institute of Physics in association with The Science Museum in London; Vol. 1, No. 1 appeared in January 1992 (ISSN 0963-6625); for a review of the journal see Nature, 1993, 365, 589.
5. Examples are 'Science meets the public: a new look at an old problem', which took place in Vienna on 20-24 April 1993, and the 1993 International Conference on the Public Understanding of Science and Technology, which was held in Chicago on 24-27 October 1993, organised by the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy.
6. Examples are R. HAZEN and R. TREFILL: 'Science matters: achieving scientific literacy'; 1991. New York, Harper and Row; H. COLLINS and T. PINCH: 'The golem - what everybody should know about science'; 1993, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; P. R. GROSS and N. LEVITT: 'Higher superstition'; 1994, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press.
7. Examples are R. HAZEN and R. TREFILL: 'Science matters: achieving scientific literacy'; 1991. New York, Harper and Row; H. COLLINS and T. PINCH: 'The golem - what everybody should know about science'; 1993, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; P. R. GROSS and N. LEVITT: 'Higher superstition'; 1994, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press.
8. Examples are R. HAZEN and R. TREFILL: 'Science matters: achieving scientific literacy'; 1991. New York, Harper and Row; H. COLLINS and T. PINCH: 'The golem - what everybody should know about science'; 1993, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; P. R. GROSS and N. LEVITT: 'Higher superstition'; 1994, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press.
9. Nature, 1994, 371, 187.
10. See, for example, Bio/technology, Sept. 1994, 870-875.
11. For the USA, see, for example, F. S. ROWLAND: 'President's Lecture: the need for scientific communication with the public', Science, 1993, 260, 1571-1576; for Germany, see H. ZUR HAUSEN: 'Science and the public - the German situation', Interdisc. Sci. Rev., 1994, 19, (1), 42-48.
12. For the USA, see, for example, F. S. ROWLAND: 'President's Lecture: the need for scientific communication with the public', Science, 1993, 260, 1571-1576; for Germany, see H. ZUR HAUSEN: 'Science and the public - the German situation', Interdisc. Sci. Rev., 1994, 19, (1), 42-48.
13. D. L. GOODSTEIN; 'Scientific elites and scientific illiterates', Eng. Sci., Spring 1993, 23-31, (published by California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA).
14. See Nature, 1994, 371, 871.
15. See, for example, E. P. FISCHER and C. LIPSON: 'Thinking about science - Max Delbrück and the origins of molecular biology'; 1987, New York; or E. P. FISCHER: 'Selling science - the history of Boehringer Mannheim'; 1991, Munich, Piper; in the coming years the author will edit a scientific annual devoted to The Diagnostic Challenge.
16. See, for example, E. P. FISCHER and C. LIPSON: 'Thinking about science - Max Delbrück and the origins of molecular biology'; 1987, New York; or E. P. FISCHER: 'Selling science - the history of Boehringer Mannheim'; 1991, Munich, Piper; in the coming years the author will edit a scientific annual devoted to The Diagnostic Challenge.
17. R. POOL: 'Science literacy: the enemy is us', Science, 1991, 251, 266-267.
18. The fact that there is no inside understanding of science (scientists understanding science) can readily be demonstrated by the experiences of researchers who work for pharmaceutical companies. They have a hard time convincing the editors of renowned journals that a certain drug does not act in individual patients as, for example, a general ATPase inhibitor, but that every drug functioning according to a biochemical principle can have different effects in individual patients. The same researchers have even a harder time coping with the bureaucratic demands that each study has to be conducted according to the state of the art, not at the beginning, but at the end of the study.
19. N. H. COPP and A. W. ZANELLA: 'Discovery, innovation and risk'; 1993, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
20. My own experience with explaining science to the public points into the same direction: I have quite often taught the new genetics to teachers. Since in Germany there is a hostile attitude towards gene technology in general, I asked the teachers before my presentation if they were in favour of or against this science. Usually there was an initial 60% vote against gene technology. This is not bad, but the surprise came later. For after my explanations the teachers became more worried, 'since I now see how powerful this method is', to quote one of the participants in a typical statement.
21. M. RODGERS: 'The Hawking phenomenon', Public Understand. Sci., 1992, 1, 231-234.
22. J. DUNNING-DAVIES: 'Popular status and scientific influence: another angle on "the Hawking phenomenon"', Public Understand. Sci., 1993, 2, 85-86.
23. J. BAGGOTT: 'Have buckyballs lost their bounce?' New Sci., 27 Aug. 1994, 41.
24. For examples from Germany in the field of gene technology, see L. WINNACKER: 'Am Faden des Lebens'; 1993, Munich, Piper (to be translated into English).
25. The most prominent example is the big bang theory of the origin of the cosmos; scientists who try to present evidence against the big bang have a hard time conducting their research (H. ARP: personal communication); and at CERN visitors are informed that the big and costly machine is run to find the way 'back to creation', as a brochure tells the public in beautiful colours.
26. In general, I think that one should not concentrate on the public understanding of science but on public trust in science. This task needs, of course, a completely different rhetoric. In addition, public understanding of science may be affected by giving a nation reasons to be proud of science. In general, people should learn to be pround of science.
27. There are some opportunities for the public to meet science face to face. One was pioneered by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and its DNA Learning Center. In Germany, Boehringer Mannheim GmbH has established a similar learning centre in its Bavaria biotechnology outlet. Groups of interested people (teachers, pharmacists, politicians, neighbours) are invited to spend a day in a laboratory where everybody can run a gel or use a pipette. The results seem to be promising, and those who have visited the DNA learning laboratory of Boehringer Mannheim tend to have a higher acceptance of gene technology, as I can attest from my own experience.
28. See, for example, P. R. GROSS and N. LEVITT: 'Higher superstition - the academic left and its quarrels with science'; 1994, Baltimore. To quote from p. 2: 'To put it bluntly, the academic left dislikes science.' The resulting science bashing that the book documents is readily found in Germany, where the dislike of science has a long standing tradition that goes all the way back to the romantic period. The intellectual movement that started in France about a century ago also can be characterised by a serious distrust of science which still makes it difficult, for example, to discuss or describe the natural basis of human behaviour without experiencing emotional resistance and the objection of 'biologistic thinking'.
29. I think we fool ourselves when we try to improve public understanding without having the slightest idea of the public perception of science.
30. They are only watching out for 'political correctness'. Maybe scientists should also form a pressure group to introduce 'scientific correctness'. There is a German organisation - the Autorenkreis Sachdialog Naturwissenschaft und Medien eV - which wants to introduce a passage into the German constitution (Grundgesetz) that every journalist has the duty to report correctly about science, or lose his or her licence. While this may be overstating the case, it at least points to a problem that should no longer be ignored,
31. D. H. HAMER et al.: Nature, 1993, 364, 288 ff.
32. J. MADDOX: Nature, 1993, 364, 281.
33. D. E. KOSHLAND, Jr: Science, 1993, 260, 143.
34. One reason for this is the fact that (at least in Germany) university education in science does not offer any introduction to general science or scientific thinking. All students get are instructions how to solve problems. These instructions are officially called lectures, but in fact they are not. There are no lectures on science in our universities, strange as this may sound to people outside the scientific community.
35. J. D. WATSON et al.: 'Molecular biology of the gene', 4th edn. Vol. 1, V; 1987, Menlo Park, CA, Benjamin.
36. See, for example, Ch. PILLER and K. YAMAMOTO: 'Gene wars'; 1988, New York, Beech Tree Books.
37. For the debunking of the story, see A. R. PRATKANIS: The Skeptical Inquirer, 1992, 16, (3), 260-272.
38. Many more examples can be found in The Skeptical Inquirer; there should be many more critical scientific magazines like this, but, of course, debunking deceptive lies is more difficult and less rewarding than inventing them.
39. S. HAWKING: 'A brief history of time'; 1988, New York, Bantam.
40. I refer mostly to the publications in German, since this is the market which I can review better. The bestsellers of the optimistic 1960s contained messages like 'we are the children of the universe' or 'we can explain the whole world with one idea - evolution', the bestsellers of the pessimistic 1970s spread opposite messages like 'man is prone to extinction' or 'there is no chance to save the environment', and the bestselling books of the 1980s were those that celebrated chaos or the seemingly weakened position of science that all of a sudden had lost its capability to predict anything.
41. It was pointed out then by Kant in his 'Kritik der reinen Vernunft [Critique of pure reason]'.
42. F. TIPLER: 'Die Physik der Unsterblichkeit'; 1994, Munich; I know only of the German translation.
43. See, for example, A. HERMANN: 'Einstein'; 1994, Munich, Piper Verlag; A. FÖLSING: 'Albert Einstein'; 1993, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag.
44. See, for example, A. HERMANN: 'Einstein'; 1994, Munich, Piper Verlag; A. FÖLSING: 'Albert Einstein'; 1993, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag.
45. In general, I doubt that science historians understand enough science to do their work properly; and, by the way, who understands quantum mechanics, since even Einstein did not?
46. The public loves art and artists, though they do not understand them or their work either. Who understands 'Waiting for Godot' or Mahler's ninth symphony? But how do we get the public to love science the way they love art? People love Einstein, but does that help?