Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Citizen scientist
The above link is a blog post about why science is complicated, why non-experts like politicians shouldn't be trusted to relay scientific information accurately, and moreover what research really means. Translating scholarly work into a publicly accessible format as well as finding reliable sources of those translations continues to be an issue and a need. It is a real and crucial issue, since, as I mentioned, numerous versions of scholarly knowledge - some closer to the original facts than others - get used for a multitude of political, social, and economic initiatives every day. As voting citizens and as initiators, targets and recipients of these initiatives, we would do well to do what we can to bridge that gap from our end. I believe that the academic community also has a responsibility to shoulder its part of the bridge-building, and that educational systems and institutions, government ones included, fall somewhere in the middle. Learning more about what, and how, we all understand, citizens and scientists alike, can only help.
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i can absolutely see this as true, just from the food research i read. it's amazing what a government or private industry filter can do to research results! no wonder the public doesn't have a clue half the time!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your sentiment and also that academia needs to help build that bridge or at least vett the info and denouce the idiots a little better. problem is of course there are people who are scientists who either have conflicting info or are wrong or worse paid to lie. Just such a painful situation which is why it does not change I think. The world needs more people like you who stand up and say no and tell the truth even when it is not popular.
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