Sharing science
Communicating
astrobiology
in public
My doctoral thesis demonstrates that the scientific literacy enterprise – in all its forms – fails scrutiny. Either we believe our best science students are leaving high school scientifically illiterate or there is something fundamentally wrong in our perceptions of public scientific illiteracy.
The phrase 'scientific literacy' has no internationally agreed definition, making the testing of scientific literacy a constantly moving target. As a result, we cannot rely on our current perceptions of a scientifically illiterate public. In addition, the actual practice of science contrasts sharply with science curricula and high school science text books. A paradigm shift in our thinking is required about what scientific literacy is and in our expectations of both students and adult public audiences.
In the worst case scenario, governments are pouring millions of dollars into science education, science communication, and public outreach with little or no basis for understanding whether they are effective in the ultimate goal of improving public scientific literacy, however that is defined.
My research now concerns the questions raised by my doctoral thesis. These include asking whether there are problems with 'scientific literacy' at student and adult public levels and how these problems impact the publicl understanding of science. There is an international drought in longitudinal data collection and analysis that would assist in assessing possible answers to these questions, and to build better science education and public science outreach programs - based on the evidence rather than good ideas.
One central reason for the lack of data concerns the funding of projects capable of longitudinal study of the effectiveness of the projects.