Science communication

Science communication generally refers to public communication presenting science-related topics to non-experts. This often involves professional scientists (called "outreach" or "popularization"), but has also evolved into a professional field in its own right. It includes science exhibitions, journalism, policy or media production.

Science communication can aim to generate support for scientific research or study, or to inform decision making, including political and ethical thinking. There is increasing emphasis on explaining methods rather than simply findings of science. This may be especially critical in addressing scientific misinformation, which spreads easily because it is not subject to the constraints of scientific method.

Science communicators can use entertainment and persuasion including humour, storytelling and metaphors. Scientists can be trained in some of the techniques used by actors to improve their communication.

Science communication can also simply describe communication between scientists (for instance through scientific journals), as well as between non-scientists.

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences which study the material world, the social sciences which study people and societies, and the formal sciences like mathematics. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations. Disciplines which use science like engineering and medicine may also be considered to be applied sciences.

During the middle ages in the Middle East, foundations for the scientific method were laid by Alhazen. From classical antiquity through the 19th century, science as a type of knowledge was more closely linked to philosophy than it is now and, in fact, in the West the term "natural philosophy" encompassed fields of study that are today associated with science, such as physics, astronomy and medicine.

In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature. Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself, as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was in the 19th century that scientific disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology reached their modern shapes. The same time period also included the origin of the terms "scientist" and "scientific community," the founding of scientific institutions, and increasing significance of the interactions with society and other aspects of culture.

Unscientific America

Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future is a nonfiction book by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. It was a New York Times best seller. In the book, the authors tackle the problem of scientific illiteracy in America. The authors criticize scientists for talking down to the misinformed and insulting the religious while calling for more friendly and magnanimous science advocates. They also blame the New Atheist movement, the creation–evolution controversy, the entertainment industry, the media, and science skeptics.

Reception

Science press

The journal Science Communication gave the book a favourable review, noting that the arguments presented "may make the Ph.D. crowd even more cranky than usual." Indeed, the book did spark significant debate particularly on-line.Seed magazine selected Unscientific America as one to "read now" although it was subsequently more critical of certain aspects of the book. The BMJ, while supporting the authors' assessment of the problem, was critical of the proposed solution. It said that the book sometimes "reads like an overlong and somewhat condescending whine about why science and scientists are not sufficiently appreciated." The New Scientist was similarly supportive of the description of the problem while being critical of the solution arguing that "by looking only at science, Unscientific America misses the big picture."American Scientist called it "at best, a thin and unsatisfying broth."Science was also critical calling the book "slight in both length and substance" and the analysis it contains "shallow and unreflective". This review was itself criticized by Donald Marcus of Baylor College of Medicine, who called it "a dismissive rant that misrepresents the text."PZ Myers, who was criticised in the book, stated in his review that "It's not a badly written book, but it's something worse: it's utterly useless."