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Unit3
PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD SCIENCE
1.
Stephen Hawking
Whether we like it or not, the world we live in has changed a great deal in the last hundred years,
and it is likely to change even more in the next hundred. Some people would like to stop these
changes and go back to what they see as a purer and simpler age. But as history shows, the past
was not that wonderful. It was not so bad for a privileged minority, though even they had to do
without modern medicine, and childbirth was highly risky for women. But for the vast majority of
the population, life was nasty, brutish, and short.
Anyway, even if one wanted to, one couldn't put the clock back to an earlier age. Knowledge and
techniques can't just be forgotten. Nor can one prevent further advances in the future. Even if all
government money for research were cut off (and the present government is doing its best), the
force of competition would still bring about advances in technology. Moreover, one cannot stop
inquiring minds from thinking about basic science, whether or not they are paid for it. The only
way to prevent further developments would be a global state that suppressed anything new, and
human initiative and inventiveness are such that even this wouldn't succeed. All it would do is
slow down the rate of change.
If we accept that we cannot prevent science and technology from changing our world, we can at
least try to ensure that the changes they make are in the right directions. In a democratic society,
this means that the public needs to have a basic understanding of science, so that it can make
informed
decisions and not leave them in the hands of experts.
At the moment,
the public
is in two minds about science. It has come to expect the steady in crease in the standard of living
that new developments in science and technology have brought to continue, but it also distrusts
science because it doesn't understand it. This distrust is evident in the cartoon figure of the mad
scientist
working
in
his
laboratory
to
produce
a
is
also
an
important
element
behind
support
for
the
Green
parties.
But
the
public
also
has
a
great
interest
in
science,
particularly
astronomy,
as is
shown by
the
large
audiences
for
television
series
such
as
The
Sky at Night if and for science fiction.
What can be done to harness this interest and give the public the scientific background it needs
to make informed decisions on subjects like acid rain, the greenhouse effect, nuclear weapons,
and genetic engineering? Clearly, the basis must lie in what is taught in schools. But in schools
science is often presented in a dry and uninteresting manner. Children learn it by rote to pass
examinations, and they don't see its relevance to the world around them. Moreover, science is
often taught in terms of equations. Although equations are a brief and accurate way of describing
mathematical
ideas,
they
frighten
most
people.
When
I
wrote
a
popular
book
recently,
I
was
advised that each equation I included would have the sales. I included one equation, Einstein 's
famous equation, E=mc2. Maybe I would have sold twice as many copies without it.
Scientists and engineers tend to express their ideas in the form of equations because they need
to know the precise values of quantities. But for the rest of us, a qualitative grasp of scientific
concepts
is
sufficient,
and
this
can
be
conveyed
by
words
and
diagrams,
without
the
use
of
equations.
The
science
people
learn
in
school
can
provide
the
basic
framework.
But
the
rate
of
scientific
progress is now so rapid that there are always new developments that have occurred since one
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