The public often complains that they do not have access to many scientists, and are not given proper guidance and education about science issues. This actually isn't true unless one expect things like this to be spoon-fed. A little bit of effort is involved, including finding proper resources on the web.
Still, there are efforts to educate the public, and this is one just respectable endeavor. A series of seminars on popular misconception about science will be held at the Appalachian State University campus in North Carolina, starting from Sept. 14 and will run till Dec. 9. A look at some of the topics that will be presented makes this sounds very interesting:
Sept. 14—“Hypotheses, Theories, Laws and Facts in Science: What’s the Big Deal and Why Should You Care?”
Sept. 30-“Science, Pseudoscience and Junk Science: How Knowing the Difference Between Good and Bad Science is Important for Maintaining a Scientifically Literate and Democratic Society,”
If you are in the neighborhood, this would be a good thing to attend.
2 comments:
I like the idea behind the first one. I'm guessing they'll explain the difference between all of them. Hopefully it will get rid of at least a few people willing to say, "well, its only a THEORY!"
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a series of good public lectures. It's the called Saturday Physics Honors Program and is meant for high school students, but most of the attendees are non-high school community members.
I highly recommend going.
http://physics.illinois.edu/outreach/honors/
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