Do you like your mobile phone? Do you like the fact that you can use the world wide web to connect with your friends?
\ndo you like using your iphone when you sit on a delayed train?<\/p>\n
Yes?<\/p>\n
Than why don’t you support government funding of the sciences? <\/p>\n
I think the answer many folks would give is this:
\n I already have a mobile and a computer and television, what is your point?
\nGovernments are in deficit, we don’t have any money – we need budget cuts, I don’t want to fund some scientist that does something esoteric and useless…<\/p>\n
I am a scientist, and I can’t count the times that people have said to me ‘but how is this useful?’ or ‘what is the point of that?’ or even worse ‘Wow, you must be really smart, I could never understand that’ <\/p>\n
These questions are not so easy to answer because there is not always a clear connection between scientific discovery or the science we are doing right now and this is, in part, because we don’t know precisely where science is going to lead us in the long-term. <\/p>\n
but I also think one of the problems is that there is not always a clear public understanding of science and its history and its link to modern technology<\/p>\n
So, who’s fault is that?
\nThere are several places we could lay blame but I think now might be a good time to ask… <\/p>\n
Do we as scientists do a good job at communicating with the public?
\n I would say yes and no and we are going to have to do better… <\/p>\n
Yes: There is a huge amount of science blogging these days, on science<\/a>, on science policy<\/a>, on the use of evidence-based methods<\/a>, on bad science<\/a> in the media and many more<\/a>. There are science programmes with Brian Cox<\/a>, Simon Singh<\/a>, on Planet Earth <\/a> and the BBC recently announced it wanted to help increase science literacy by launching programmes on the celebration of science<\/a>.<\/p>\n But is this enough? The US House just blocked <\/a>the scientifically based America COMPETES bill and wants to freeze funding for research budgets at US Department of Energy<\/a> and the National Science Foundation<\/a> over the next 3 years.<\/p>\n and today the first cuts announced by the UK coalition government were: Would this happen if there were public outrage? Perhaps it would anyway, but perhaps not.<\/p>\n as is noted by Road from Ruin<\/em> authors Bishop and Green, today’s \u00a36bn cuts are political rather than useful economically <\/a>. Aside from the obvious caveat that public outcry doesn’t mean much to the government, as it often doesn’t, this is at the very least is where the government thought the best cuts could be made and must on some level be linked to a public perception of the importance of government funding for science and education. <\/p>\n but as was simply put: from twitter today: Despite all of the gargantuan efforts of scientific writers such as Ben Goldacre<\/a>, Simon Singh<\/a> and Brian Cox<\/a> there is more to do and maybe as a community we need to try to do better. <\/p>\n Or maybe we need another Sputnik: <\/p>\n At exactly 19:28:34, October 4, 1957 the soviet satellite Sputnik<\/a> was launched and spent 3 months in orbit, I wasn’t alive then, but apparently you could see it from the USA on a warm summer evening, travelling in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. I probably don’t have to go into the details of what NASA brought us, do I? We all know this – everyone likes the Velcro example but what about SATELLITES, which allow things like mobiles, the internet, wireless internet.. but we don’t need another cold war to inspire us – maybe we can up the ante in the scientific community – extend the efforts of those already blogging about science (see above, and apologies for anyone I missed) and creating such laudable organizations as ‘Sense about Science’<\/a> and I’m a scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n I think we need to add a little history – about how technology has been developed from scientific research, which was considered, perhaps ‘useless’ at the time, and this is what I, for one, intend to do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you like your mobile phone? Do you like the fact that you can use the world wide web to connect with your friends? do you like using your iphone when you sit on a delayed train? Yes? Than why … Continue reading
\nNo: Apparently not Because people and politicians still ask this question – ‘ how is this useful?’ and then, perhaps by default, decide it isn’t useful enough. Among the first things that are being cut in this economic crisis by both the US and UK governments are science and higher education.<\/p>\n
\n…. \u00a3836m of cuts to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills<\/em> (BIS), \u00a3670m to the Department for Education,<\/em> and no cuts<\/em> to the Departments for Health,
\nDefence, and International Development<\/a> (my italics).<\/p>\n
\n@THE (Times Higher Education) @NHJ_HE Does the sector communicate effectively how important it is to the public?
\n I think not. If they did, everyone would #loveHE<\/p>\n
\nthe US freaked out – how were the Soviets ahead? They thinking about satellites too, the US decided that they were a good idea in 1955, but Spunik caught Westerners off guard – and thus became NASA… <\/p>\n
\nBut what Sputnik also did was increase the education budget and specifically the science education budget in the US, as politicians at the time saw the link between science research and higher eduction. <\/p>\n