Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney are arguing that science education is so fucked up and the press are so piss poor that scientists need to go swift boat vets in order win the public debates against anti-science types. According to Nisbet and Mooney, the general public are too stupid to understand the real science, so scientists need to dumb it down. And we can't rely on the press (which everyone calls "the media") to accurately communicate science, so we need to give them catch phrases and slogans. Scientists need ad wizards to convince the public that the earth is more than 10,000 years old, humans can change the global climate, and scientists aren't conspiring to destroy the American way of life.
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Strictly, "press" refers to printed media (which is printed on a press). "Media" refers to the means by which ideas and images are transmitted to the public (published), and includes radio, TV, film, and latterly, the internet. "The media" is shorthand for "mainstream media" (MSM).
Advertisers, public relations and lobbyists are what skews the best of the news media. Recently, I get the impression that is all that determines what the MSM publish.
Learn Physics, then you will know that you were no less ignorant about science than the general public. It is a joke that these soft "sciences" are given any respect at all. Your biggest fear should be that the general population will become educated in the hard sciences, if/when that happens, you myopic simpletons will have an audience of one.
For the betterment of science, please go away.
Malcolm Kass
Chemical Engineer a.k.a. someone who knows a hellva alot more about science than you ever will.
Welcome to evolgen, Malcolm Kass. A couple questions: What makes a science hard versus soft? Is it blood flow to the muscle?
Science is a way of approaching problems.
And you're an engineer, not a scientest.
Brillant deduction RPM! I am not a scientist, which I never claimed I was, I am an engineer, which means that I am educated in applied science.
Science is not a way to approach problems, it is not statistics, it is not probability, it is theory. It is theory that hold last until disproved. Once you understand that science is never about proving anything, or disproof, then you will understand why the soft sciences are not science at all.
True science is absolute
True science is absolute
...just like religion.