Christopher Granade Says...

In addition to what others have said here, I would like to point out that science education is an essential part of science's rightful place. If a respect for and understanding of science and its methods is not communicated to students throughout their educations, then as citizens, they cannot be fully informed in their decisions. As such, the democracy as a whole will suffer for the loss of a valuable set of perspectives and methods.

Likewise, if students are not exposed to scientific thinking from the earliest ages, then they will not be as aware of the careers within scientific fields. As a consequence, scientific pursuits will once again suffer for the loss of potential contributors.

Therefore, in developing a place for science in our democracy, we cannot forget to develop a future for science as well.

Read more responses from The Rightful Place Project on Facebook

More like this

A short but good article by my schools' President (April 25, 2006, also here). ------------------------------------------------------- James Oblinger, the new President of North Carolina State University (promoted from within after many years as the Dean of the School Of Agriculture And Life…
Last week, President Obama stated in his inaugural address that he would "restore science to its rightful place." ScienceBlogs has been quick to capitalise on his words by launching a new initiative called The Rightful Place Project. As an opening salvo, the Project is asking writers, bloggers and…
What is science's rightful place? In our heads, of course. All of our heads. But Seed is asking, so let me elaborate briefly. As I said before, science is not just active participation in research. Science is a mindset. We are all born scientists, exploring the world around us and experimenting…
A post from December 5, 2007: Communication Communication of any kind, including communication of empirical information about the world (which includes scientific information), is constrained by three factors: technology, social factors, and, as a special case of social factors - official…