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Why do 'public understanding of science' profs get it so wrong?

First there was Richard Dawkins, who as Professor of Public Understanding of Science managed to put more people off science than practically anyone else with his hardline 'anyone who supports religion is an idiot' approach.

Now there's Susan Greenfield, charged with a similar task as the head of the Royal Institution. And guess what? According to Ben Goldacre, she's spreading scare stories (when she's not selling dubious brain training software).

I increasingly believe that scientists are the last people to have the job of improving public understanding of science. Let's give the jobs to popular science authors instead.

I'm available...
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Comments

  1. Peet16 May 2009 at 13:00

    I know I could probably Google it, but what brain-training software Brian?

    Oh, btw, what do you think of Dawkin's successor?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephen16 May 2009 at 15:54

    Unedited version of the article is here:

    http://www.badscience.net/2009/05/professor-baroness-susan-greenfield-cbe/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Clegg17 May 2009 at 11:52

    Peet - details in Ben Goldacre link above.

    ReplyDelete
  4. rpg17 May 2009 at 19:02

    But surely neither of those two could really be described as 'scientists' any more?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brian Clegg18 May 2009 at 08:40

    In a sense that doesn't matter. They're considered scientists by the media.

    ReplyDelete
  6. rpg19 May 2009 at 12:51

    Point.

    ReplyDelete

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