Abstract
In a world dominated by science and technology, every citizen requires some grasp of the principles of science. How, otherwise, are non-scientists to assess the information that bombards them? In particular, they need to understand that every scientific ‘truth’ is subject to correction or modification. In the early nineteenth century there was in some countries considerable unease about the public's ignorance of science. In 1825 Sweden set up a committee to reform schools and universities. It reported in 1829, when the great chemist Berzelius claimed ‘The literary education given to the generation that now leads in public affairs, classical languages, belles lettres and history, has resulted in nine-tenths of our civil servants and pastors not being able to explain what causes the moon to wax or wane and how it happens that the mercury rises in the barometer’.1 He persuaded his country to introduce science into schools. Here I look at public knowledge as revealed by surveys in the USA and the UK.
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