From two brilliant young authors - one a science journalist and the other a biologist - comes an impassioned polemic about the dangers of America's scientific illiteracy. In his famous 1959 Reith Lecture at Cambridge University, C.P Snow described science and the humanities as 'Two Cultures', separated by a 'vast gulf of mutual incomprehension.' The humanists were running government, he worried; the low prestige of science at the time meant that Western leaders, and the elites who surrounded them, saw little need to be educated in scientific subjects that were increasingly relevant to world problems: the elementary physics behind nuclear weapons, for instance, or the basics of plant science needed to feed the world's growing population. Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum offer a 'Two Cultures' polemic for the 21st century. Our gravest problems - climate change, the energy crisis, threats of global pandemics, nuclear proliferation - are scientific in nature. And yet for every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; 46 per cent of Americans believe that God, not evolution, created life on earth; the number of newspapers with science sections has shrunk from 95 to 34 since 1989; and the White House continues to argue that global warming is a theory, not a reality. Mooney and Kirshenbaum point fingers in both directions - both at the intellectual laziness of the American public (and particularly the politicians and media who are supposed to serve them) and at the scientists themselves, who due to both hyperspecialization and hubris have failed to communicate their work effectively to a broad public. Mooney cites examples such as the excommunication of Pluto as arrogant gestures that managed to turn into a nation of scientist-hating Pluto-sympathizers. Unscientific America is a cri de couer for enhanced scientific literacy. The authors describe how the scientific community has failed to exploit its growing importance; shows why science is losing out to religious and commercial propagandists in the public sphere, and urges that science must begin to train a small army of ambassadors who can translate its message and make it relevant to the media, to politicians, and to the American public. An impassioned call to arms worthy of Snow's original manifesto, this book tells us what must be done to reintegrate science into public discourse - before it is too late.
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Mar 1, 2010
David J Tenenbaum 
Open Access