The general public has long been divided into two parts those who think science can do anything, and those who are afraid it will.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.
Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.
The absolute worst thing that you ever can do, in my opinion, in bringing science to the general public, is be condescending or judgmental. It is so opposite to the way science needs to be brought forth.
If scientists can't communicate with the public, with policy makers, with one another, the future is going to be held back. We're not going to have the future that we could have.
The tension between public and private science is powerful.
There is an ever-widening gap between what science allows and what we should actually do. There are many doors science can open that should be kept closed, on prudential or ethical grounds.
If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed.
Through basic science literacy, people can understand the policy choices we need to be making. Scientists are not necessarily the greatest communicators, but science and communication is one of the fundamentals we need to address. People are interested.
Science is definitely part of America's infrastructure, the engine of prosperity. And yet science is given almost no visibility in the media.
There cannot be any impediment to science that will ultimately be good to the general public.