Post by Tamrin on Apr 21, 2012 20:44:13 GMT 10
According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics, "scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity". A scientifically literate person is defined as one who has the capacity to:
- understand experiment and reasoning as well as basic scientific facts and their meaning
- ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences
- describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena
- read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions
- identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed
- evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it
- pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of
the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto
been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been
provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second
Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking
something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?
C. P. Snow, 1959
Rede Lecture, entitled, "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution"
the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto
been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been
provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second
Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking
something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?
C. P. Snow, 1959
Rede Lecture, entitled, "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution"