All human societies construct and teach creation myths or origin stories. These are large, extraordinarily powerful, but often ramshackle narratives that try and tell the story of how everything came to…
People are more likely to believe that humans cause global warming if they are told that 97% of publishing climate scientists agree that it does, a new study has found. Despite overwhelming evidence showing…
Researchers worldwide have condemned an Italian court’s judgement that six scientists and a government official are guilty of manslaughter for underestimating the risk of an earthquake accurately. The…
Few of us have the time or expertise to sift through all of the scientific papers published every day to determine which research is important and relevant to our lives. In this sense, science journalists…
While the Australian Research Council considers its policy on open-access publication and others within the scientific community call for the increased sharing of scientific data, the British are already…
Science (real science, not the summaries in popular books and the media) is needlessly closed to the outside world. Worse, it is closed within itself, with every lab its own silo, and little sharing of…
If you listen to the debate between science and society in most of the West, you get one version or another of the linear model. Science comes first. When it is “settled”, society will know what to do…
Earlier this year the American journalist David Plotz wrote in Slate that: America needs a lot more good engineers and scientists, more competent scientists, even more mediocre scientists. I agree that…
Academic discussions of citizen science are all the rage right now (see here, and here, and here). While most describe the successes of individual projects, none (to my knowledge) have taken the long view…
Is science being taught badly? In the broadest sense, yes. Most Australian school science curriculum documents I see today seem to be about teaching students how different science is from the rest of society…
Want to help fix the science/ society divide? We’re making a documentary looking at how we might do this, and we’re looking for your help. Why? Well … You don’t need to be a rocket sociologist to know…
In Australia we are all too familiar with devastating environmental impacts of introduced species such as foxes, rabbits and cane toads. But did you know that some introduced species may have a relatively…
Litanies about how poorly science and the science “brand” are doing have become a little too common for my liking. The most recent notable example came courtesy of the EU’s Science, it’s a girl thing campaign…
Opinions on anthropogenic climate change vary greatly across society, and it appears that Australia’s farmers remain largely sceptical about the causes of climate change. Recent surveys show that only…
You’ve really got to wonder when even Hollywoodgossip.com is questioning whether the latest European Union campaign to attract girls towards a science career is a spoof. The video being referred to was…
Earlier this week, Senator Chris Evans announced A$5 million worth of science communication grants for 63 projects as part of the Unlocking Australia’s Potential program. We were successful in getting…
The Excellence in Research for Australia Initiative (ERA) is the federal government’s latest attempt to quantify the “excellence” (or otherwise) of Australian researchers. And just a few short weeks ago…
Worldwide, and especially in Australia, much valuable science is being wasted or stalled through what is known as technology rejection – the public’s hostile reception of new technologies or scientific…
The Book of the Dead describes the ancient Egyptian “weighing of the heart” ceremony as the placing of a heart on one side of a set of scales and a feather on the other. Goddess Ma'at’s feather represents…
Last week’s Health of Australian Science report, by the Chief Scientist of Australia Ian Chubb, has again highlighted the issue of declining student engagement in science in primary and secondary schools…