The Public Understanding of Science Effort: A Critique

Partly as advocatus diaboli-but partly because some nagging doubts persistently intrude themselves on my consciousness-I propose in this paper to question the validity of the premise that democratic public policy considerations dictate that the general public be informed about science and technology. I do not, of course, suggest that interested laymen not inform themselves about science any more than they not inform themselves about Renaissance madrigals, nonobjective art, or Greek tragedy. I do, however, raise the question of whether a variety of institutions and organizations should adopt as specific policies the goal of interpreting science and technology to the general public; I will suggest that there are occasions on which efforts to increase public understanding of science may not only fail to be socially constructive but actually be damaging. As preface to the argument, I feel it necessary to outline my credentials. A major share of my professional activity over the past twenty-five years has been in the broad field of scientific communication. Although in recent years I have paid increasing attention to problems and questions of professional communication within the scientific community, most of my work during these twoand-a-half decades has concerned science writing: the communication and interpretation of information about science and technology to the general public. I have been a science writer, taught science writing, and published articles about the goals and problems of science writing. Underlying all of these efforts has been what I thought was a rational premise-buttressed, to be sure, by a profound intuitive conviction-that in a society as dominated as ours by the attitudes and the products of science and technology, it is important' LEON E. TRACHTMAN