The UK government has a website called “Science and Society in the UK“, it is part of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills. They want to improve build public confidence in science and improve science communication.
Apparently some expert groups are drawing up “action plans”. Beyond that, I got a bit confused, I’m not sure what it’s all about perhaps the experts are supposed to change the view of UK citizens about science? Seems like a tall order to me. As you can probably tell, I am a bit skeptical about “consultations”. They often seem to be a “box-ticking” excercise that have no bearing on the actual decisions made.
Anyway, one of the expert groups on “Science and Trust” have an online survey that you can complete (by the 30th of November). They want to know what needs to be done to make people trust science. I filled it in, it’s written in traditional government speak i.e. you need a dictionary to understand some of the questions. If you have an opinion on whether science is important to the UK please do the same.
If the aim of this group is to make science more accessible then I think they should consider:
- Who is likely to respond to this survey? – Where is it being promoted?
- What is their level of education? – They should consider the reading age of their questions as I think they are probably excluding a large proportion of the general public.
- Who can gain access to it? – People with broadband internet, again not representative of UK.
The whole think seems a bit unscientific to me, which is odd, considering… What do you think? Am I being to cynical?
If you are more impressed with the images than the text “
