Spoon feeding Science to America

Last Tuesday, I made a comment in class about how it wasn’t important for Americans to understand science in the news as long as they understood the effects of the science. Now to some this sounds a bit fascist.  However I truly believe that the science world has become too complex for the common citizen to have a substantial say in the matter.  The professor said in class 70% of Americans reported wanting to hear more about science in the news.  I am not sure this means 70% of American want to go pick up Scientific America and read about the debate between Quantum Physics and String Theory. It just means they would like to know more about how science and technology are changing our world. The question is how?
              As we talked about the growing disconnect between the scientific community, the journalism world, and the public, some people in class suggested we bridge the gap by having scientist take more humanities courses and teach them how to better communicate their ideas.  Frankly, I think this is insulting to the hard work scientist do. I feel like its undermining the breakthroughs they are making by asking them to dummy it down for the sake of producing a news story.  I know that not all scientists go to work in a white lab coat and have chemistry set.  Many are very passionate about their fields of study and are more then willing to talk about their work.  The problem is once they start to explain it, really explain the nuts and bolts, too many people tune out.  They find it boring or too difficult. This doesn’t mean we should look at scientist as the root of the problem and the gap.  Others in class suggested the problem was journalism.  Journalism in the news isn’t a high school science class.   It is not suppose to teach you how photosynthesis works (although hopefully we all already know).  Its not their job to explain the sets and stages and chemistry that takes place in order for CO2 to become O2.  Journalism’s job is to say that air goes in the tree, oxygen comes out, and we should start planting tree along roads because some scientist has spent his life’s working conducting research on the matter and now he is receiving a noble prize.  And I understand this a weak example of how journalism should approach such a story, but the point is I think if journalism uses any chemistry in the article it has already given the public to much credit and has made a mistake. However journalism can’t seem to get it together because many science journalist are losing their jobs. So that would leave the public with the responsibility to bring the gap.  The public, many of whom failed high school science, and even more who failed college science, has to single handedly bring the gap between science and understanding. That doesn’t sound right. These scientist have spent years of their lives and thousands of dollars in education dedicated to working in their area of expertise. How would it be fair to ask to common man to get up to speed in one article.  So if these three aren’t to blame for the disconnect then who is? I say the government. It is an absolute necessity for the government to start channeling more money into public education science departments at lower levels and for them to start setting the bar higher.  No more of this No Child Left Behind bs. The Gov has the responsibility to make the public ‘science literate.’  Also Journalism needs to do better marketing research and stop firing potentially profitable science journalist.