Fear-mongering ‘facts’—like tomatoes engineered with spider genes or cars exploding from full gas tanks on hot summer days— show how out of touch society is with basic science. Science literacy depends on the clarity of communication from scientists and scientific institutions. The prevalence of these fake ‘facts’ show that something must be done to remedy the chasm between the public and academia, especially as science legislation becomes affected by bad science. Mahaletchumy Arujanan, a Malaysian scientist and executive director of the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC) calls on the scientific community to establish productive dialogue with non-scientists, defend research priorities and criticize bad science.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Making science communication a mainstream activity
