Why Trust Science?
The recent COVID pandemic dramatically demonstrated how protecting human lives requires that we all follow the best science advice concerning vaccines, drug treatments, and reducing disease spread. More broadly, for humanity to thrive, it is crucial that the public give considerable weight to the consensus judgements of the scientific community.
Scientific judgements are not merely what scientists happen to believe. A scientific consensus is not based on opinion, but on the work of scientists around the world who pool their data and critique one another’s findings, techniques, and conclusions. Correcting such misunderstandings will require that science education focus on teaching how reliable knowledge is actually produced through the remarkable, community based human invention that we call science.
We contend that in an age when we are all constantly bombarded with mis-information, science education must change. Beginning in middle school and extending through college, we need to explicitly teach how the scientific community produces the knowledge that humanity needs to chart a successful future.
To encourage such teaching, we have written the brief essay Why Trust Science? that is posted on this website, accompanied by links to free, high quality Teaching Tools and other resources that teachers may find useful.