Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility

Front Cover
Basic Books, Mar 21, 1998 - Science - 294 pages
Is an understanding of science important, and what are the issues involved in communicating it? Science in Public uniquely draws together the broad range of theory and practice of public understanding of science. In order to address these and other questions that face today's technological society, this book examines the history of communicating science from the eighteenth century through Michael Faraday and Thomas Huxley, and on to the present day. Detailed contemporary case studies offer insights into the communication and understanding of science. In Science in Public the ideas of sociologists and communications researchers rub shoulders with the expectations of politicians and the hopes of educators. The public is here, and so is science, in both their idealized and real-world guises. The book's scope is broad, as is the subject.
 

Contents

Why the Public Understanding of Science Matters
10
Science in Public Culture
19
Friend or Foe?
52
Popularization Public Understanding and the Public Sphere
81
Understanding the Public Understanding of Science
88
Trust in the Public Sphere
99
Case Studies in Public Science
132
Big Science Big Questions
140
Oiling the Environment
154
In Conclusion
163
Science in Museums
196
Initiatives and Activities in the Public Understanding
220
A Protocol for Science Communication for the Public
242
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

Steve Miller was born July 31, 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the grandson of poet and radio personality Dorothea Neale. Miller graduated from Reisterstown, Maryland's Franklin Senior High School in 1968 where he learned how to make chapbooks as editor of the school's literary magazine. He later attended University of Maryland, Baltimore County sporadically through the late 60s and 70s where he was news editor and managing editor of the campus newspaper. He is Founding Curator of the Albin O. Kuhn Library's science fiction research collection. Steve is an independent publisher with an extensive background in SF fandom. Since his first publication in 1968, Steve has accumulated credits in well over 100 newspapers, magazines, journals and short stories including his work in the Liaden universe. Steve is married and lives with his wife, Sharon Lee, in Maine.

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