[00:00.00] Professor Hawking
[00:02.19]thinks it important to keep everybody in touch with what science is about.
[00:07.84]In this article he explains why.
[00:11.08]PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD SCIENCE by Stephen Hawking
[00:16.30]Whether we like it or not,
[00:18.83]the world we live in has hcanged a great deal in the last hundred years,
[00:24.42]and it is likely to change even more in the next hundred.
[00:29.05]Some people would like to stop these changes
[00:32.68]and go back to what they see as a purer and simpler age.
[00:38.45]But as history shows,the past was not that wonderful.
[00:43.39]It was not so bad for a privileged minority,
[00:47.93]though even they had to do without modern medicine,
[00:51.75]and childbirth was highly risky for women.
[00:55.59]But for the vast majority of the population,
[00:59.06]life was nasty,brutish,and short.
[01:03.32]Anyway,even if one wanted to,one couldn't put the clock back to an earlier age.
[01:10.24]Knowledge and techniques can't just be forgotten.
[01:14.68]Nor can one prevent further advances in the future.
[01:19.54]Even if all government money for research were cut off
[01:24.24](and the present government is doing its best),
[01:28.22]the force of competition would still bring about advances in technology.
[01:34.35]Moreover,one cannot stop inquiring minds from thinking about basic science,
[01:41.09]whether or not they are paid for it.
[01:44.36]The only way to prevent further developments
[01:48.07]would be a global state that suppressed anything new,
[01:52.72]and human intiative and inventiveness are such that even this wouldn't succeed
[01:59.35]All it would do is slow down the rate of change.
[02:03.56]If we accept that we cannot prevent science and technology from changing our world
[02:10.19]we can at least try to ensure that the changes they make are in the right directions
[02:17.53]In a democratic society,
[02:20.09]this means that the public needs to have a basic understanding of science,
[02:26.00]so that it can make informed decisions
[02:30.05]and not leave them in the hands of experts.
[02:33.99]At the moment,the public is in two minds about science.
[02:39.63]It has come to expect the steady increase in the standard of living that
[02:44.57]new developments in science and technology have brought to continue,
[02:50.19]but it also distrusts science because it doesn't understand it.
[02:55.49]This distrust is evident in the cartoon figure of the mad scientist working in his laboratory to produce a Frankensten
[03:04.92]It is also an important element behind support for the Green parties.
[03:11.14]But the public also has a great interest in science,
[03:15.58]particularly astronomy,as is shown by the large audiences
[03:21.14]for television series such as The Sky at Night and for science fiction.
[03:27.49]What can be done to harness this interest
[03:31.02]and give the public the scientific background
[03:34.88]it needs to make informed decisions on subjects like acid rain,
[03:41.10]the green house effect,nuclear weapons,
[03:45.78]and genetic engineering?Clearly,the basis must lie in what is taught in schools
[03:53.72]But in schools science is often presented in a dry and uninteresting manner.
[04:00.25]Children learn it by rote to pass examinations,
[04:04.98]and they don't see its relevance to the world around them.
[04:09.08]Moreover,science is often taught in terms of equations.
[04:15.03]Although equations are a brief and accurate way of describing mathematical ideas
[04:21.56]they frighten most people.
[04:24.20]When I wrote a popuar book recently,
[04:27.23]I was advised that each equation I included would halve the sales.
[04:33.01]I included one equation,Enstein's famous equation,E=mc2.
[04:40.71]Maybe I would have sold twice as many copies without it.
[04:44.81]Scientists and engineers tend to express their ideas
[04:49.57]in the form of equations because they need to know
[04:54.03]the precise values of quantities.
[04:57.06]But for the rest of us,a qualitative grasp of scientific concepts is sufficient
[05:03.60]and this can be conveyed by words and diagrams,without the use of equations
[05:10.73]The science people learn in school can provide the basic frame-work.
[05:16.34]But the rate of scientific progress
[05:20.18]is now so rapid that there are always new developments that have occurred
[05:26.11]since one was at school or university.
[05:29.87]I never learned about molecular biology or transisitors at school,
[05:35.12]but genetic engineering and computers
[05:38.63]are two of the developments most likely to change the way we live in the future.
[05:45.29]Popular books and magazine articles about science
[05:49.91]can help to put across new development,
[05:53.57]but even the most successful popular book
[05:56.99]is read by only a small proportion of the population.
[06:01.74]Only television can reach a truly mass audience.
[06:06.05]There are some very good science programmes on TV,
[06:10.42]but others present scientific wonders simply as magic,
[06:14.96]without explaining them
[06:17.18]or showing how they fit into the framework of scientific ideas.
[06:22.54]Producers of television science programmes
[06:26.01]should realize that they have a responsibility to educate the public,
[06:31.76]no just ectertain it.
[06:34.37]The world today is filled with dangers,
[06:38.00]hence the sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted
[06:42.99]by an alien civilization
[06:46.20]is that civilizations tend to destroy themselves when they reach our stage.
[06:51.95]But I have sufficient faith in the good sense of the public
[06:56.31]to believe that we might prove this wrong.
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