Science Eurobarometer - "Science and Technology"

[Lunar_Lander]

The European Union recently released a new Eurobarometer report, this time the topic is Science and Technology: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_340_en.pdf

The results of the study is somewhat shocking: One of the topics was "science is unimportant". 57% of the questioned in Austria agreed with this, following that are 53% of the questioned in Slovakia, 51% in Estonia, 45% in Greece and 45% in Bulgaria. 32% agreed in Germany and the least people agreed in Sweden (20%).

Austria also has the lowest result in the question if fundamental research should be supported and founded, only 48% agreed with that. It is quite a gap to the last but one place (Portugal, 60%); Germany has 69%.

Further interesting numbers are that 65% of the questioned in Germany are of the opinion, that scientists pose a danger because of their knowledge (Austria 42%, Switzerland 60%). 70% of the Germans think that we cannot trust scientists anymore because they would be "too dependant on the industries". 92% (!) of the Greek said that science changes our lives too fast (Austria 55%, Germany 47%). Each 38% of Austria and Germany say that we trust in science too much and leave a spiritual belief too less attention, and 70% of each are of the opinion that science could damage the sense of morality.

What's your opinion?

 

[Ghostrider]

Turn off the power, cellphones and internet for a week and they might change their tune.

 

[RisingFury]

If they don't like science, they can go back to the stone age.

 

[silent_protagonist]

If they don't like science, they can go back to the stone age.

No, no, stone tools are a product of the same evil science. It's teeth and finger nails or nothing for me!

---------- Post added at 07:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 AM ----------

Also, none of this language hocus-pocus. So, *grunt* *om*

 

[GregBurch]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Forty to 50 years of steady anti-science and anti-technology cultural propaganda eventually takes its toll. Culture matters.

 

[Urwumpe]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Forty to 50 years of steady anti-science and anti-technology cultural propaganda eventually takes its toll. Culture matters.

Agreed. Especially annoying are those, who assimilate the hard work of scientists and make them appear magically out of the air: Politicians.

 

[RisingFury]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Forty to 50 years of steady anti-science and anti-technology cultural propaganda eventually takes its toll. Culture matters.

The centers of which, in the western world, are generally religions and politics...


Though I will admit that in the last 20 years, scientists that popularize science and media dumb-downs have a lot to do with it. I hear a lot of people comment on dark matter, dark energy, black holes and string theory that they can't possibly exist, that they can't be measured or at all detected.

I hear Dawkins talk about the universe and it makes me wanna kick his ass.

 

[Andy44]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Forty to 50 years of steady anti-science and anti-technology cultural propaganda eventually takes its toll. Culture matters.

Very true, although I also wonder how the survey was worded. I bet I could write a survey and publish results saying that the world was threatened by ham sandwiches.

That part about scientists being dangerous "because of their knowledge" is particularly disturbing. That people are afraid of technology they don't understand and large industry that makes them feel powerless is not a surprise given the propaganda they've been subjected to in schools and TV.

But to be afraid of knowledge itself is downright scary. I hope the next dictator wannabe doesn't read that. (Are we too late?)

 

[Enjo]

Unfortunately scientists have to do what they're paid for, therefore it's not pure science but marketing science.

 

[Izack]

But to be afraid of knowledge itself is downright scary. I hope the next dictator wannabe doesn't read that.

To be afraid of knowledge is downright insane, in my opinion.
It's counter-intuitive to what I've been taught about what fear is. Aren't people supposed to be afraid of the unknown? To fear the known, and even the fact that it is known, makes no sense.

 

[Andy44]

To be afraid of knowledge is downright insane, in my opinion.
It's counter-intuitive to what I've been taught about what fear is. Aren't people supposed to be afraid of the unknown? To fear the known, and even the fact that it is known, makes no sense.

I think they're afraid of other people's knowledge. Smart people are scary if you're ignorant.

 

[Ghostrider]

To be afraid of knowledge is downright insane, in my opinion.

It is. However, try to mention in people that you have knowledge of firearms and explosives and you'll meet a lot of scared gazes. One politician, current Italian foreign affair minister Franco Frattini, once stated that "nobody needs to know how to make a bomb". And this is the guy who loves Kadhaffi with a passion that borders on yaoi...

 

[GregBurch]

To be afraid of knowledge is downright insane, in my opinion.
It's counter-intuitive to what I've been taught about what fear is. Aren't people supposed to be afraid of the unknown? To fear the known, and even the fact that it is known, makes no sense.

There's no contradiction here. For the vast majority of people, it's SCIENCE that is the unknown. For the last 50 years, education in the West has been dominated by theories that promoted "self esteem" and "diversity" above all else -- no-one's a loser, every idea has merit. These concepts are utterly inconsistent with the scientific method, which lays out a pathway for detecting and correcting error and is premised on the notion that there are actual truths and falsehoods in the real world.

Coupled with the other fundamental premise of the theories that have infused culture and education in the West for decades -- that Euro-American civilization is deeply flawed and deeply "guilty" for having engaged in colonialism, imperialism and destruction of the sacred environment through the evils of capitalism and industrial development -- there should be no surprise whatsoever that we've gotten to the point where science and technology are viewed by large portions of our populations as evil. The scientific revolution was fundamental to the character of modern Western civilization, Western civilization is flawed and evil, e.g. science is bad. Seems obvious to me.

 

[insanity]

This shouldn't be a surprise. Forty to 50 years of steady anti-science and anti-technology cultural propaganda eventually takes its toll. Culture matters.

Indeed it does. People have been conditioned to not trust science for a long time now.

I've seen this myself, people who distrust the work and opinions of science because it's too abstract, too niche, too close to upsetting the delicate balance of reality they have created. None of them have problems exploiting the material gains that science has given us, and many trust their devices more than they do themselves.

It's a terribly shallow worldview, in my opinion. To enjoy the benefits of something you fear, to close yourself off to advancing your knowledge. What makes humans so special is our ability to adapt and change, but when it comes to 'meta' questions people are willing to cite a 2000 year old novel as truth but unwilling to accept data and models that we've been working on for the last few hundred years.

It's widespread public opinion that often makes me question rather there really is any intelligent life in the universe.

 

[Ghostrider]

What makes humans so special is our ability to adapt and change, but when it comes to 'meta' questions people are willing to cite a 2000 year old novel as truth but unwilling to accept data and models that we've been working on for the last few hundred years.

Were it just that. There are more people consulting with self-professed "witches" and "oracles" now than there were in ancient Greece, horoscopes are everywhere, crystal healing is on the verge of being reimbursed by healthcare insurance, and theories are treated as "opinions" unless they go with the current politically-correct trend. The media don't quite like new ideas, either, and some of the most popular TV shows about "mysteries" would make Fox Mulder laugh. Science in the media's eye is boring, and in the public's eye science = pollution + atom bombs + genetic manipulation (which is the modern GaspThisEvilThingWillKillUsAllBuryIt).

Add the helicopter parents who do not want their oh-so-precious toddlers experimenting away with chemistry sets and threaten trillion-dollar lawsuits on any teacher who explains them how to electrolyze water (you mean you can turn water into GAS that EXPLODE? GASP TERR-OW-RISM!) and you have the sorry picture.

Who needs science when you can have Knights Templar dressed up as Reticulans filming faked Moon landings on the Buried Pyramid under Area 51?

 

[RisingFury]

It seems to me that being a scientist is now synonymous with being an elitist.

And look at this moron:

"Three body problem doesn't work, therefor gravity doesn't hold the solar system together... it's ELECTROMAGNETISM!!!!!!"

In other words: "We can't cure AIDS, therefore HIV doesn't cause it."

He links to a site run by a bunch of electrical engineers, hypothesizing that the Sun isn't powered by nuclear fusion, but by the energy coming from the surrounding space. The guy calls this hypothesis "compelling".


Grade A MORON.

 

[insanity]

Were it just that. There are more people consulting with self-professed "witches" and "oracles" now than there were in ancient Greece, horoscopes are everywhere, crystal healing is on the verge of being reimbursed by healthcare insurance, and theories are treated as "opinions" unless they go with the current politically-correct trend. The media don't quite like new ideas, either, and some of the most popular TV shows about "mysteries" would make Fox Mulder laugh. Science in the media's eye is boring, and in the public's eye science = pollution + atom bombs + genetic manipulation (which is the modern GaspThisEvilThingWillKillUsAllBuryIt).

That's true, too. Science has been under attack from all corners of society. Challenging the assertions people make by use of facts and specialization means that people cannot simply pass off whatever bogus piece of truth they come up with. Science is, almost by definition, threatening to the status-quo. People have always been far too comfortable with the status-quo to the point progress is viewed negatively and not embraced (until there is a massive problem, when everyone comes running to scientists asking them to fix it).

 

[statickid]

i'm not surprised scientists have been ridiculed throughout history! think of all the trouble they had convincing people that the planets were not perfect crystal spheres in a perfect crystal universe riding on the backs of giant turtles and elephants. Even their lives were in danger because of the reaction to their new sensible ideas.

Even scientists have trouble accepting the ideas of other, more progressive scientists.

Also i've always hated how science is being constantly compared with religion. Like when people say things like "believing in science," or talk about how science is some kind of mythical entity or rival god of other gods. Science is a method to follow while observing the natural world. Applied science is simply taking the things learned and basically making useful objects of various types and we know them collectively as technology. Here is a hypothetical story I made up about the first scientist. The first scientist could have been someone that noticed a rock could be picked up off the ground. They accidentally dropped it and noticed that it broke another rock in half. This seemed impressive because rocks don't usually seem to change in any way. Perhaps this reminded them of something else they have trouble with breaking in half, like a nut or a skull. Now this object, a rock, has been magically transformed into technology through applied science. Then this person becomes a prominent figure because they can smash things, obtain food more easily, and hurt people who make them angry. Some of the people will fear this person with a rock, because they don't understand how it works and the power it seems to impart to it's bearer. In fact they don't even know that there is nothing "special" or particularly unique about it and that they could merely pick up and use rocks as they please. They are the first people who fear science and technology. However, there is one person sees using rocks as a good idea, and notices that there isn't anything special about it after all. They find and use their own rock for various things. This person is the first colleague of the first scientist.

Now across the river there is another group of people, and one of them has concurrently discovered that sticks can be useful for many things. Rather than fearing the stick, though, many of the people have adopted stick technology. This band of people feels that using rocks as tools is brutish and dangerous, and thus have banned the use of rocks as tools. The rock users feel that sticks are "ok" but that they are too weak to get the jobs they do done. Thus they make fun of the stick users.

Now up the valley, a third band of people live near a peculiar field filled of tall, strong grass. They found that they can make different types of rope with it!! The rock and stick users are always raiding the string village because they always just fight with their bare hands, making them easy to steal from. One ingenious person, however, has been watching the rock and stick users very closely. They are the first spy. This person from the string village decides to tie a rock to a stick with the string that they make making a fearsome club. Tired of being raided, the whole clan makes a device such as this and they attack the rock and stick people, taking many lives. The string peoples technology rating advances to the stone age with plus 3 movement and food production rates but it doesn't matter because the technology tutorial is over, this seems too bad, but now the main campaign has been unlocked! :shifty:

 

[T.Neo]

Grade A MORON.

Agreed. :uhh:

 

[River Crab]

The whole thing reminds me of,
"You're very clever, young man, very clever, but it's turtles all the way down!"

Here is a hypothetical story I made up about the first scientist...

That story was AWESOME!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down#cite_note-0