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Scientific literacy is the ability to understand and analyze, as well as form opinions about, scientific information and writing. This is an important skill because, in recent times, popular media is filled with scientific topics and information, such as theories, data, speculations, and opinions.
Being able to sort through this information and correctly interpret it gives you the ability to develop your own informed opinions. It gives you the ability to separate subjective or biased statements from objective ones and to understand the world around you better.
Science can be presented in a number of ways, with various degrees of rigor.
Scientific Communication Platforms | Description |
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Scientists | Scientists present their work in technical language to their peers in presentations, journals, or even posters. They sometimes also present their work to the general public in articles using nontechnical language. |
Popular Media | Popular media includes magazines, television, new shows, and even documentaries. This type of media often chooses to present new, risky, controversial, and exciting science to the general public, with the goal of entertaining as well as informing. Popular media will often use a mixture of data, opinions, speculation, and personal testimony. Popular media often presents science with less rigor because it is subject to public opinion and private interests, which influence what and how information is disseminated. |
Scientific journals | Scientific journals utilize a relatively high level of rigor through a peer review process, while popular magazines such as National Geographic, Time, Scientific American, Popular Science, and Newsweek do not. They present scientific information that is screened by an editor, but they do not follow a scientific peer review process. |
Politicians | Politicians tend to use scientific information in a generalized manner. They are often influenced by their own agenda or opinion, as well as that of the public. |
Scientific information presented in a scientific journal is reviewed by a panel of experts along with a journal editor. These experts determine whether or not the information is suitable and credible for publication. The panel and editor use the following four value criteria when reviewing an article.
A potential solution to this is open access publishing. This process is increasingly being utilized by peer review journals because it allows anyone with internet access to get online and review the articles, which accelerates new science publishing.
This is part of a larger trend of open access to libraries and databases, which is increasing global access to scientific information.
Source: THIS TUTORIAL WAS AUTHORED BY JENSEN MORGAN FOR SOPHIA LEARNING. PLEASE SEE OUR TERMS OF USE.