The January 2007 issues of Environment and BioScience, both on display in the science library, consider the essential need to dialogue in order to "advance cross-displinary research" (Eigenbrode, S.D., et al., BioScience 57(1): 55) and effectively integrate science and policy through "joint fact finding" (Karl, H.A., L.E. Susskind and K.H. Wallace, Environment 49(1): 20).The critical need to refine communication among scientists in different disciplines and between scientists and policy makers, as well as scientists and the general public, and is further examined by AIBS President Douglas Futuyma in his editorial Science's Greatest Challenge (also in the January issue). Futuyma states, "The challenge that matters now is to make sure that science is taken seriously... can a pragmatic people not see that a scientific consensus is more trustworthy than the pronouncements of an industry-sponsored naysayer or a president untrained in biology or physics?" Toward this end, the AIBS will work with the National Academy of Sciences to make 2009 the "Year of Public Understanding of Science."
image: Environment 49(1): 20.
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Thanks for this posting. The organizers of Year of Science 2009 welcome the participation of universities and colleges. See www.yearofscience2009.org on how to join in.
These collaborative efforts to engage the public in activities that will stimulate their interest in and appreciation of the processes and nature of science will continue before and after 2009 through COPUS, the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science; see www.copusproject.org.
- Richard O'Grady, Executive Director, American Institute of Biological Sciences, Washington, DC.
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