{"id":33380,"date":"2010-03-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/scientism-and-anti-scientism-why-science-and-society-dont-understand-each-other\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T09:41:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:41:04","slug":"scientism-and-anti-scientism-why-science-and-society-dont-understand-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/scientism-and-anti-scientism-why-science-and-society-dont-understand-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientism and Anti-Scientism: Why Science and Society Don\u2019t Understand Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Whether the issue is genetically modified organisms, stem cells, or end-of-life situations, public debate appears to be constricted within a consolidated pattern. On the one hand there are the advocates of the unbridled development of technoscience; on the other those who call for restraints on science\u2019s encroachment into fields that have traditionally been the prerogatives of social, political, and religious choices and practices. Paradoxically, the two sides share the same prejudice: they both consider science and society to be internally compact entities, rigidly separate, and impervious to each other. On this view, science\u2019s task is to supply a constant flow of new proposals which society then inspects and (often) rejects. But there are, in fact, frequent overlaps between scientific discourse and public opinion, and between research priorities and the expectations of citizens and consumers, which erode the boundaries between science and society and expose the divisions internal to each of them: suffice it to mention the debates on climate change, nuclear energy, or biomedicine. This tangled relationship between science and society, which the book describes in close detail, fuels the conflict between advocates of scientism and anti-scientism: a deceptive case of role-playing that hinders fuller understanding of the challenges raised by techno-science.<\/p>\n

View the animated video\u00a0When Science met Society<\/em>, produced by EFSA on the occasion of\u00a0its 10th anniversary\u00a0and freely adapted from an original dialogue written by Massimiano Bucchi in the book.<\/p>\n

Massimiano Bucchi<\/strong> teaches Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Trento. Among his most recent books in English Handbook of Public Communication of Science<\/em> (ed. With B. Trench, Routledge, 2008); Beyond Technocracy. Science, Politics and Citizens<\/em> (Springer, 2009).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether the issue is genetically modified organisms, stem cells, or end-of-life situations, public debate appears to be constricted within a consolidated pattern. On the one hand there are the advocates of the unbridled development of technoscience; on the other those who call for restraints on science\u2019s encroachment into fields that have traditionally been the prerogatives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","description-off"],"yoast_head":"\nScientism and Anti-Scientism: Why Science and Society Don\u2019t Understand Each Other - Observa Science in Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/scientism-and-anti-scientism-why-science-and-society-dont-understand-each-other\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientism and Anti-Scientism: Why Science and Society Don\u2019t Understand Each Other - Observa Science in Society\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whether the issue is genetically modified organisms, stem cells, or end-of-life situations, public debate appears to be constricted within a consolidated pattern. 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