Science and research generally are given disturbingly low priority in contemporary public life in Australia, although medical research and astronomy may be exceptions. Scientists, especially those involved with climate change, or the environment, have come under unprecedented attack, especially in the media, and the whole concept of scientific method is discounted, even ridiculed. In a complex world, people seem to be looking for simple solutions that can be expressed as slogans, and the quality of public debate on scientific issues has been trivialised, even infantilised. The controversy on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has been conducted at an appalling level on both sides of politics. (Debates on refugees and taxation have been conducted at a similar level.) Vaccination, fluoridation and even evolution are hotly, but crudely, disputed in some areas. Despite Australia’s large number of graduates (more than 4,000,000), our 38 universities and intellectual class generally have very limited political leverage and appear reluctant to offend government or business by telling them what they do not want to hear. Universities have become trading corporations, not just communities of scholars. Their collective lobbying power seems to be weak, well behind the gambling, coal or junk food lobbies and they become easy targets in times of exaggerated Budget stringency. Paradoxically, the Knowledge Revolution has been accompanied by a persistent ‘dumbing down’, with ICT reinforcing the personal and immediate, rather than the complex, long-term and remote. In a democratic society such as Australia, evidence is challenged by opinion and by vested- or selfinterest. Australia has no dedicated Minister for Science with direct ownership/ involvement in promoting scientific disciplines. If every vote in Australian elections is of equal value, does this mean that every opinion is entitled to equal respect? It is easy to categorise experts as elitists, and out of touch. There are serious problems in recruiting science teachers, and numbers of undergraduates in the enabling sciences and mathematics are falling relative to our neighbours. In an era of super-specialisation, many scientists are reluctant to engage in debate, even where their discipline has significant intersectoral connections. Science has some outstanding Australian advocates, Gus Nossal, Peter Doherty, Ian Chubb, Fiona Stanley, Robert May, Brian Schmidt, Ian Frazer, Mike Archer among them, but they lack the coverage that is needed and that they deserve. There is a disturbing lack of community curiosity about our long term future, with an apparent assumption that consumption patterns will never change.
展开▼
