Probably among the first to deal with it, nearly sixty years ago, Norbert Wiener, the founding father of cybernetics (The human use of human beings. Cybernetics and Society, Houghton Mifflin Company, London, 1950), prefigured its opportunities, as well as its limitations. Today, it is a quite common belief. We have entered (are entering) a new, great era in the history of human society: the age of information and knowledge.
This article will briefly present a few theses and reflections of mine on some perversions and disruptions under way in knowledge development and in science representation. Nevertheless, I will abstain from exposing thoroughly the obvious and triumphal side of the coin. Namely, I am not going to extol the amazing fortune of science and knowledge, which have become the fundamental resource for development, at economic level in first place. Indeed, having reached a certain age, I can allow myself although to a certain degree of oversimplification less enthusiasm and a few old-fashioned ideas.
This paper summarizes key findings from a web-based questionnaire survey among Danish scientists in the natural sciences and engineering science. In line with the Act on Universities of 2003 enforcing science communication as a university obligation next to research and teaching, the respondents take a keen interest in communicating science, especially through the news media. However, they also do have mixed feeling about the quality of science communication in the news. Moreover, a majority of the respondents would like to give higher priority to science communication. More than half reply
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Kristian Hvidtfelt NielsenCarsten KjaerJorgen Dahlgaard