Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Science is all gobbledygook to most people. Their eyes glaze over as a dizzying plethora of acronyms, jargon, and complicated theories whiz past their ears, and a lengthy technical exposition is answered only by a hesitant nod of the head.
But there are some people who understand that a scientifically literate population is necessary for a modern democracy to function, and to create and inspire both present and future generations to aspire to new heights of knowledge, technology, understanding, and paradigms. These prophets of science have declared it their mission to bring science to the masses, in language they can understand, and bearing the patience required of teaching people such difficult concepts.
I've included a short list below (and in the poll. Don't forget to vote in the poll!), but it is by no means exhaustive. Tell us about your favorite, if they're not mentioned here!
Carl Sagan
Probably the most famous person on this list, Sagan was an advisor to NASA from its inception, and worked on the Pioneer, Apollo, and Voyager missions, among others. He was directly responsible for the "golden record" bolted to Voyager 2, containing music and speech from Earth, and directions to our planet based upon stellar landmarks. He later was famously host of Cosmos, a show was directly embodied the principles to which this thread is dedicated. "Speaking about his activities in popularizing science, Sagan said that there were at least two reasons for scientists to explain what science is about. Naked self-interest was one because much of the funding for science came from the public, and the public had a right to know how their money was being spent. If scientists increased public excitement about science, there was a good chance of having more public supporters. The other reason was the excitement of communicating one's own excitement about science to others." He was also the progenitor of the Pale Blue Dot photo, the most distant image of our planet, which appears as a tiny speck indistinguishable from other stellar objects.
Niel DeGrasse Tyson
Niel Degrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, which is attached to the American Museum of Natural History. He will be hosting the new season of Cosmos due to premiere this coming Fall!
He's gone far and wide speaking on behalf of scientific literacy, and the power that space exploration has in inspiring young people to become scientists, as well as the direct and future benefits space travel yields for humanity. He's made a large effort to appear not just in political or scholarly circles, but also television shows like the Colbert Report and Bill Maher, where he's become the face of "science is cool" in the United States.
Bill Nye
Nye actually started out as a mechanical engineer at Boeing, and later moved into comedy, where he won his epithet "The Science Guy." His eponymous show was targeted specifically to a pre-teen audience, teaching science concepts in a way both fun and relevant to children's' lives. I have fond memories of my dad waking me up early in the morning to watch his show before school. Like Tyson, Nye makes regular appearances in the television circuit, discussing popular scientific questions like the existence (or lack thereof!) of extraterrestrials, and how hurricanes work.
Brian Cox
Brian Cox is a phyicist and research fellow at the Royal Society. He also works at CERN on particle physics research. He's probably best described as "The British Niel DeGrasse Tyson," as he does the same kind of thing. He hosts BBC's Wonders of the Universe, which together with his other programs and hosted documentaries have seriously boosted British viewership of science programs again. Because of his relationship with CERN, he has given special attention to the subject of particle physics in his extensive science outreach efforts, although that is by no means his only area of outreach.
David Attenborough
Attenborough's science career has focused mainly upon Natural History and Zoology, about which he was merely a host of a program series. But he makes an entry into this list because of his directorship of BBC 2 and then both BBC channels, during which he saw to the insertion of a number of science programs into the regular lineup with comedy and talk shows, helping to drive popular interest and consumption of scientific subjects, again as with others, in an understandable format. It's probably unlikely that the great wealth of science documentaries and programs which the BBC bequeathed to the British public over the decades of Attenborough's tenure would have made their way to the public, had he not been there to advocate for and oversee their seamless inclusion.
Elise Andrew
I've decided to include Elise Andrew in this poll, because of her website I F***ing Love Science. Her Facebook page has 9.5 million followers, and the website gets more hits than that. She may be young and only have a BS in Biology, but her website (and team, I assume?) do a great job of spreading information to the masses about current scientific developments across a variety of fields, and always in easy-to-understand language which avoids the tendency (of biologists especially) to resort to the ultra-technical terms when explaining things. Disseminating all that information wouldn't be of much use if we couldn't understand it! And Andrew does a great job of finding that information and digesting it for us.
But there are some people who understand that a scientifically literate population is necessary for a modern democracy to function, and to create and inspire both present and future generations to aspire to new heights of knowledge, technology, understanding, and paradigms. These prophets of science have declared it their mission to bring science to the masses, in language they can understand, and bearing the patience required of teaching people such difficult concepts.
I've included a short list below (and in the poll. Don't forget to vote in the poll!), but it is by no means exhaustive. Tell us about your favorite, if they're not mentioned here!
Carl Sagan
Probably the most famous person on this list, Sagan was an advisor to NASA from its inception, and worked on the Pioneer, Apollo, and Voyager missions, among others. He was directly responsible for the "golden record" bolted to Voyager 2, containing music and speech from Earth, and directions to our planet based upon stellar landmarks. He later was famously host of Cosmos, a show was directly embodied the principles to which this thread is dedicated. "Speaking about his activities in popularizing science, Sagan said that there were at least two reasons for scientists to explain what science is about. Naked self-interest was one because much of the funding for science came from the public, and the public had a right to know how their money was being spent. If scientists increased public excitement about science, there was a good chance of having more public supporters. The other reason was the excitement of communicating one's own excitement about science to others." He was also the progenitor of the Pale Blue Dot photo, the most distant image of our planet, which appears as a tiny speck indistinguishable from other stellar objects.
Niel DeGrasse Tyson
Niel Degrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, which is attached to the American Museum of Natural History. He will be hosting the new season of Cosmos due to premiere this coming Fall!
He's gone far and wide speaking on behalf of scientific literacy, and the power that space exploration has in inspiring young people to become scientists, as well as the direct and future benefits space travel yields for humanity. He's made a large effort to appear not just in political or scholarly circles, but also television shows like the Colbert Report and Bill Maher, where he's become the face of "science is cool" in the United States.
Bill Nye
Nye actually started out as a mechanical engineer at Boeing, and later moved into comedy, where he won his epithet "The Science Guy." His eponymous show was targeted specifically to a pre-teen audience, teaching science concepts in a way both fun and relevant to children's' lives. I have fond memories of my dad waking me up early in the morning to watch his show before school. Like Tyson, Nye makes regular appearances in the television circuit, discussing popular scientific questions like the existence (or lack thereof!) of extraterrestrials, and how hurricanes work.
Brian Cox
Brian Cox is a phyicist and research fellow at the Royal Society. He also works at CERN on particle physics research. He's probably best described as "The British Niel DeGrasse Tyson," as he does the same kind of thing. He hosts BBC's Wonders of the Universe, which together with his other programs and hosted documentaries have seriously boosted British viewership of science programs again. Because of his relationship with CERN, he has given special attention to the subject of particle physics in his extensive science outreach efforts, although that is by no means his only area of outreach.
David Attenborough
Attenborough's science career has focused mainly upon Natural History and Zoology, about which he was merely a host of a program series. But he makes an entry into this list because of his directorship of BBC 2 and then both BBC channels, during which he saw to the insertion of a number of science programs into the regular lineup with comedy and talk shows, helping to drive popular interest and consumption of scientific subjects, again as with others, in an understandable format. It's probably unlikely that the great wealth of science documentaries and programs which the BBC bequeathed to the British public over the decades of Attenborough's tenure would have made their way to the public, had he not been there to advocate for and oversee their seamless inclusion.
Elise Andrew
I've decided to include Elise Andrew in this poll, because of her website I F***ing Love Science. Her Facebook page has 9.5 million followers, and the website gets more hits than that. She may be young and only have a BS in Biology, but her website (and team, I assume?) do a great job of spreading information to the masses about current scientific developments across a variety of fields, and always in easy-to-understand language which avoids the tendency (of biologists especially) to resort to the ultra-technical terms when explaining things. Disseminating all that information wouldn't be of much use if we couldn't understand it! And Andrew does a great job of finding that information and digesting it for us.
