We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school.
Robert WinstonRead
It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?'
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the disparity in societal expectations regarding cultural knowledge versus scientific knowledge.
Robert Winston's quote illustrates the irony of how society often holds people accountable for their knowledge of literature, like Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', while being more forgiving about a lack of understanding in scientific concepts, such as protons. This reflects the cultural bias that prioritizes the arts over the sciences, making it seem more acceptable to be ignorant of scientific facts, while ignorance in the realm of literature is seen as a lack of sophistication.
Themes
EducationKnowledgeSocietyArtsScienceCultural Bias
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the importance of arts vs sciences in schools, this quote could be used to illustrate cultural biases.
More from Robert Winston
All quotes →Of course it is a very simple matter to identify genes which might modify intelligence or memory and start thinking about whether you want to enhance a human, and the next generation is going to have to deal with that issue. Should we be trying to enhance humans rather than trying to educate them and so on?
Robert WinstonRead
In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous.
Robert WinstonRead
We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.
Robert WinstonRead
Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.
Robert WinstonRead
Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.
Robert WinstonRead
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