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    What's Your (Epistemic) Relationship To Science?

    Tania Lombrozo looks at a new paper arguing that research on the public's understanding of science often conflates knowledge and understanding — and that this conflation has costs.
    by Tania Lombrozo Nov 06, 2017 4 minutes
    Source: turk_stock_photographer

    In the world of Facebook, relationship status comes in a few flavors: "married" and "divorced," "single" and "it's complicated." When it comes to science, relationship status has its own varieties: love and hate, comprehension and confusion.

    Some of these relationships reflect values and emotions, while others are epistemic: They reflect what we know or understand about science.

    What's the relationship to science that we should be aiming to achieve? And why does it matter?

    International assessments reliably find that when it comes to scientific literacy, and a variety of efforts aim to improve what's referred to as "public understanding of science." While some of these efforts focus on assessing and improving people's towards science, the educational world is typically more concerned with imparting .

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