At the Daily Kos, the “Fall from Grace Narrative” about Science in America

Over at the liberal blog site Daily Kos, the anonymous “Dark Syde” reviews the book Unscientific America. The review, unfortunately, echoes the all-too-common “fall from grace narrative” about the place of science in American society, a distracting if not harmful myth that we discuss in a forthcoming journal article and that I noted Friday.

All the trademark “fall from grace” metaphors, catchphrases, and references are included in the Daily Kos review including claims about a rise in “anti-science,” “know-nothingness,” open contempt for science, and a “long national slide into pseudoscience and willful ignorance.” There’s even reference to a mythical Golden Age of science appreciation in the form of the Space Race, the Cold War, and Carl Sagan, complete with a call to return science to this state of previous grace.

As I remarked last week, the strong disconnect between how some bloggers frame the place of science in American society and the conclusions of research in the peer-reviewed literature is interesting to track. Scibling and information science PhD student Christina Pikas makes additional note of this disconnect, dispelling at her blog several of these common myths with references to recommended reading in the area.