The issues facing scientific advancement and discourse have nothing to do with a lack of "thinking big" in postgraduate education. A lot of people do think big, but there are plenty of economic barriers - some intrinsic, others artificial, that prevent whatever vague idealism the author is going for.
Nor is it the fault of scientists that voters and politicians do not understand them. More often than not, it's a refusal to understand or apathy towards doing it. In fact, politics is not inherently concerned with factual information almost at a fundamental level. If voters have no drive to autodidact, there will be no one out there to spoonfeed them information.
Quantitative skills are already part of scientific practice at its core. So is ethics, particularly over the past half century. Learning to code and debating utilitarianism will not change anything that the author is concerned about.
Comments
The issues facing scientific advancement and discourse have nothing to do with a lack of "thinking big" in postgraduate education. A lot of people do think big, but there are plenty of economic barriers - some intrinsic, others artificial, that prevent whatever vague idealism the author is going for.
Nor is it the fault of scientists that voters and politicians do not understand them. More often than not, it's a refusal to understand or apathy towards doing it. In fact, politics is not inherently concerned with factual information almost at a fundamental level. If voters have no drive to autodidact, there will be no one out there to spoonfeed them information.
Quantitative skills are already part of scientific practice at its core. So is ethics, particularly over the past half century. Learning to code and debating utilitarianism will not change anything that the author is concerned about.