Introduction
The popularization of science has had a twofold effect on people’s opinions about the process of receiving scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the popularization of science through media attracted attention to scientific projects, which may have helped to gain additional funds and inspire children to become scientists. On the other hand, however, such popularization has had a negative impact on the scientific world.
Discussion
In his essay, Thomas (2015) uses the term scienceyness, which is a very shallow practice of distributing attractive headlines about science without paying much attention to the actual research. The culture of scienceyness has created a generation that claims to like science, even though they do not understand the tedious process of checking and rechecking the results an infinite number of times (Thomas, 2015). Moreover, scienceyness increases expectations of research results, which makes scientists refuse to work on overly popularized projects (Thomas, 2015).
Apart from Thomas’s claims about the consequences of sceinceyness, there are other significant issues associated with the matter. In particular, scienceyness is now being used to sell people things that they do not need. The culture of scienceyness is making people more attracted to things that look sciencey rather than science itself (Preston, 2014). In particular, consumers become attracted to headlines like “Clinical trials show lashes grow up to 400% fuller!” or “27% reduction of dark spots in 10 weeks!” (Preston, 2014, para 1). Thus, such claims discredit science and people start disbelieving in scientific methods.
Conclusion
While the issues associated with scienceyness may be considerable, there is little evidence that scienceyness, as described by Thomas (2015), is a significant problem. Following the scientific method, the issue of scienceyness needs to be explored using rigorous methods before making bold claims. Therefore, even though the issues associated with scienceyness should not be dismissed, it is too early.
References
Preston, E. (2014). People Are More Swayed by Things That Look Sciencey. Discover Magazine. Web.
Thomas, B. (2015). A Disease of Scienceyness. Medium. Web.