[ASC-list] Scientific literacy of our leaders?

Wed Feb 22 06:30:20 UTC 2012

Hi all

As a point of clarification, we're not looking for causation, just for two key (or related) data sets:
1. number of CEOs/politicians/board members with science at tertiary level
2. economic and R&D indicators for various countries
We have the second, but don't know if there's collated data for the first item. If we can find that, we may find some correlation between these two data sets, but that will be up to the stats to determine!

Any leads?

Thanks!

Elizabeth Yuncken
Advisor, Europe & India | Global Engagement
CSIRO 
Phone: +61 2 6276 6480 | Mobile: +61 467 777 817 | Fax: +61 2 6276 6308  
elizabeth.yuncken at csiro.au | www.csiro.au 
Address: PO Box 225 Dickson ACT 2602

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-----Original Message-----
From: Nancy Longnecker [mailto:nancy.longnecker at uwa.edu.au] 
Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2012 5:14 PM
To: Sim, Helen (CASS, Marsfield); Yuncken, Liz (CSIRO BD, Campbell); asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: King, Peter (FM F/Ship, Campbell)
Subject: RE: Scientific literacy of our leaders?

Hello Helen,

Okay, so maybe some content analysis. And without thinking this through in detail, I would probably try to explore in depth with interviews or other qualitative approach. You are right that it would be hard to generalise but I suspect you could get some interesting, albeit complex results.

Cheers, Nancy

Assoc Prof Nancy Longnecker

Coordinator, Science Communication Program
School of Animal Biology, M092
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley, WA   6009

CRICOS Provider 0126G

ph: 61 8 6488 3926
email: nancy.longnecker at uwa.edu.au
www.communicatingscience.org
skype: nancylongnecker

There is no point explaining everything in the universe if no one is listening to you.    (UWA Sci Comm student)
________________________________________
From: Helen.Sim at csiro.au [Helen.Sim at csiro.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2012 2:05 PM
To: Nancy Longnecker; Elizabeth.Yuncken at csiro.au; asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: Peterg.King at csiro.au
Subject: RE: Scientific literacy of our leaders?

Perhaps I should have said, "How could you determine if the education patterns of political decision makers is a significant factor in determining economic performance, given that there are so many other factors?" I presume you would try to make a two-step investigation: first, does STEM training influence eventual government policies; and second, do those policies have an effect on economic performance?

cheers,

Helen
------
Helen Sim
Media Liaison and Public Relations

CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility
and
Australian Astronomical Observatory

T: +61 2 9372 4251
M: +61 419 635 905
________________________________________
From: Nancy Longnecker [nancy.longnecker at uwa.edu.au]
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:56 PM
To: Sim, Helen (CASS, Marsfield); Yuncken, Liz (CSIRO BD, Campbell); asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: King, Peter (FM F/Ship, Campbell)
Subject: RE: Scientific literacy of our leaders?

You can't control all factors in most/ any studies involving humans. You couldn't say anything about causation, just correlation.

AN ASIDE:
In an international survey Colin Hanbury and I did last year, we're looking at many things from a rich data set. There is one thing that may be of interest in relation to this discussion.

In responses from English speaking countries, Australians had the lowest agreement with the statement: 'My government rates science as important'. This response was significantly lower than UK, USA, Canada, NZ [and Singapore, I think, from memory - cannot check data; at home today].

Cheers, Nancy

Assoc Prof Nancy Longnecker

Coordinator, Science Communication Program
School of Animal Biology, M092
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley, WA   6009

CRICOS Provider 0126G

ph: 61 8 6488 3926
email: nancy.longnecker at uwa.edu.au
www.communicatingscience.org
skype: nancylongnecker

There is no point explaining everything in the universe if no one is listening to you.    (UWA Sci Comm student)
________________________________________
From: asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au [asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au] On Behalf Of Helen.Sim at csiro.au [Helen.Sim at csiro.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2012 1:28 PM
To: rob.morrison at flinders.edu.au; Elizabeth.Yuncken at csiro.au; asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: Peterg.King at csiro.au
Subject: Re: [ASC-list] Scientific literacy of our leaders?

In such a study, how could you control for all the other factors that influence a country's economic performance?
------
Helen Sim
Media Liaison and Public Relations

CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility
and
Australian Astronomical Observatory

T: +61 2 9372 4251
M: +61 419 635 905
________________________________________
From: asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au [asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au] On Behalf Of Rob Morrison [rob.morrison at flinders.edu.au]
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:21 PM
To: Yuncken, Liz (CSIRO BD, Campbell); asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: King, Peter (FM F/Ship, Campbell)
Subject: Re: [ASC-list] Scientific literacy of our leaders?

I suspect that the problem is subtly different. There are very few people with scientific training in politics, but heaps of lawyers and economists.

Both groups seem to believe that the world can be made to run on "man-made" rules -societal and economic - but it cannot.  Eventually, when the man-made rules come up against natural laws, the latter win every time.

A few more scientifically educated pollies might help the lawyers and economists understand some fundamental natural limitations to their plans; the foremost surely being that one cannot have unlimited growth (population and economic)  on a finite planet.

Dr Rob Morrison
rob.morrison at flinders.edu.au
Phone: (08) 8339 3790
Fax: (08)8339 6272

________________________________
From: asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au [asc-list-bounces at lists.asc.asn.au] On Behalf Of Elizabeth.Yuncken at csiro.au [Elizabeth.Yuncken at csiro.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 21 February 2012 10:59 AM
To: asc-list at lists.asc.asn.au
Cc: Peterg.King at csiro.au
Subject: [ASC-list] Scientific literacy of our leaders?

Hi Listers

A colleague has been wondering whether the scientific literacy levels of a country's leaders (CEOs & politicians) is correlated to economic performance. Does anyone know of any research into the comparative scientific literacy levels of top leaders around the world?

My colleague put the question like this:

"It would be great to understand more fully the impact of scientific literacy to aspects of leadership and performance.

-          Eg. knowing scientific literacy of CEOs (of say the ASX 100 and comparable groups overseas) and tying this into the company's investment in R&D and overall performance

-          Eg. knowing the scientific literacy of our elected officials and comparisons to overseas parliaments.
"By literacy I mean having studied STEM subjects at university either as the major focus of the degree or as a component of the degree (maybe even with some differentiation between the two)"

What does the literature say (if anything)? Would make an interesting PhD topic!

Cheers

Elizabeth Yuncken
Advisor, Europe & India | Global Engagement
CSIRO
Phone: +61 2 6276 6480 | Mobile: +61 467 777 817 | Fax: +61 2 6276 6308
elizabeth.yuncken at csiro.au<mailto:elizabeth.yuncken at csiro.au> | www.csiro.au<http://www.csiro.au>
Address: PO Box 225 Dickson ACT 2602

PLEASE NOTE
The information contained in this email may be confidential or privileged. Any unauthorised use or disclosure is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please delete it immediately and notify the sender by return email. Thank you. To the extent permitted by law, CSIRO does not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that the communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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