Scientific literacy is necessary to maintain a solid and effective state of democracy. Jon D. Miller's article "What Colleges and Universities Need to Do to Advance Civic Scientific Literacy and Preserve American Democracy" in The PKal Perspective makes excellent distinctions between three different types of scientific literacy: cultural, consumer, and civic. That which is most relevant to the maintenance of democracy is civic, which refers to the level and type of literacy which is required to be able to understand basic public policy and political issues.
Civic Scientific Literacy is imperative to understanding many political issues of this time, since there are so many scientific advances occurring that the public needs to find stances about. One in particular which Miller wrote about in his article happened during the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. The issue in question was stem cell research. A sample of the population was questioned to determine their scientific literacy regarding this issue specifically, and only about 20 percent of the population knew the basics about stem cell research, and even less knew the difference between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells.
I find this to be a serious problem because the democracy depends on the knowledge and judgments of the public in order to make serious political decisions. If the public is ignorant about serious issues like climate change, stem cell research, and space exploration, these issues can easily be overlooked, which leads to ignorant voters unknowingly making decisions that will affect generations and generations to come. There should be a more concrete and universal education system involved so that more than 30% of Americans are knowledgeable about scientific issues that will affect not just the people on the Earth right now, but for years and years to come.
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