Tom Chivers lamenting scientific illiteracy in The Telegraph:

"Why is it acceptable, in certain educated circles, to cheerfully express total ignorance of the largest, and most important, domain of human knowledge?"

I can’t say I’ve seen much of this myself. None of my family or close friends are scientists - yet they always treat science with substantial intellectual respect.

For me, the focus on 'scientific facts' as conversational currency completely misses the point. I’m more concerned with illiteracy in the scientific method as a process - not the failure of people to cite scientific facts at dinner parties.