Chris Mooney:

We've been aware for a long time that Americans don't know much about science.

But as much as the public misunderstands science, scientists misunderstand the public.

It appears that politics comes first on such a contested subject, and better information is no cure-all -- people are likely to simply strain it through an ideological sieve.

Louis Menand:

Ideas should never become ideologies.

Geoffrey Munro:

The scientific impotence discounting hypothesis predicts that people resist belief-disconfirming scientific evidence by concluding that the topic of study is not amenable to scientific investigation.

Mooney:

Experts and policy makers mustn't be deceived by the fact that people often appear, on the surface, to be arguing about scientific facts. Frequently, their underlying rationale is very different.

Cornelia Dean:

For some, the most worrisome thing about geoengineering is the idea that, once people know about it, they will think of it as a technological quick fix that makes it unnecessary to control emissions of greenhouse gases, an effort everyone takes pains to point out is by far the most important step to be taken now.

All the while, humanity is already engaged in a gigantic geoengineering experiment, one that has been under way, however inadvertently, since people started large-scale burning of fossil fuels 150 years ago. So far, the world's efforts to act together on the problem have been, to be charitable, unimpressive.

David Freedman:

We should avoid the kind of advice that tends to resonate the most -- it's exciting, it's a breakthrough, it's going to solve your problems -- and instead look at the advice that embraces complexity and uncertainty.

We have to learn to force ourselves to accept, understand and even embrace that we live in a complex, very messy, very uncertain world.

Barack Obama:

Science is more essential for our prosperity, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before.

Colin Macilwain:

Beneath the rhetoric, however, there is considerable unease that the economic benefits of science spending are being oversold.

And even if scientific research does drive innovation, will more investment in science necessarily speed up the process? Unfortunately, economists concede, no one really knows.