Public Understanding of Science Blog

By Elena Maria Rita Rizzi. The contribution examines the overlooked project for a museum of the history of medicine at the University of Padua proposed by doctor and professor Arturo Castiglioni in the interwar period.  Although Castiglioni’s plan was only partially realized, it sheds light on a key moment in the dissemination of Italian medicine via the musealization of its material legacies at the University of Padua and, more broadly, in Italy.  While reflecting broader trends in the musealization of medicine that emerged between the nineteenth and twentieth century in Europe, Castiglioni’s project highlights the central role played by the history of medicine in shaping the public narrative of the Venetian atheneum and city in the interwar years.  Embedded, in the late 1930s, in a far-ranging program of patrimonialization of the main university building, Castiglioni’s project also attests to the propagandistic uses of the material culture of medicine, and more broadly...

By Tenzin Tamang. AI sees climate change as "hotter" than experts do. Our research explores this overestimation bias in LLMs. Ever asked an AI chatbot about climate change? Many of us turn to these powerful tools for quick information, but our new research reveals a surprising quirk: AI models tend to "see hotter", frequently overestimating the impacts of climate change compared to the consensus of expert scientists. This tendency to exaggerate gets even stronger when we ask the AI to respond as if it were a climate scientist. What we did We took statements about climate change impacts directly from the highly respected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2023 Synthesis Report. For each statement, the IPCC provides a specific confidence level (e.g., low, medium, or high). We then presented these same scenarios to popular GPT-family models and asked them to rate their confidence in two conditions: (1) directly, and (2) acting as a climate scientist. Wha...

 By Robin Bayes.  Photo Credit:  John Englart On July 4, 2025, American climate policy was upended as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) rolled back or canceled many clean energy tax incentives in the United States. Supporters touted this move while opponents lambasted it, each side claiming the moral high ground. While Republican House Budget Committee members argued that the OBBBA stops climate activism as a weapon to harm working families , the Committee’s Democratic caucus argued that it betrays the middle class by killing clean energy jobs and investments. When political messaging uses this kind of harm-based moral rhetoric to escalate the climate policy debate, there may be lasting consequences. Moralizing science and technology is associated with divisive characteristics In a recent short article published in Public Understanding of Science , I examine how moralization affects the way everyday people approach policy debates about science and technology....

 By Alexandre Morin-Chassé. Photo Credit: Unsplash On July 22, 2011, just before carrying out terrorist attacks that claimed 77 lives in Norway, Anders Breivik released a 1,500-page manifesto. In this document, he detailed his preparations for the attacks and shared his views on various political and social issues.  Among his extensive arguments, Breivik criticized "cultural Marxists" for ignoring scientific evidence suggesting that genetics plays a major role in human abilities and behavior. He advocated for genetic screening and birth control to prevent the extinction of the Nordic race and to increase its average IQ.  Breivik is not the only extreme-right terrorist to espouse such views; manifestos from the shooters involved in the 2019 Christchurch and 2022 Buffalo attacks also included essentialist claims about genetics and their social implications. Albeit a notable viewpoint among lone actor terrorists on the extreme right, little is known about the extent t...

 By Brian Park. Image generated by ChatGPT. In today’s world, where science and technology are deeply woven into our daily lives, you would expect science education to keep pace. Yet, for some college students, their high school science classes didn’t quite do the job. As part of my doctoral research , I interviewed ten college students in the U.S. with STEM backgrounds to find out just how prepared they felt for postsecondary education and what they wished had been different. Their insights weren’t just thoughtful, but also a call to action. The problem: A disconnect between American high school and college STEM The transition from high school to college is already challenging. But for students pursuing STEM majors, that leap can feel more like a chasm. Despite taking science classes in high school, many students reported feeling unprepared for the academic rigor and conceptual depth of their college courses. One recurring theme from the interviews was a sense of insufficient know...