The Public Understanding of Science is a Political Issue: an interview with @AlexTTSmith

In this interview I talk to Alex Smith about his recent fieldwork in Kansas City, part of the larger Making Science Public project, exploring the role that debates about the status of science are having in the unfolding of the Republican primaries. We touch on broader issues about the role of science in society but also about the status of the understanding of science as a public issue. Alex argues that this must be understood in political rather than cultural terms. The public understanding of science is not simply a matter of PR for academics.