Identify some of the public perceptions about science with examples from a film, a television series, a documentary and a science scare story.

A television series - The big bang theory may influence the public’s perception of science because people may think how the universe began. When hearing about this television series people immediately begin to think, religious people will say God is the creator of the universe. I had asked an English teacher about the big band theory and he had come up with this ‘the big bang theory is a television series, God is the creator of the universe, and God created everything on the universe. Because of my religion I will obviously believe that God had created the universe as I have been brought up to be learning this’. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of the universe. Some peoples mind becomes blank when people ask them, how did the world begin? The reason for this is because some people do not believe in God and therefore, believe that it just happened as a miracle. The reason it may have influenced the public’s perception of science is because the big bang is about the beginning of our universe and people think, how science can go back millions of years to find out the start of the universe, so because of this people believe science cannot discover everything.

A documentary – destiny in space gives viewers a glimpse into the future of space exploration. This features giant screen images of the space shuttle in orbit around earth and this also gives thrilling fly overs of mars and Venus. It is a true science documentary and it may influence the public’s perceptions of science because people believe that space doesn’t exist, when they see this documentary they realise that space actually does exist because the documentary shows how they capture images of the earth and other planets so this definitely influences the public’s perceptions of science. Also when people watch this they be amazed by what is in space it influences the public’s perception of science because people learn from this documentary, as they did not believe about these things previously. Some people believe that space does not exist but when this person watches this it will make him believe that space does exist. Science is a big part of this documentary because space is also about science with all the other planets, the earth and the other things up in space, because of this people will believe in science and this is how it will influence the public’s perception of science.

A science scare story – MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella. The reason that this is a scare story is because the disease was spreading fast back in them days. They call it MMR for short but it has three different diseases. It was a scare because it was on the news every day in them days and people were getting scared they might catch the disease. The reason it may influence the public’s perception of science is because when the disease was spreading people were thinking why scientists were not coming up with a cure for it. I had asked a member of the school about it and they said ‘it’s true in them days scientists knew the disease was spreading fast and they were not mentioning or coming up with a cure for it. People were also dying because of it’ this shows that some people were starting to think that science is false and slow, the reason for this is because if science was not coming up with anything people were starting to think science can’t do much. If this disease was hitting the news everyday people get concerned because they want to hear science giving cures so it spreads less. This is how it can influence the public’s perceptions of science.