Enlarge AP The Earth, which orbits the sun once a year. Science enjoys the best and the worst of times today, celebrated as the secret sauce behind economic growth, but embattled in high-profile areas such as climate change, stem cells and evolution. "Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before," said President Obama, in April at the National Academy of Sciences. At the same time, Obama noted, federal funding of physics and related sciences has fallen by nearly half since the 1980's, U.S. schools trail in math and science versus Japan, England, South Korea and others. "And we have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas," he said. In Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future (Basic Books, $24), Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum size up the paradox of American science and offer their solution to its ills. Leaving aside hand-wringing over public ignorance of scientific fun facts (only half of people in a National Science Foundation survey knew the Earth circles the sun once every year, for example), the two authors point to the "most important" kind of scientific illiteracy, "citizen's awareness of the importance of science to politics, policy, and our collective future." What the country needs, they believe, are the kinds of communicators who can make science comprehensible and popular at the same time. The book focuses on the late Carl Sagan, whose 1992 rejection from membership in the National Academy of Sciences, they write, "made clear (scientists) view of popularizers in their ranks, and of public outreach generally." They argue that the science establishment needs a new career path for science communicators (folks like Kirshenbaum, a marine scientist at Duke, who previously interned in the office of Sen. Bill Nelson, D- Fla., and who once worked as a disc jockey.) "We're not saying every scientist needs to become another Carl Sagan," Kirshenbaum says. Or Comedy Central regular, astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. But scientists need to open paths "jobs, positions, and incentives," for their brethren to communicate the role science plays in modern life, the books argues. "I think that they get points for pointing to a serious problem," says political scientist Jon Miller of Michigan State University in East Lansing, who has a review of the book coming out in the Nov.-Dec. American Scientist. But Miller disagrees with Unscientific America's prescription for treating U.S. disengagement with science. "You can't ignore the role of education The book's suggestion to breed more science experts, while well-intended, dismisses the need to get science information, including basic facts, into high school classes, Miller says. "No one should graduate from high school without knowing what a molecule is," he says. That's because your odds of understanding other science concepts, for example, nanotechnology, the manipulation of materials on the molecular scale, increase greatly — from nearly zero to two-thirds — once you understand that a molecule is a chemical combination of atoms. "You can't fix this problem without fixing public schools." Further, Miller says a better-educated electorate, "should be our goal in a modern democracy," instead of well-connected experts winning arguments through their authority. "Shouldn't scientists just let the evidence speak for itself,", asks Stewart Justman of the University of Montana in Missoula. Justman, author of Do No Harm: How a Magic Bullet for Prostate Cancer Became a Medical Quandary, suggests that grooming authority figures isn't the solution for curing science illiteracy. "I don't see a big difference between a popularizer and a crusader," Justman says. "And that is not how it is supposed to work in science." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more