People should have at least the absolute minimal foundational knowledge, i.e. highschool level. Coupled with that though, needs to be learning the process, the scientific method, and learning how to apply it. Unfortunately many people seem to think of "science" as a bunch of facts irrelevant to their daily lives when it is just as much a process and a way to understand the world. What it really comes down to though, I think, is a loss of curiosity and wonder. Children are great at this: "why is the sky blue?," but something seems to get lost as people grow older. If people kept this curiosity and coupled it with critical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate evidence and accept the fitting conclusions then we'd be much better off. People need the ability to reevaluate what they know. Sometimes you are wrong, and that's ok! Scientists are wrong all the time, but that's how you get closer to being right: you eliminate possibilities until you are left with an explanation that you can't disprove. That explanation will have to do until somebody comes up with a better explanation. Then, you have to know whether you should accept that new explanation or not. How do you do this? That's what scientific literacy should enable.
I find it very rewarding surrounding myself with people who set out to see where they are wrong. I am disappointed that we do live with quick access to information, but we aren't in the habit of checking things out before communicating them as facts. I would love to see a cultural shift that socially rewarded people who admitted when they were wrong rather than rewarding people for stubborn and superficial confidence. I also wish it wasn't such a taboo to politely point out that someone's facts are likely mistaken and to suggest further research.People need the ability to reevaluate what they know.
I think that it gets (metaphorically) beaten out of them. "Mommy, why is the sky blue?" "Mommy doesn't know, quit asking such stupid, useless questions!" American society is anti-intellectual to an extreme, almost pathological, degree and acts very negatively towards anything without an immediate, concrete, practical, and most especially PROFITABLE, use.What it really comes down to though, I think, is a loss of curiosity and wonder. Children are great at this: "why is the sky blue?," but something seems to get lost as people grow older. If people kept this curiosity and coupled it with critical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate evidence and accept the fitting conclusions then we'd be much better off.
This a thousand times this. People out here have no curiosity about how the world works. Or they don't until you hit them with the view through a telescope, or a random conversation about how atoms work and they then ask you "How does that work?" One of the big things that I miss about living in California is how people were interested in things. Not always a good thing to be (UFOs, antivaxx etc) but at lest there was something there that they went on their own and researched. Maybe this is why I hang out on the internet more than outside.What it really comes down to though, I think, is a loss of curiosity and wonder. Children are great at this: "why is the sky blue?," but something seems to get lost as people grow older. If people kept this curiosity and coupled it with critical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate evidence and accept the fitting conclusions then we'd be much better off.