It’s great to hear from Ian Chubb on this issue and gives me hope that others will connect the dots.

In principle many would agree with his proposal above – but we all know that this isn’t going to happen. To begin with it underrates the difficulty of addressing a large cultural and educational chasm in a short course. At the heart of the matter is that science and clear thinking has been de-emphasised by our society for decades. The problem is now more fundamental and without a quick fix. It is systemic and needs a longer-term solution.

There is a real problem with the ‘scientific literacy’ argument that was once popularised. It risks science becoming wedged as an ‘ideological’ lobby when this is best avoided. Politics is ideological – science should not seek to be. The mechanisms that once existed meant that it did not have to toy with ideology.

Ian Chubb probably knows this elephant in the room better than most.

The public service (PS) was supposed to offer advice to Ministers and to make the case for evidenced-based policy in our national interest. That the PS has been progressively dismantled as an independent institution and ‘put to work’ for the Minister is the main event. This has been part of the push for “economic rationalism” that aligned science with a market economy.

What we see now is the consequence of scientists failing to keep science independent – let’s be honest. This is not a blame game, but honest reflection must be had about why science and reason has been deemphasised. It required a strategy and agenda to do so.

The Westminster system requires an independent PS for our democracy to function – and the independence of public science.

Science and reason once had a strong voice via independent agencies (CSIRO) and the PS – and even the Chief Scientist. Both major parties sought to align these functions with political policy and set up governance models that gags public discourse and makes them easy to ignore. This is by far more important than attempting to teach Pauline Hanson basic statistics and the current PM that the earth is not 6000 years old.

The British ‘neoliberal’ reforms that saw public science as a ‘purchaser-provider’ model since the days of Thatcher have now been largely reversed. We have yet to do this in Australia and still live with the legacy of a failed neoliberal conception of public science.

Hence, I’d be very interested to read Ian Chubb’s thoughts on the effectiveness of the Chief Scientist’s office and the greater role it might play in giving reason a voice once more – and re-establishing the independence of public science and the PS.

All good in oz