---
title: "Scientific literacy"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_literacy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:21:31.716579+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Scientific literacy or science literacy encompasses written, numerical, and digital literacy as they pertain to understanding science, its methodology, observations, and theories.  Scientific literacy is chiefly concerned with an understanding of the scientific method, units and methods of measurement, empiricism and understanding of statistics in particular correlations and qualitative versus quantitative observations and aggregate statistics. It is also concerned with a basic understanding of core scientific fields, such as physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, geology and computation.

== Definition ==
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Framework (2015) defines scientific literacy as "the ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen." A scientifically literate person, therefore, is willing to engage in reasoned discourse about science and technology which requires the competencies to:

Explain phenomena scientifically – recognize, offer and evaluate explanations for a range of natural and technological phenomena.
Evaluate and design scientific inquiry – describe and appraise scientific investigations and propose ways of addressing questions scientifically.
Interpret data and evidence scientifically – analyze and evaluate data, claims and arguments in a variety of representations and draw appropriate scientific conclusions.
According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics, "scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity". A scientifically literate person is defined as one who has the capacity to:

Understand, experiment, and reason as well as interpret scientific facts and their meaning.
Ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences.
Describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena.
Read articles with understanding of science in the popular press and engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions.
Identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed.
Evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it.
Pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately.
Scientific literacy may also be defined in language similar to the definitions of ocean literacy, Earth science literacy and climate literacy.  Thus a scientifically literate person can:

Understand the science relevant to environmental and social issues.
Communicate clearly about the science.
Make informed decisions about these issues.
Finally, scientific literacy may involve particular attitudes toward learning and using science. Scientifically-literate citizens are capable of researching matters of fact for themselves.

== History ==
Reforms in science education in the United States have often been driven by strategic challenges such as the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 and the Japanese economic boom in the 1980s. The phrase science literacy was popularized by Paul Hurd in 1958, when he charged that the immediate problem in education was "one of closing the gap between the wealth of scientific achievement and the poverty of scientific literacy in America". For Hurd, rapid innovation in science and technology demanded an education "appropriate for meeting the challenges of an emerging scientific revolution." Underlying Hurd's call was the idea "that some mastery of science is essential preparation for modern life."
Initial definitions of science literacy included elaborations of the content that people should understand,  often following somewhat traditional lines (biology, chemistry, physics). Earth science was somewhat narrowly defined as expanded geological processes. In the decade after those initial documents, ocean scientists and educators revised the notion of science literacy to include more contemporary, systems-oriented views of the natural world, leading to scientific literacy programs for the ocean, climate, earth science, and so on. 
Since the 1950s, scientific literacy has increasingly emphasized scientific knowledge being as socially situated and heavily influenced by personal experience. Science literacy is seen as a human right and  a working knowledge of science and its role in society is seen as a requirement for responsible members of society, one that helps average people to make better decisions and enrich their lives. In the United States, this change in emphasis can be noted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the publication of Science for All Americans and Benchmarks for Science Literacy. 
The National Science Education Standards (1996) defined scientific literacy as "the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity". In addition, it emphasized that scientific literacy was not simply a matter of remembering specific scientific content. It involved the development of key abilities or skills. "Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena."
Some emphasize the importance of an underlying "ethos" that makes it possible to participate in scientific debates and communities.  Key norms are that the observations and hypotheses of scientific discovery are part of a communally shared process; that ideas are important, not the status of the person who voices them; that what matters is disinterested evidence, not desired outcomes; and that statements that go beyond observations should be subject to testing. 
More recently, calls for "scientific literacy" have identified misinformation and disinformation as dangers. They suggest that civic science literacy, digital media science literacy, and cognitive science literacy are all important components of education, if individuals are to be scientifically informed and engage in individual and collective decision-making in a democratic society.
Comparisons of the views of citizens and scientists by the Pew Research Center suggest that they hold very different positions on a range of science, engineering and technology-related issues. Both citizens and scientists rate K–12 STEM education in the U.S. poorly.