ABSTRACT
We did not ask if they were interested; our first question just assumed they were. This was the very hub of our belief in demotic science. Because science is now so well embedded in school education, and has been in the forefront of public argument and philosophy for the best part of two hundred years, because it is known, rightly or wrongly, to have produced the knowledge which has made possible the invention of trains, aeroplanes and computers, and also because it is the substance of many programmes on television and the subject of domestic discussion in many families, science could by now be expected to have become familiar in some sense – part of our demotic knowledge. It would have been almost impossible not to have encountered it at one or two removes on any single day of our lives. Whether it is thought horribly challenging, inspiring or even ludicrous in its claims for the future, everyone encounters science.
