‘Bringing science back into America’s sphere’ hits a nerve

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In Saturday’s Los Angeles Times, my article appeared, ‘Bringing science back into America’s sphere.’ The piece is a Q&A with author Chris Mooney about his book “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future,� on how science has become less important to many Americans and the threats he and coauthor Sheril Kirshenbaum feel this poses to society.

We’ve received many letters and phone calls in response to this article and the issues he discussed: religion, Pluto no longer being considered a planet, vaccines, the Internet and how we go forward.

The health aspect of all this is the vaccines-cause-autism issue: Mooney discusses this at some length. He says there are many well-educated people who believe that vaccines caused autism in their children, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

We’ve created this post as an open forum for your comments.

What is your opinion on the vaccines-cause-autism issue? Do you think America is less scientific-minded than it once was?

We welcome your feedback in the comments below.

-- Lori Kozlowski