Scientific Literacy, Society, and Cultural Relativity

[rousseau]

A quick look at the Scientific Literacy wikipedia page pulls up this definition of scientific literacy. A scientifically literate person can:

• 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

And a few graphics of scientific literacy by country, where one of the top countries is significantly below 50%:

So what's going on here?

All of the talk about cultural relativity lately got me to wondering how scientific the scientific revolution actually was, and how distinct 'western' cultures actually are from their developing counterparts.

What this evidence makes it look like to me is that the scientific revolution was more of a capitalist/technology revolution than an ushering in of enlightenment and cognitive growth. Basically our very best and brightest were given an avenue to innovate and improve the lives of communities of people who have no intrinsic understanding of that innovation. In other words most people reap the rewards of science without really understanding it.

So as for cultural relativity there is a kind of perception that western culture is somehow superior and enlightened, where in reality it's just more complex, and due to technical innovation it's easier for people in these communities to survive and reproduce. The communities of the west at their very basic take on the same kind of form as any other, non-Western community, and are no more altruistic or forgiving, they're just rich. That wealth gives people the appearance of being civilized, but really we just don't have a lot of reason to fight.

 

[ronburgundy]

A quick look at the Scientific Literacy wikipedia page pulls up this definition of scientific literacy. A scientifically literate person can:

• 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

And a few graphics of scientific literacy by country, where one of the top countries is significantly below 50%:

So what's going on here?

All of the talk about cultural relativity lately got me to wondering how scientific the scientific revolution actually was, and how distinct 'western' cultures actually are from their developing counterparts.

What this evidence makes it look like to me is that the scientific revolution was more of a capitalist/technology revolution than an ushering in of enlightenment and cognitive growth. Basically our very best and brightest were given an avenue to innovate and improve the lives of communities of people who have no intrinsic understanding of that innovation. In other words most people reap the rewards of science without really understanding it.

So as for cultural relativity there is a kind of perception that western culture is somehow superior and enlightened, where in reality it's just more complex, and due to technical innovation it's easier for people in these communities to survive and reproduce. The communities of the west at their very basic take on the same kind of form as any other, non-Western community, and are no more altruistic or forgiving, they're just rich. That wealth gives people the appearance of being civilized, but really we just don't have a lot of reason to fight.

So, your two graphs are clearly measuring very different things, since the rank order of countries on the first graph is negatively correlated at -.37 with their relative ranking on the second graph. Which speaks to central issues that must be specified to address your OP, "What exactly would a cultural effect of the scientific revolution look like, and what exactly are these two things in your graphs measuring?"

What is a "High-level science skills"?, and does it make economic sense for more than 10%-20% of a population to have such skills? Probably not. Is that a valid indicator of whether science has impacted a culture and most members of it? Probably not. Also, full mastery of the skills you list in your OP is a very high bar, and would basically qualify a person to work in most science labs, at least as an apprentice. So, the % of people above that bar is not very informative. Those skills fall on a continuum, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that most the members of the countries in your graphs fair much better on that continuum than members of those countries did back in 1600, even adjusting for the state of knowledge among the actual practicing scientists of the day.

 

[rousseau]

Those skills fall on a continuum, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that most the members of the countries in your graphs fair much better on that continuum than members of those countries did back in 1600, even adjusting for the state of knowledge among the actual practicing scientists of the day.

It'd be interesting to know the extent to which this is true. Our collective knowledge has most certainly grown by leaps and bounds, but as I accumulate more anecdotal evidence it looks to me like the vast majority of people globally haven't internalized much about the systems driving our world beyond knowing how to manipulate various UIs and follow instructions. And I think the kicker here is genetics: beyond a higher sum total of knowledge, we're essentially the same people both across the world, and over time. You might see higher accumulation of IQs in more robust economic centres, and the reverse in non-robust economic centres, but outside of that the driving force of our genetics is essentially the same.

I don't know if the central point came through in my OP, which is that the cultural evolution of any given community is inherently oriented at the survival of the group and takes a form implied by people who don't intrinsically understand the systems that drive their own community. The driving force is ultimately a kind of sub-conscious, self-interest that members of a community just take for granted as ipso facto reality. Nationalism is a striking example that comes to mind. Populations of most countries buy into the superiority of their own nationality, while in practice nations are nothing but a kind of super-tribe competing with other countries.

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

 

[Tammuz]

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

Why the West Is Best

Seems pretty hard to argue against IMO. I know that moral values are fundamentally subjective, but if you think that a society that executes "witches", does not permit freedom of religion, and treat women like cattle, is on equal par with a society that does not, I don't think we can have any meaningful discussion. Our values then don't have any meaningful overlap.

The society these examples are from is Saudi Arabia. Which happens to be rich as well.

 

[rousseau]

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

Why the West Is Best

Seems pretty hard to argue against IMO. I know that moral values are fundamentally subjective, but if you think that a society that executes "witches", does not permit freedom of religion, and treat women like cattle, is on equal par with a society that does not, I don't think we can have any meaningful discussion. Our values then don't have any meaningful overlap.

The society these examples are from is Saudi Arabia. Which happens to be rich as well.

Sure, but the difference in freedom between a place like the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is a matter of cultural evolution. The world's proto-Europe's have a long history of despotic government that's already been over-turned historically. In Saudi Arabia that hasn't happened yet. So when you compare the two it's like saying a 25 year old is better than an 8 year old at soccer.

There's also the fact that the 'West', as the prominent economic faction in the world, draws the world's best and brightest, while underdeveloped regions experience perpetual brain drain. So it's not even just a matter of non-Western nations figuring it out, but rather they can't because the people who would instigate revolution in these areas mostly just leave for better jobs. And I don't suspect Western countries are trying very hard to diminish their own standing in the global economy.

That's not even to mention all of the evils the U.S. has committed both domestically and internationally in the name of the 'liberal order'. Look at casualties of the Iraq war. Or consider the massive factions living within the U.S. who are in abject poverty. Or American politicians explicitly crafting policy to steal from their poor, or disenfranchise minority voters.

In other words, not quite that simple. From an absolute level, sure, domestic life in North America and Europe is better than the Middle East, or similar, but that doesn't imply moral superiority, but rather a cultural and economic advantage.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Populations of most countries buy into the superiority of their own nationality, while in practice nations are nothing but a kind of super-tribe competing with other countries.

I always recommend Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and the sequel, Collapse. Both works describe in convincing detail the roots of inequality across human groups.

What eventually keeps any group together is a common enemy or a common interest, second only to natural forces in determining social cohesiveness. I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "food security."

I don't think scientific literacy requires that a person have the training and intellect to work in a national lab, I would set the bar much lower. It would rest along the lines of a person being able to figure out and solve his own problems, to understand what is the cause of an issue, a behavior far from understanding isotopic ratios or even knowing the distance to the nearest star in Voyager years.

Most humans go about their lives without any proactive thought of what they are living for or hope to accomplish with their life. Honestly, given the large number of humans that seem to be living their lives asleep, perhaps that is not so bad a thing.

 

[ronburgundy]

Those skills fall on a continuum, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that most the members of the countries in your graphs fair much better on that continuum than members of those countries did back in 1600, even adjusting for the state of knowledge among the actual practicing scientists of the day.

It'd be interesting to know the extent to which this is true. Our collective knowledge has most certainly grown by leaps and bounds, but as I accumulate more anecdotal evidence it looks to me like the vast majority of people globally haven't internalized much about the systems driving our world beyond knowing how to manipulate various UIs and follow instructions. And I think the kicker here is genetics: beyond a higher sum total of knowledge, we're essentially the same people both across the world, and over time. You might see higher accumulation of IQs in more robust economic centres, and the reverse in non-robust economic centres, but outside of that the driving force of our genetics is essentially the same.

I don't know if the central point came through in my OP, which is that the cultural evolution of any given community is inherently oriented at the survival of the group and takes a form implied by people who don't intrinsically understand the systems that drive their own community. The driving force is ultimately a kind of sub-conscious, self-interest that members of a community just take for granted as ipso facto reality. Nationalism is a striking example that comes to mind. Populations of most countries buy into the superiority of their own nationality, while in practice nations are nothing but a kind of super-tribe competing with other countries.

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

The vast majority of the population in 1600 was illiterate, could not read or write, and had near zero schooling about anything, let alone science. It's beyond any reasonable doubt that a random person from England today has far higher literacy skills in general and science literacy than a random person from 1600 England.

And that massive increase in literacy was partly a byproduct of the Enlightenment values and greater respect for both reason over faith and democracy over authoritarian rule (which inherently go hand-in-hand). Folks like Jefferson pushed for public education of the masses b/c they knew that the masses should have a say in their government but that such a say is useless or even destructive if the masses are not educated to have the knowledge and skills to make reasoned choices that serve their own and the common interests.

As short-of-ideal as our public education system is, it still increases literacy a whole lot better than no education at all.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

Why the West Is Best

Seems pretty hard to argue against IMO.

The article you linked is just an opinion piece, not anything like a scientific assessment of why the West would be best.

And it's easy to argue against.

I know that moral values are fundamentally subjective, but if you think that a society that executes "witches", does not permit freedom of religion, and treat women like cattle, is on equal par with a society that does not, I don't think we can have any meaningful discussion. Our values then don't have any meaningful overlap.

You mention a few criteria as a basis for assessment. Your list seems very short to me. When assessing whether you want to live in a country, you better get yourself a much longer list.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

That's not even to mention all of the evils the U.S. has committed both domestically and internationally in the name of the 'liberal order'.

More significant would be the First and Second World Wars, together with the Holocaust of the Jews by Nazi Germany, the most advanced country scientifically speaking at the time.

If you tally all the victims of the kind of industrial wars that the West inaugurated, a few beheadings here and there fall into insignificance.

So, I guess, we would need to define "best" before trying to assess which countries are best.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

A quick look at the Scientific Literacy wikipedia page pulls up this definition of scientific literacy. A scientifically literate person can:

• 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

OK, I'm scientifically illiterate.

Good to know.

So what's going on here?

All of the talk about cultural relativity lately got me to wondering how scientific the scientific revolution actually was, and how distinct 'western' cultures actually are from their developing counterparts.

What this evidence makes it look like to me is that the scientific revolution was more of a capitalist/technology revolution than an ushering in of enlightenment and cognitive growth. Basically our very best and brightest were given an avenue to innovate and improve the lives of communities of people who have no intrinsic understanding of that innovation. In other words most people reap the rewards of science without really understanding it.

So as for cultural relativity there is a kind of perception that western culture is somehow superior and enlightened, where in reality it's just more complex, and due to technical innovation it's easier for people in these communities to survive and reproduce. The communities of the west at their very basic take on the same kind of form as any other, non-Western community, and are no more altruistic or forgiving, they're just rich. That wealth gives people the appearance of being civilized, but really we just don't have a lot of reason to fight.

It seems to me that developed nations need an educated workforce. Most scientists are essentially workers employed by any organisation that needs them, and most of them exists for reasons that are essentially economic, rather than cultural. Scientists who work on fundamental scientific research are a small minority.

So, overall, I wouldn't expect the scientific culture to play any major role beside those of entertainment for the masses, prestige for the scientist workers, social standing for the luminaries, etc.

What should be more interesting, would be any political role that individual scientists and perhaps organisations may be trying to have, but that's a different issue.

I think your perspective here seems a bit naive. As if you are discovering now that talk about science has essentially been hype al along.

We are Homo Economicus. It's the economy, stupid. Science, sure, it contributed a lot to our prosperity, which explains why we need to motivate our young to see scientific careers as prestigious and interesting and rewarding. Scientific literacy, just an afterthought. There isn't even any deliberate effort made to increase it. Most of what the pundits says on scientific matters is dope for the public, and it's painfully repetitive. So, there's really no objective reason why the population in Western countries should be scientifically literate.
EB

 

[rousseau]

Those skills fall on a continuum, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that most the members of the countries in your graphs fair much better on that continuum than members of those countries did back in 1600, even adjusting for the state of knowledge among the actual practicing scientists of the day.

It'd be interesting to know the extent to which this is true. Our collective knowledge has most certainly grown by leaps and bounds, but as I accumulate more anecdotal evidence it looks to me like the vast majority of people globally haven't internalized much about the systems driving our world beyond knowing how to manipulate various UIs and follow instructions. And I think the kicker here is genetics: beyond a higher sum total of knowledge, we're essentially the same people both across the world, and over time. You might see higher accumulation of IQs in more robust economic centres, and the reverse in non-robust economic centres, but outside of that the driving force of our genetics is essentially the same.

I don't know if the central point came through in my OP, which is that the cultural evolution of any given community is inherently oriented at the survival of the group and takes a form implied by people who don't intrinsically understand the systems that drive their own community. The driving force is ultimately a kind of sub-conscious, self-interest that members of a community just take for granted as ipso facto reality. Nationalism is a striking example that comes to mind. Populations of most countries buy into the superiority of their own nationality, while in practice nations are nothing but a kind of super-tribe competing with other countries.

That's an important point because with that in mind any given culture can't really claim moral superiority, just a different form and economic background. And ultimately the civilized behavior of any culture is more or less directly proportional to the food security of that culture.

The vast majority of the population in 1600 was illiterate, could not read or write, and had near zero schooling about anything, let alone science. It's beyond any reasonable doubt that a random person from England today has far higher literacy skills in general and science literacy than a random person from 1600 England.

And that massive increase in literacy was partly a byproduct of the Enlightenment values and greater respect for both reason over faith and democracy over authoritarian rule (which inherently go hand-in-hand). Folks like Jefferson pushed for public education of the masses b/c they knew that the masses should have a say in their government but that such a say is useless or even destructive if the masses are not educated to have the knowledge and skills to make reasoned choices that serve their own and the common interests.

As short-of-ideal as our public education system is, it still increases literacy a whole lot better than no education at all.

I made that post in reference to this comment of yours:

even adjusting for the state of knowledge among the actual practicing scientists of the day.

No doubt people are smarter now than they were before the scientific revolution, but maybe not when adjusting for the change in our collective knowledge, and societies that require more specialized education for their economies. In other words the collective accumulation of knowledge is most certainly a real force, but we may have the same innate capacity for any real understanding.

So brute force and wealth are going to produce moderately more productive citizens, which is what accounts for any differences we do see between say, Canada and rural Sub-Saharan Africa, and yet genetically we're still essentially the same people.

Going further than that, you could make the argument that there is a kind of cultural imperative in the same way that there is a biological imperative, to promote members and not outsiders. How would any given culture fare if it had unlimited altruism, and gave it's own resources away at the expense of itself. It'd fail to survive right?

And so maybe a part of it is that human culture is ultimately constrained by it's resources, and that our history is ultimately a subset of ecological history, like any other animal.

 

[rousseau]

Populations of most countries buy into the superiority of their own nationality, while in practice nations are nothing but a kind of super-tribe competing with other countries.

I always recommend Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and the sequel, Collapse. Both works describe in convincing detail the roots of inequality across human groups.

I should give that a look some time. I bought it along with Maps of Time, but figured I got the gist of our macroscopic history from the latter. And now I've just read so much history in the past 7 years that I'm getting diminishing returns and moving to sociology and anthropology instead.

Most humans go about their lives without any proactive thought of what they are living for or hope to accomplish with their life. Honestly, given the large number of humans that seem to be living their lives asleep, perhaps that is not so bad a thing.

Yea, anymore I'm realizing there's real value in that.

- - - Updated - - -

That's not even to mention all of the evils the U.S. has committed both domestically and internationally in the name of the 'liberal order'.

More significant would be the First and Second World Wars, together with the Holocaust of the Jews by Nazi Germany, the most advanced country scientifically speaking at the time.

If you tally all the victims of the kind of industrial wars that the West inaugurated, a few beheadings here and there fall into insignificance.

So, I guess, we would need to define "best" before trying to assess which countries are best.
EB

Good point.

 

[rousseau]

I think your perspective here seems a bit naive. As if you are discovering now that talk about science has essentially been hype al along.

It's more waking up to the purpose of culture. I've been reading Berger in depth over the past few months, and that along with some African anthropology has shone a mirror on North American culture. The science aspect of this thread was more to point out the fact that most people have no propensity for system's thinking, and so the culture they live in sets the framework for their behavior.

 

[Politesse]

A quick look at the Scientific Literacy wikipedia page pulls up this definition of scientific literacy. A scientifically literate person can:

• 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

And a few graphics of scientific literacy by country, where one of the top countries is significantly below 50%:

So what's going on here?

All of the talk about cultural relativity lately got me to wondering how scientific the scientific revolution actually was, and how distinct 'western' cultures actually are from their developing counterparts.

What this evidence makes it look like to me is that the scientific revolution was more of a capitalist/technology revolution than an ushering in of enlightenment and cognitive growth. Basically our very best and brightest were given an avenue to innovate and improve the lives of communities of people who have no intrinsic understanding of that innovation. In other words most people reap the rewards of science without really understanding it.

So as for cultural relativity there is a kind of perception that western culture is somehow superior and enlightened, where in reality it's just more complex, and due to technical innovation it's easier for people in these communities to survive and reproduce. The communities of the west at their very basic take on the same kind of form as any other, non-Western community, and are no more altruistic or forgiving, they're just rich. That wealth gives people the appearance of being civilized, but really we just don't have a lot of reason to fight.

To me, both "Western culture" and a "scientific revolution" are elements of political myth-making. Social realities are much more complicated than what hemisphere one lives in, and the particular social and especially economic history of your family is much more influential in terms of what sort of education you might personally have access to. If you have boatloads of money, you have reasonably easy access (whether or not you choose to seek it) to every fact that has ever been learned, whether you live in Singapore, Brooklyn, or Riyadh. If you are dirt poor, you probably aren't "scientifically literate", for reasons that aren't really your fault... whether you live in Singapore, Brooklyn, or Riyadh.

Europe vaccuumed up a huge amount of material wealth and knowledge/technology from the rest of the world during the colonial period; like many empires before them in many parts of the world, they became the center of intellectual inquiry and discussion for a while. This base of knowledge production is already undergoing its next shift; the up and coming economic powers are predictably becoming (or re-becoming, in China's case) the major centers of scientific research and innovation. When someone preaches at you about the inherent worth of Western Culture, it's worth remembering that they were quite arbitrary about what is included. Most elements of the indigenous, extra-Mediterranean cultures of Europe are ignored in their imaginary, while many ideas that originated nowhere near Europe (such as "guns", "steel", and most of the "germs") are included, simply because they eventually made their way to the West through centuries of trade, war, and migration. While Europe was the top dog, it accumulated a great store of knowledge, and refined the practice of the sciences. All of which is awesome, but it has nothing to do with the uniqueness of the cultures of the West, and everything to do with sociopolitical realities that can be expected to change and shift geographically over time.

Science is valuable in large part because it is not politically partisan; it works equally well for everyone, and I see no reason or real justification for crediting it solely to "The West". Take cultural anthropology, my own concentration. Many of my colleagues are European or American, and my discipline emerged as a kind of syncretic blend of European and Native American and African reasoning. Today I have thousands of colleagues in Japan, China, India, Egypt, and throughout the middle East. There's no reason to choose one of those nations and arbitrarily declare them the "owners" of the discipline; we are all doing similar work with similar goals, and most importantly have a shared methodology to ensure that our biases do not overwhelm our conclusions. Cultural relativity itself being key among those methodological principles.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I think your perspective here seems a bit naive. As if you are discovering now that talk about science has essentially been hype al along.

It's more waking up to the purpose of culture. I've been reading Berger in depth over the past few months, and that along with some African anthropology has shone a mirror on North American culture. The science aspect of this thread was more to point out the fact that most people have no propensity for system's thinking, and so the culture they live in sets the framework for their behavior.

Culture
1.

a. The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and other products of human work and thought considered as a unit, especially with regard to a particular time or social group: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture.
b. These arts, beliefs, and other products considered with respect to a particular subject or mode of expression: musical culture; oral culture.
c. The set of predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize a group or organization: a manager who changed the corporate culture.​

2. Mental refinement and sophisticated taste resulting from the appreciation of the arts and sciences: a woman of great culture.
3. Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.

That the culture we live in (sense 1a) is a framework for our behaviour is part of the definition of the word culture. So, obviously, yes.
But there is no purpose to this kind of culture since nobody sets out to create it. It just happens as a result of what people do without really being conscious that's what they're doing.

Culture with a purpose would be culture according to sense 1c, 2 and 3. Leaving aside sense c and sense 2 as irrelevant to your OP, I observe that you don't seem to make the distinction between the other senses, 1a, 1b, and 3, which makes your topic confused.

The question of whether Western culture is superior concerns sense 1a. Scientific literacy, although an element of culture in sense 1a, is a minor element of it if we're talking about Western culture as such. It's a crucial element, however, if we are talking about some particular groups within Western countries, especially people with a university education. Yet, the way it is defined in the Wiki article you linked, puts the threshold for scientific literacy so high that in effect only those who received a higher education in science can qualify, which restrict the population concerned to a small subset of the population with a higher education. So, scientific culture according to sense 3 is only a minor aspect of Western culture. It is, however, a crucial aspect in terms of its impact on the economy, the management of public services, health for example, and, crucially, the military power it provides to some countries, since higher education in the sciences is the main training cursus for scientific workers employed in private companies, in the military, and in public services and more generally in the public management of the country. This in turn gives these countries a prestige which may be too easily equated with cultural superiority when it's more like superior management.

So, I think the Wiki article seems in fact largely irrelevant to your concern, which seems to be about culture in sense 1a. But again, nothing is done to ensure that the population at large is scientifically literate. What is done, assiduously, is scientific propaganda to make sure the population at large consents to a high level of expenditure in scientific research and to ensure the renewal of the scientific workforce by attracting enough students to science universities. This doesn't provide for scientific literacy of the population except for a superficial veneer, even among most people with a higher education.

That being said, the scientific revolution was made possible because the bourgeoisie at the time embraced it, although it still remains largely unclear today how this happened exactly. I guess we have a nice story about bright individuals who changed our view of the world. Right. Lovely. So science is definitely a part of our culture, but only a minor aspect when it comes to most of the population. And science is also essentially seen by the political elite as what ensures technical superiority to the country. That's no scientific literacy, certainly not as defined in the Wiki article. Witness how difficult it is to get the world to wake up to the threat of global warming.

So, perhaps rather than focusing on science, you should consider the political ideas and values that emerged from the period of the Enlightenment, because it seems to me that it is those ideas that have come to define Western culture, with central notions such as the people and indeed human rights, the nation, representative democracy, higher education, the public good, the necessity of qualified government employees, the management of the economy, diplomacy and international relations, etc., and perhaps, crucially, the perception of the world increasingly as a rather smallish unified geographical, economic and political arena, where other countries have to be regarded broadly as people like us, with which be better find some level of understanding. I think this is what constitutes the cultural advantage, rather than superiority, of the West, even compared to countries like Russia and China, which are still in the process of being rather slowly "enlightened".

You should perhaps also look at how scientists, at least those "concerned" enough, are also slowly waking up to the overwhelming prevalence of the political and economic factors in how the world moves. Scientific workers are only now slowly trying to improve their political literacy starting from near zero. And it seems to me it's about time and much more crucial than the scientific literacy of the population, which is essentially pie in the sky.
EB