There has been much discussion lately about the ignorance of matters scientific among the public.  With this is mind, here are some thoughts from Blighty.
 
I have just been speaking to my friend O, who is quite a senior figure in science education.  He has been fighting a battle for years against the prevailing mindset.  I will put forth a few of his complayntes:
 
The exam boards see it as their job, rather than the teachers’, to stretch children’s knowledge.
 
Science teaching is becoming increasingly mathematized.
 
It is aimed at producing academic scientists, rather than teaching folk at large who want to use their science in their jobs, e.g. plumbers and beauticians.
 

Before we get to the Wagnerian bit, here is an article in today’s Telegraph: Simon Singh: it is too late for me, but libel laws must change for the public good.  This was raised earlier on SciBlog in British Libel Laws - Good for Pseudoscience, but the present one is worth reading for its wider scope.

About once a week, my legges taken me (in a Middle English sort of way) over to lunch in the common room of our Department of Agriculture, where a kindly member of staff leaves copies of journals for us to read.  One that has taken my interest recently is the June 2009 issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution, in which I have read two reviews whose contents I will summarize.  The first of these is:

The jellyfish joyride: causes, consequences and management responses to a more gelatinous future

by Anthony J. Richardson, Andrew Bakun, Graeme C. Hays and Mark J. Gibbons http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.01.010 

Have a look at these from the Times (link below):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6931417.ece?slideshowPopup=true&articleId=6931417&nSlide=1&sectionName=NewsEnvironment

As for the H20 clock, would Victor Meldrew have believed it?

It's now almost Midnight in Moscow, so it's already tomorrow in China.  Therefore may I take this opportunity to wish all readers of Scientific Blogging . . .

Blackboard qualitative proofs of the "existence" of, say, an equilibrium between demand and supply - beloved of economists trained in the maths of the department of mathematics rather than the maths of the departments of physics or engineering - are meaningless because they don't tell how big is big.

Now being at present in woolly monkey mode, I could a tail unfold about this comparison between the mathematics of mathematics and the mathematics of physics, but that would distract from the main point.