The absolute worst thing that you ever can do, in my opinion, in bringing science to the general public, is be condescending or judgmental. It is so opposite to the way science needs to be brought forth.
My sense, talking to the general public around the country, is that most people don't have a very high level of scientific literacy.
I am a big fan of Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He's the voice of science and scientific thinking in the United States and the world. He's the most visible proponent of scientific thinking, and he's very unflinching about it. He knows that it's correct and vouches for it in a very intelligent and very firm way, which I really appreciate.
Chemistry ought to be not for chemists alone.
The tension between public and private science is powerful.
People are interested in science, but they don't always know they're interested in science, and so I try to find a way to get them interested.
Access to science is greater than ever before. There are more vehicles out there that grant the public access to science. Not to mention the Internet.
My point of view is that science is essentially private, whereas the almost universal counter point of view, explicitly stated in many of the articles in the Encyclopaedia, is that it must be public.
