Das helle Licht der Wissenschaft

Communicating Science: A Global Perspective

“…In contrast to the Western Urania, which put itself in the tradition of the 19th century version, the Eastern Urania connected to the working-class movement tradition of the Open Educational Institute Urania (Freies Bildungsinstitut Urania). That institute had been founded 1924 in Jena during the Weimar Republic and had published the popular science journal Urania until it was banned 1933 when the Nazis took power in Germany (Schmidt-Lux, 2008).…”

“…In 1947 the journal was relaunched in East Germany with the same title but a different mission and aiming at a broader public impact (Gruhn, 1979). From the very beginning the dissemination of scientific knowledge was closely connected to the ideological mission of propagating ideas of the biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) who promoted monism, a kind of antireligious scientism (Schmidt-Lux, 2008). The general idea was to influence people's worldview through political exploitation of science communication.…”