Popularizers of science often begin their accounts with indignant declarations about the lack of respect their field receives. How is it possible, they decry, that scientific progress -- that noble twinning of rational thought and experimental inquiry which has transformed contemporary society -- gets so little public attention?

How can it be that science, with its rapidly increasing body of knowledge breaking down barriers between sub-disciplines, is generally perceived as stodgy and dull?

And isn't it ironic that in our technologically sophisticated age, when people wander around with more processing power in their pockets than filled an entire computer room 30 years ago, standards in basic arithmetic and scientific literacy are declining precipitously throughout the developed world?

Astute readers may notice that I, too, sometimes succumb to this phenomenon and occasionally produce a lament on the dangerous trend of scientific ignorance. But I must confess that recent events give me pause.

When the Perimeter Institute introduced a series of public events on issues of science and society in the fall of 2002, everybody, from scientists to government officials and public relations experts, told me I was delusional. There was no way, they said, that a community the size of Waterloo Region would support monthly talks. We would quickly find that the numbers would dwindle to an embarrassingly unsustainable level, and by the third or fourth month, we would have difficulty getting 20 people out.

Had this view been merely wrong, and had we been able to keep a core group of, say, 50 people attending each event, I would have had the warm sensation of proving the skeptics wrong.

But they were spectacularly wrong

Halfway through our second year, we have been moved twice to extend capacity and are now drawing an average of 400 people to each event.

However much I'd like to take credit for single-handedly improving our societal values, prudence forces me to a different conclusion. The need is there. People will come if given the opportunity to participate and learn, to be regularly engaged in a lively, non-judgmental setting.

They will come to debate with colleagues. They will come in the evening after a long day of work, through a winter's storm, with their children. They will come back to the very school they left as students, homework in tow, several hours earlier. And they will come back the next month.

It is great fun to wave one's hands and loudly declaim how stupid and selfish everyone (else) is becoming, how contemporary society is "dumbing down" beyond measure and how bleak the future looks for all of us. There is a certain thrill in feeling one is part of a dwindling band of keepers of the faith, fighting to stem the tide of rampaging philistinism.

But it is even more fun to try to do something about it and discover that you might have been wrong all along. That is, after all, what the scientific method is all about.

Howard Burton is executive director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo. He is a regular contributor to the Learning section.