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Are US Voters Informed Enough About Science?
Naturalist writes "For decades, educators and employers have worried that too few Americans are preparing for careers in science. But there's evidence to support a new, broader concern in this election year: Ordinary Americans may not know enough about science to make informed decisions on key questions."
What is it, 95% believe in a supreme being? Not that believing in a supreme being is compromised by understanding the results of science. Oh no.
I thought it was general knowledge that ordinary people (not just Americans) don't know enough to make informed decisions. Not just science based issues, but all issues.
That's the beauty of democracy. You don't have to be qualified to have an opinion.
"Most people"probably aren't qualified to have a meaningful opinion on economics, agricultural policy, foreign policy, military strategy, etc., etc.
That's the price you pay for giving everyone a vote.
I suspect that most of the reaction is about those who believe in creation (or even God for that matter); I could list several more:
1. Global climate change
2. Viability of alternate energy sources
3. Carbon credits
4. "Scary" parts of nuclear power.
5. Where the power from the electric car will come from.
I'm certain there's more. Disclaimer: I'm a conservative, which probably gives you some sort of impression of my views on the above.
How about economics? Psychology? Current events? Foreign relations?
People don't know enough about anything to make an informed decision when it comes to the actual issues. Campaign managers know how to spin anything to make their guy look good and the other guy look bad. I consider myself a fairly smart guy and there have been times where I've accepted a candidate's not-quite-straightforward answer until someone calls them on the facts.
No.
Long answer: Meh... There's really just the consolation that maybe Americans at least were never all that science savvy to begin with so the current state is nothing new. A more rigorous science education would probably be better.
I'd say a good start on that is to get the fucking religious dogma masquerading as science out of the schools. You know what I mean: intelligent design.
A good second step would be to hire more teachers who are actually good at science and math, but that would mean increasing the salaries and that probably won't happen. It used to be that intelligent women would do fulfill this need because of few career options but nowadays women can go on to science based careers not just in education. I've taught earth science to elementary education majors, very few of them found math and science to be enjoyable, but instead feared it. I can only presume they would transfer this to their students.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
That's the thing about voting. You get to vote regardless of whether someone thinks you have The Right Information about whatever topic. It's representative democracy. There are other forms of government that only let you decide in certain selected circumstances.
Almost every election we hear some variation on: "Americans are stupid. We hate them, their religion, their culture, and the things they like. Why won't they vote for us? Don't they know we're better than them and can lead them from their benighted ways?"
Yeah, we know. That's why you keep losing.
It's not just the yanks suffering from this.
Here in the UK we've had a bunch of morons sitting around outside a power station protesting about it burning coal. Fair enough, thats only mildly moronic but when they are also rabidly against any nuclear power alternatives it becomes stupidly moronic and when they suggest that everyone currently working in the power industry should be forced to move to the Shetlands and build wind farms it's unbelivably moronic.
Also people like Prince Charles speaking out about GM crops sets everyone a bad example.
This isn't a job interview. At least it shouldn't be. We can't possibly have enough information to determine who would do the best job of running the country. If we could judge that objectively, then there would be virtually no political decisions, instead just some skilled advisors in each subject.
Democracy is all about the subjective factors. Is a public health service better than lower taxes? Should we invest more in education? How much more? Is it better to have extra perks for minorities or should everything be equal? Is the level of immigration too high, too low or just right?
None of these have a right and a wrong answer. You pick the answers that seem right to you and pick the candidate that most closely represents your views.
This entire topic flame bait, plain and simple. There's nothing I can possibly post here that will not fan the flames.
He notes that nuclear waste controversies hinge on how much risk a community is willing to tolerate, which is not a matter decided by science. Likewise, debates on the use of embryonic stem cells in scientific research routinely boil down to moral beliefs about when life begins.
Risk? Moral beliefs? Irrationality is what got us into this mess. Pandering won't help.
You have a better chance of being killed by a drunk driver than a nuclear power plant. And, no, you won't go to a magical afterlife filled with clouds, cake and concubines after you die.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
...about trolls.
I fail to see how knowing science makes you able to make rational decisions.
You just gave us the perfect example of what becomes of us when lacking information!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How can voters be informed when the media aren't? It seem that whenever I see anything whatever about science on the TV news, they get something wrong, usually badly wrong and backwards.
The average American (at least the ones I talk to) don't think that scientific consensis is that the globe is heatihng and we are responsible.
I don't know about the rest of the world's media, but ours is abysmal. Without an informed media you can't have an informed populace. Perhaps that's what our corporate-controled media wants?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
From: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html ... I would like to propose a different and more illuminating metaphor for American science education. It is more like a mining and sorting operation, designed to cast aside most of the mass of common human debris, but at the same time to discover and rescue diamonds in the rough, that are capable of being cleaned and cut and polished into glittering gems, just like us, the existing scientists. It takes only a little reflection to see how much more this model accounts for than the pipeline does. It accounts for exponential growth, since it takes scientists to identify prospective scientists. It accounts for the very real problem that women and minorities are woefully underrepresented among the scientists, because it is hard for us, white, male scientists to perceive that once they are cleaned and cut and polished, they will look like us. It accounts for the fact that science education is for the most part a dreary business, a burden to student and teacher alike at all levels of American education, until the magic moment when a teacher recognizes a potential peer, at which point it becomes exhilarating and successful. Above all, it resolves the paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. It explains why we have the best scientists and the most poorly educated students in the world. It is because our entire system of education is designed to produce precisely that result. ... Let me finish by summarizing what I've been trying to tell you. We stand at an historic juncture in the history of science. The long era of exponential expansion ended decades ago, but we have not yet reconciled ourselves to that fact. The present social structure of science, by which I mean institutions, education, funding, publications and so on all evolved during the period of exponential expansion, before The Big Crunch. They are not suited to the unknown future we face. Today's scientific leaders, in the universities, government, industry and the scientific societies are mostly people who came of age during the golden era, 1950 - 1970. I am myself part of that generation. We think those were normal times and expect them to return. But we are wrong. Nothing like it will ever happen again. It is by no means certain that science will even survive, much less flourish, in the difficult times we face. Before it can survive, those of us who have gained so much from the era of scientific elites and scientific illiterates must learn to face reality, and admit that those days are gone forever. I think we have our work cut out for us."
"In the meantime, the real crisis that is coming has started to produce a number of symptoms, some alarming and some merely curious. One of these is what I like to call The Paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. The paradox is this: as a lingering result of the golden age, we still have the finest scientists in the world in the United States. But we also have the worst science education in the industrialized world. There seems to be little doubt that both of these seemingly contradictory observations are true. American scientists, trained in American graduate schools produce more Nobel Prizes, more scientific citations, more of just about anything you care to measure than any other country in the world; maybe more than the rest of the world combined. Yet, students in American schools consistently rank at the bottom of all those from advanced nations in tests of scientific knowledge, and furthermore, roughly 95% of the American public is consistently found to be scientifically illiterate by any rational standard. How can we possibly have arrived at such a result? How can our miserable system of education have produced such a brilliant community of scientists? That is what I mean by The Paradox of the Scientific Elites and the Scientific Illiterates.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
That's why we don't vote on stuff like global warming.
Global Warming: Religion, disguised as science.
Not that you don't have a right to believe in it.
I'm not religious myself, but just to play the devil's advocate:
1. Belief that it's all a metaphor doesn't necessarily make one any less religious. Saint Augustine argued exactly that: that the whole genesis is a metaphor and only an idiot would take it literally. He got sanctified by the Catholic Church. So...
2. (A possible) God doesn't have to obey his own rules, or exist _inside_ the universe he created.
Think of (a possible) God in terms of, say, a game programmer. Let's say you're this uber genius nerd in a CS university, you're bored enough one week and write the uber-universe simulation. Sort of like a SimCity or Children Of The Nile or The Sims 2 or Spore. Except let's say you're really really smart and have an uber-computer and those little creatures on your screen actually go sentient.
Now think about your position in the universe you just created. You're entirely outside it. In fact, there's no way for you to ever be _in_ it. You could create a character in that world, but it won't be _you_.
Also realize that whatever rules you set there, don't apply to _you_. E.g., if you set those creatures to no longer need to eat, it doesn't mean _you_ also suddenly don't.
Now also realize that you didn't sign any contract or anything. You can change the program's rules or bypass them any time you feel like it. If you want to raise a mountain over there, or have a jolly good flood, who's to stop you? Conservation of mass and energy? You can just change a variable and create more mass and energy. And if a bunch of those simulated people nailed your avatar to a cross, pfft, who's to keep you from resurrecting that char? Laws of biology? Pfft. You wrote the laws of their biology, and can amend them. Or change a bit in the database and have that guy up and kicking like nothing ever happened to him.
Or if that's too hard to palate, think Blizzard and WoW. All Blizzard employees exist outside of the world of Azeroth. In fact, they can't ever really be _in_ that world. They can create characters there, but the real "gods" at Blizzard are and remain fundamentally outside the world they created, and are not subject to their own laws. If they want to do something as mysterious and supernatural as creating a whole new island, or indeed a whole new planet out of nowhere (see the Burning Crusade launch), who's to keep them? If they don't like their own rules, who's to keep them from changing those rules?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The only thingn worse than democracy is everything else. No single person or even group of people is smart enough to know everything, and even very insightful people (Edward Gibbon, for example) make bad or inneffectual legislators. Even the ancient Greeks had problems with democracy, and Athens had what, about 10K people at the time? Problem is, every other system sucks worse. Democracy is the way it is because we are the way we are, and if people didn't suck, you wouldn't need government in the first place.
Education is key. Start with our education system so people learn critical thinking skills and common sense. Then task representatives as information gathers to bring the information to their constituents so they can make an informed decision and have the representative represent that decision. There is still the chance of manipulation but it is lessened by a better more critically thinking base of voters.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
We are afraid to force people to "learn or fail." Somehow the idea that a kid might be dumber than his classmates has become a violation of civil liberties, like somehow I have an inalienable right to be wrong but still get full credit.
I wonder if "learn or fail" would result in school overcrowding instead of prison overcrowding...
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Wow, I did all that stuff because I wanted to help people. Not because I was afraid of a fiery hell or wanted a wonderful afterlife.
My experience is that people who help in the name of religion are doing more of a look at me thing. They want to look good and want to go to heaven. It is a peer system like highschool. They want to be cool and in the 'in' crowd. So they go along.
Beyond that, a lot of their 'good' work is used just to push their agenda. Will that christian homeless shelter take in a homeless man who refuses to embrace god? The ones around here require you to console with a church leader and read the bible. Which is why I choose not to donate my money or time to them.
I just wanted to do something good.
From wikipedia, "In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation." Not that Wikipedia is even close to the HGTTG, but that is a very concise and accurate definition of a theory.
First and foremost, a theory is a testable model. Models are approximations of nature.
1) Start with theory 1 and state a hypothesis (Theory 1 is bullocks)
2) Write a procedure that can be run by any nitwit grad student (drop a ball from x feet, observe N star formations)
3) Examine results (ow, my foot! ow, my eyes!)
4) Make a conclusion (my data does not allow me to conclude Theory1 is bullocks.)
A well designed experiment provides scientific benefit whether your conclusion matches the original hypothesis or not. You either provide evidence for or against a theory, a model.
Yes, you should not accept Big Bang blindly, nor dismiss it out of hand, but I am still waiting for the test procedure that verifies the Big Bang theory. Aha, but the above definition states you can verify a theory via empirical observation. Sure, but if your empirical observations of the universe is what gave birth to a theory, more of those same observations cannot be used to verify the theory. That is incestuous. Lots of evidence points to a Big Bang occurring, but nothing explains why. A model of a system needs to explain why.
Just because everybody agrees with it does not make it true; science it not a democracy. String/M-theory are very popular right now, but it does not mean they are correct.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
As an atheist, I am all too aware of the excessive cultural importance placed on religion in this demon-ridden country. As far as I'm concerned, it wouldn't have killed the British to sic a few privateers on the Puritans to sink the Mayflower before it reached North America. They would have done the whole world a favor in the long run.
As an anarchist, I don't consider myself qualified to vote anyway. Nor do I consider anybody else qualified to vote. You can't be an anarchist if you're telling other people what to do -- or picking a proxy who will give the orders in your name.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The closed Universe model is very much out of favour, and has been so for a long time. All observations indicate that the expansion of the Universe is not slowing down towards a later re-collapse and Big Crunch: in fact, the expansion appears to be accelerating.
That being said, it really is 'just a theory' as one can NEVER prove it. Not EVER. Not even with a time machine, because if it were true it would be damn hard to record the event without altering it dramatically. That would, as far as I know, disqualify it from ever reaching 'law' status.
There's no such thing in science as 'law' status. We don't start out with theories and then prove them and then call them laws. There's no committee sitting down to vote on what we call a law and what we don't. And a lot of things we call laws are, well... wrong in reality. Have you ever encountered an Ideal Gas for the Ideal Gas Law to model? Or a perfectly Ohmic resistor that obeys Ohm's Law? No, me neither.
For the record, the predictions of the Hot Big Bang Model match the observed microwave background to enormous accuracy. And it gets the isotopic abundances of the atoms right, too. That the Universe was extremely hot and dense some 13.7 billion years ago is about as well established as it gets.
I really like these sort of 'science of the past' conclusions. They're nearly all faith-based, just like the other religions they compete with.
That's true, because I can build a radio telescope and measure the 2.7K microwave background myself, which is there just as the Big Bang model said it should be. And I can also build a godometer and monitor deities. Oh, wait...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Perhaps Americans and non-Americans alike should bear in mind that /. is more casual conversation than fine literature, and overlook the odd typo, searching instead for the actual content in a post. Have you any thoughts on his point? Or is it just easier to whore for karma by bashing Americans?
sm62704 - Good to read you again. You've got a point about the media. How do we deal with an untrustworthy media? As much as I hate to admit it, I think the parent touches on the root of it when he references education. Literacy and more science education would help, but the real key IMHO is a detailed education in history. What generally passes for history education is actually a summary of an idealized point of view about what happened on a bunch of dates.
Real history education begins with researching the original sources, or as close as you can come. It continues with the realization that you will have to deal with divergent points of view and contradictory evidence. It forces you to challenge what you had assumed or been taught before, as you search for a deeper, hidden truth. You confront propaganda, and its pervasive role in history.
No one is immune to being fooled, but it's a lot harder to fool someone who has been taught to question the face value of things, and how to compare different sources to learn more.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
And here we go again. Theory does not mean what you seem to think it means. A theory in science is as good as it gets. It does not mean wild-guess, it does not mean "I have a feeling". Evolution, The Big Bang, Gravity....these things are our descriptions that best explains conditions or phenomena that have been observed. If a better theory comes along, one which better explains our observations, it would supplant these but right now that isn't the case. "Law" is an outdated term, which was inaccurate to begin with because nothing is immutable. There is always the possibility that new understanding of a given subject will prove that our previous understanding was incorrect.
You know you're one of the people who the article is talking about, right? You don't understand these elements of science, and here you are telling people how they're wrong. Science and Religion are not equal. One is based on observation and experimentation, the other is based on "revealed" knowledge, from a source that by it's very nature is unquestionable.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
You know you're one of the people who the article is talking about, right? You don't understand these elements of science, and here you are telling people how they're wrong. Science and Religion are not equal. One is based on observation and experimentation, the other is based on "revealed" knowledge, from a source that by it's very nature is unquestionable.
I call bullshit. In fact it would seem that I know MORE about science than you, due to your statements here.
Semantics are everything, please try and think while you read, but I'd love the opportunity to present to you my point of view...
We're really discussing two very different things that use the same name.
First there's 'science' (little 's') that behaves very much the way you're describing. Models, hypotheses, and so on. Nothing is certain, everything is debatable and experimentation is encouraged as part of the quest for knowledge.
If your opinions are directed at little-s-science, then I very much agree with you. Unfortunately, it has become eclipsed by a darker cousin...
I'm referring to 'Science' (big 'S'), which bears all the distinguishing characteristics of a major religion, sect, or cult. In this arena superiority and popularity are wielded as giant sticks to keep dissenters in line. Doubt is actively discouraged and ridiculed (as evidenced by some of the statements you have made above) in order to further the most popular theory. This flavor of Science is susceptible to all forms of coercion - political, economic, religious - you name it.
You can always tell the two apart by the comments of the practitioner.
'science': "Feel free to experiment and learn for yourself whether or not this is correct."
'Science': "Only a moron would doubt the findings of people obviously better than you."
The difference is stark, and devastating.
Religion does not really have a problem with science. Religion has a problem with God. Everytime Religion comes face to face with something God has done, Religions freak out.
If you don't believe in God, you can just skip my reasoning here. If you do believe in God, and believe in a God that made the universe, please bear with me a few minutes.
Western peoples once believed the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun an all of the planets and stars rotated around the Earth. When the Copernican model of a heliocentric solar system started to be taught, religious leaders opposed it. It contradicted their dogma and their doctrine. They thought that if the dogma and doctrine were proved wrong it would undermine religious authority. This still goes on today and is often portrayed as a 'fight' between 'science and God'.
But, for believers anyway, it was God that made the Earth and the Solar System. Who on Earth is powerful enough to try to dictate to God that God got it wrong? It seems the leaders of most religions think they are!
Religion was being brought face to face with the works of God. In particular a heliocentric Solar System. They didn't like it. Too bad for God! God should have known better! How dare he oppose doctrine and dogma like that. Who did God think they were undermining the Church's authority?
Its still going on today. Science reveals the way a part of the universe works through Evolution, quantum mechanics, or the big bang and Religions get in line to oppose it. They don't like being shown how God does things.
Its not 'science vs. God'. Its 'Religion vs. God'.
Religions don't like the way God chose to create the universe and they want to outlaw the study of God's creation (science). Religions do not like it when God gets God's way!
If Religions don't like the way God made the universe and the mechanisms at work in the universe (like Evolution), then those Religions should make clear to their followers how they disagree with God and don't like how God chose to do things. They should make clear that they prefer a book printed by Mankind or dogma created by Mankind over God's way.
If only God stayed out of their way, most Religions would be much happier.
(non believers can now return to their regularly scheduled programs)
How can you expect them to be informed about voting when they don't even understand history and a huge percentage can't even list all 50 states let along tell you where Iraq or any other country is on a map of the globe?
The real question is my mind is: "Are people in the US informed about anything that is not on TV shows?"
Now obviously I can point to myself and some people I know and probably many of you here on Slashdot who are vociferous readers and who think most TV is trash designed to dumb down the public and say, yes, there are Americans who are very informed.
But as far as the general public is concerned? I think the answer is "no."
In general whe people talk about this there is a snarky lightheartedness that comes out, but I think behind that is a sadness for our country and the prospects for the future; a sort of resignation of hopelessness.
I don't blame the people entirely, even mostly. it has happened so slowly, and I think it is the result of policies that have allowed corporations and profits to come over everything else, including people and politicians/legislators who have abdicated or been corrupted and allowed this to occur.
I will give one example. Look at television (which I think is a HUGE part of the problem) and the FCC - the airwaves are supposed to be for the peoplel, the people supposedly own them. This is a total fucking joke. Corporations own the airwaves, even public broadcasting. "Public Access" stations, which were so few and far between except in some major metro areas have been almost wiped out. Instead we have "infotainment" news that focuses on scandals and sex; (hey, sex is great, but not in the place of real news). Reality TV? Seriously, why watch this crap, who cares what some completely brain dead over-privileged Laguna Hills teen slut obsesses over?
Look at how textbooks have been politicized, especially in primary education and in one area in particular: history. I had a chance to look through some high school and jr high history books several years back and was appalled. There are decent history books like Howard ZInn's "A People's History of the United States" which seem to only be used in better schools.
So these sorts of things progressing over years are what allows a populace to end up where ours is, with a system that has institutionalized corruption and an administration that has ushered in the age of a kinder, gentler fascism - So are the voters informed? FUCK NO - and it's so much worse.
They should elect a politician who will consult with the best scientists in the world and act on sound scientific advice on topics that both they and the electorate don't know enough to make a call about. Is man-made global warming real? I don't know, I think it probably is, but that's the kind of question that climatologists should be telling us the answer to. Should we put a man on Mars? I don't know, that's up to NASA to convince congress that there is enough benefit either technologically or in terms of international prestige and national pride. Elect someone who will take advice and act on it in a way that is not guided solely by prejudice.
The problem is not that people aren't informed about science, but that they aren't informed about the scientific method.
Scientific Creationists come up with a "theory" and present it as some sort of equal competitor with Evolution. The notion that a theory has to allow one to make predictions, and to test the theory with experiments, and thus to be experimentally falsifiable, isn't well understood, and it is critical. Scientific Creationists would never admit of an experiment which, if performed, could prove their theory was wrong as stated, and needed modification or simply had to be discarded. This is what makes Creationism dogma and not scientific.
This extends to popular opinions about controversial scientific questions, like Global Warming. Everyone from George Will to Al Franken has an opinion about the subject, and all but a handful of them desperately avoided taking a college course that involved labs and any real interaction with the scientific method when they had the chance. But they figure they have as much right as anyone else to weigh in on the subject.
Of course, they do have such a right, but it doesn't help the general understanding when they ignore the scientific method, which they do not understand, but claim that their innate intelligence allows them to understand something which scientists have to sweat over for years.
The net result, I fear, is a "science without tears" society, where students are given to believe that it is not necessary to actually study a subject in order to assert a competence in it. Employers may want to see certain courses on the transcript, but public policy won't be driven by fact and empirical observation - it will be driven (moreso than it already is) by who has the biggest microphone.