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How To Make Science Popular Again?
Ars Technica has an interesting look at the recent book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, a collaboration between Chris Mooney, writer and author of The Republican War on Science, and scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum. While it seems the book's substance is somewhat lacking it raises an interesting point; how can science be better integrated with mainstream culture for greater understanding and acceptance? "We must all rally toward a single goal: without sacrificing the growth of knowledge or scientific innovation, we must invest in a sweeping project to make science relevant to the whole of America's citizenry. We recognize there are many heroes out there already toiling toward this end and launching promising initiatives, ranging from the Year of Science to the World Science Festival to ScienceDebate. But what we need — and currently lack — is the systematic acceptance of the idea that these actions are integral parts of the job description of scientists themselves. Not just their delegates, or surrogates, in the media or the classrooms."
a big part of the problem I suspect is that people don't get to do much science around the house or at school. I suspect that if they were actually allowed/encouraged to do so you would see a rapid increase in the public's interest in science. unfortunately, DIY science has been under attack for quite some time in the home and in the school system its self. mostly in the name of safety... The proper response to safety concerns would be to educate the public on relevant safety practices rather than ban or severely limit scientific experimentation by the public. It would also help to show how the sciences are relevant to everyone's every day lives. Much of the reason the public's interest in the sciences is lower than it could be is that they do not see why knowing basic science is useful to them. It has to be more expansive than "because it will create jobs" which it will certainly but the immediate impact of the sciences must be emphasized.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
As you can tell, I think this article touches on a very serious problem. Sagan said it best:
Here's a pretty solid quote from Alun Anderson, New Scientist editor, "Science writing used to be slightly apologetic: [puts on whiny voice] "this is all going to be terribly difficult, but I'll try and make it easy for you". Like they've sugar coated something you don't really want to take. Our goal was to really change that - change the people and the ideas - to be self-confident. Science often suffers from this sort of cringe factor - "I'm a boring scientist, you probably don't want to talk to me". My policy was if you're talking to someone else the approach is: "what's happening in science is the most interesting thing in the world, and if you don't agree with me just fuck off, because I'm not interested in talking to you". You had to have that kind of attitude." Teh article here--> http://www.sussex.ac.uk/alumni/notablealumni/interviews/alunanderson/
Agreed. TFA worries about how scientists can also worry about public relations. Perhaps the first thing that needs to be done is getting people interested enough that they might care about science in the first place, and not just in a facile way of "wow--isn't that neat?" I'm mainly talking about teaching science in primary and secondary school. Currently, the anti-intellectual climate (which is often anti-science as well) isn't helped by bad schools, bad teachers, and bad curriculum choices.
Example of the problem. I taught high school math and physics for a few years in the early 2000s in the US. In my physics classes, I encouraged a lot of analysis and actual thinking to earn a good grade. We would do lots of hands-on experiments, from which we'd derive data, and then analyze that data and compare it to theory. I encouraged students to bring in their own questions they encountered in daily life that were related to the things we were discussing, and we'd investigate them. A lot of students balked when I required them to think on tests, rather than just regurgitate information or solve another problem exactly like one they did ten times on a homework assignment, but eventually most of them learned a lot of critical thinking skills. By the end of the year, I'd trust most of them to set up an experiment, collect data, and analyze results in the real world, as well as to critically evaluate that sort of task done by others, at least using the limited mathematical tools they had at their disposal. Many of them also left with a much more curious attitude about how the world worked than when we began the year.
This worked great in the private school I taught in, since we have freedom over the curriculum. Contrast this to my first year teaching in a lower middle class public school where I was straightjacketed by a state curriculum.
I had to teach algebra II to a bunch of kids who had crappy preparation. Many of them had a substitute teacher for much of algebra I, most had little understanding of even pre-algebra, and some of them couldn't even do basic arithmetic without a calculator. (By "basic" arithmetic, I mean things like 12 minus 7.)
I came into this classroom late in the fall, because the previous teacher quit after she refused to try to teach algebra II to students who couldn't even understand basic math. She wanted to do remedial work so they might actually learn something useful, rather than just how to move meaningless symbols around. Almost all of my 140 students were juniors or seniors, and for most, this would be the last math class they would ever take. Very few would go to college. What did we teach them?
One example: we spent almost 6 weeks on conic sections. Mostly on how to put equations in standard form and name the various characteristic parts, since that was required by the state curriculum, and my high school cared much more about that than whether the students actually could do anything. When we got to exponential equations, I tried to give them an application involving compound interest and loans, and I found that only 2 out of my 140 students knew what compound interest was. And most of them couldn't follow the application anyway, because before they took my class, they had never been asked to use algebra to actually DO anything before; to them it was just moving meaningless symbols around until they solved for a variable. The only reason they were taking a second year of algebra was because in that state it qualified them for a better diploma.
So, in other words, we were graduating a bunch of students who could put the equation of a hyperbola in standard form, even though they didn't really know what a hyperbola was, but they had never heard of compound interest and had no tools for evaluating the terms of a loan. (Maybe this has something to do with the economic fiasco?) And I couldn't spend more time on the latter, because the state curriculum required me to move on.
These students had no critical thinki
I agree to the extent of what I can relate to in what you say, although you have to be careful with your suggested course of action. I think there's a tendency in reform to try to address the problem blindly hoping it works, it's a way to do it, but it's not very safe. The safe and efficient way to do it is to look at how countries with a successful educational system do it, and try to model after them, without straying from what's been tried and met with success.
It's often said that you can't just copy another country to fix your issues. That may be true most of the time, but like I said education is the same problem for anyone, and because of that looking up to a successful as a role model is a good and relatively safe thing to do.
You just got troll'd!
Sorry, but you seem to state that
however; it is certainly true that
just so we could move forward, could you please give some example of a "real IQ test" which uses logic, math, and spatial recognition without any cultural biases? Most of the cases I have seen have shown problems that probably have the same solutions in different cultures, but are much easier to solve for people who have some specific experience or lack some other experience (e.g. a pattern of numbers may match some standard sequence in a culture and so the "next in the sequence" may be completely different in one culture from another. For bonus points, please tell us how to identify good "real IQ tests"; for example an association of testers you would recommend.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
So, how do we make science (and other "intelligent" subjects) popular again?
Here are a two suggestions:
Participate in activities that involve active learning, exploration, and participation in the real world rather than passive entertainment or propaganda. Here are a few ideas:
I could go on-and-on with all kinds of activities that people could participate in that have foundations in chemistry, biology, maths, engineering, etc. Unfortunately, we seem to gravitate towards activities that involve consuming (media, shopping, food, etc.) rather than producing something. To consume something all you need is money and appetite. To produce something you actually need to think and develop skills.
It seems to me that a widespread brain leak has been occurring in most of the western world, where science has lost the popularity it had gained (somewhat) during the 60s.
Wrong. I was born in 1952, and science NEVER was popular. We nerds were shunned as parias and only started getting respect when computers started getting popular with non-nerds.
I blame the sorry state of US public education, where the science teachers can make the fascinating into something as dull as watching paint dry.
Free Martian Whores!
There is no 'natural' gravity to 'Sports Figures' or pop stars. This is a trained, social response.
People worship "American Idol" over Stephen Hawking, because they are SOLD and MANIPULATED these values. Crude appeal to animal sensations are made, and then rewarded socially, when "appropriately" responded to.
Again, the selective placement of these "investments" is no accident or whim.
The Soviets successfully made becoming a Physicist or Radiologist desirable and even "sexy" objectives for several decades.
Before this, Napoleon instituted the reformation of Académie des sciences. Becoming an Engineer was thereafter regarded tantamount to the status of peerage, for earlier generations. In fact, this status remains in those Asian and mid-East countries that emulated the French model.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
For all the references to popular esteem of the sciences the 1950s and '60s, no one is asking, 'why?'
I think the answers goes to why we follow spectator sports. It also goes to why we have the current political environment.
People like Us v Them. We like having winners and losers, even if it means sometimes begin a loser.
Fox News and MSMBC have the following they do not because the common man wants to get in to the minutia of the government sausage factory. We are not a nation of policy wonks. It's Democrat v Republican; conservative v liberal.
Science was the same way after WWII. It was our scientists v their scientists. Our bomb v their bomb. Our rocket v their rocket.
The problem with science, though, is that it isn't sexy. By the time you're an elite scientist, you're old and grey whereas elite sportsmen are young and vigourous and all the things our hindbrains crave.
Not true. While a successful scientist is usually able to maintain a productive level of performance longer than an athlete, the physical sciences and mathematics are very much a young persons game.
And science is slow - you can't follow Fermilab like some do a baseball team. Let's face it: science is slow and tedious and not very exciting day-to-day.
Again I disagree. Sports are slow. Sunday on the pitch is exciting. Perhaps the highlights of training camp are exciting. But the thousands of hours in the gym, lifting the same weights or climbing the same stairs for hours are just as boring as thousands of hours of practice a musician goes through or the preparation a scientist goes through.
The difference is not the speed and the amount of drudgery to achieve excellence.
The difference is scheduling. For the sports fan, the practice is boring but come Sunday noon, there will be excitement. For the music fan, the practice is boring but come Saturday night, there will be excitement.
For the science fan, we don't know when the excitement will come. Science doesn't work on a schedule the same way.
You want people to be able to discuss science the same way they discuss politics? You want the public adoration for scientists bestowed upon athletes? Just make science the Us v Them competition it was during the height of the cold war.
Unless said "TV celebrity" slept with me last night, I don't give a shit who they did sleep with.
This is an attitude that needs to be cultivated. IMHO
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I would argue that what most people call anti-intellectualism is actually anti-elitism. Americans, in general, don't dislike intellectuals. They do take a very dim view on elitists, however. Elitists are often intellectuals of one stripe or another though, and it's more comforting to suggest that people don't like you because you're smart rather than admit that people don't like you because you're a pushy, meddlesome asshole.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Russia and France were mature countries with secular ideals. The US was settled by religious fanatics who were often hounded out of their home countries.
Despite some American leaders being Freethinkers, the mob remained and remains simple religious beasts, especially
in rustic areas originally settled by the lower classes. The resurgence of religion, especially Evangelical Christianity, means that the "Christian Taliban" theocrats are seeking control of the country. That's hardly a climate receptive to science.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Popularized, maybe, with the moon shots and all, but NEVER popular."
I was born in 1959, and your statement is dead-on.
Ever ready to reap the benefits of science, American culture is still bitterly backward and only changes slowly despite what popular media would have us believe. The capable few change themselves, while the mob just drone along as usual. America despises smart people, exalting the retarded (note all the programs for window-lickers) and largely abandoning their gifted superiors. The US school system was a Hellmouth long before Jon Katz wrote about it.
We need a self-aware, pro-science counterculture than can enable those who are deserving and eager, and rescue/separate them from their toxic inferiors.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."