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."

Comments

Popular, or useful?

[Bakkster]

From TFA:

From quotes on websites to a joke by Stephen Colbert, they offer anecdotes about how the public was against the IAUâ(TM)s (International Astronomical Union) decision to remove Pluto from the list of planets, leading the authors to call the situation a âoeplanetary crack-upâ and then ask, âoeDidnâ(TM)t the scientists involved foresee such a public outcry?â Well, if the scientists did foresee an outcry, then what? Should they conduct a public vote next time?

Mooney and Kirshenbaum barely mention any of the scientific bases for the IAUâ(TM)s decision. Instead, they present the case as if the astronomers chose to reclassify Pluto on an inexplicable whim, and it makes one question whether or not the authors looked into any of the actual science for themselves.

I think it's pretty well established that the goal should not be to fit science into pop-culture, at least not if we want it to remain correct and relevent. Your average citizen doesn't care that pluto is only the first discovered Kuiper Belt object, they care that they learned it was a planet when they were a kid. That isn't thinking scientifically. There is no way to make the decision popular without compromising on proper science.

It's not an easy problem to fix. It seems to me like it requires you to teach people to care about science, rather than making science into something people care about. It wasn't that long ago when Bill Nye was getting kids interested in more pure science. Now about the best we have is Mythbusters, which certainly piques curiosity, although it has to resort to explosions and skipping most of the steps in the scientific method to make it palatable. They even have a "warning" for science content, which is a bad sign (tongue-in-cheek or not). Maybe we could get back to that, but it seems the prevailing momentum is toward smaller tidbits and shallower topics.

Re:Popular, or useful?

[wizardforce]

There is no way to make the decision popular without compromising on proper science.

I disagree... strongly... From my experience with the public one of the biggest problems facing the public's understanding and scientific interest lie in the poor teaching methods used to educate them in the sciences. Everyone is taught about science in a very similar way, as if doing so makes sense... I've got news for you- not everyone relates to the sciences in the same way and the monolithic teaching methods used in their education are largely to blame. Worse yet, the educational system discourages experimentation, working at your own pace and independent learning styles. THe teaching of science is like a chore to most peopel because it is taught in such a way as to be a chore. It is no wonder then why there is little interest in science by the public; the learning of proper science is discouraged, the independent thinking that underlies good science eroded away and the entire concept treated as boring and monotonous.

Re:Popular, or useful?

[schon]

the goal should not be to fit science into pop-culture [...] It wasn't that long ago when Bill Nye was getting kids interested in more pure science. Now about the best we have is Mythbusters

So.. we shouldn't be trying to fit science into popular culture, but the problem is that there is no science in popular culture?

I'd say one of the problems is that modern popular culture regards science as evil. Look at Spider Man. In the 60's, Peter Parker was a science student who built his own tracking devices and formulated his own "web" and "web shooters" in order to fight crime. Science was a tool - used by good and evil alike.

Contrast that with the recent movies.. Peter never does any science, or uses his intelligence to solve problems. The webbing and shooters are now part of his "mutation" (regardless that if that were the case, it should come out of his ass, rather than his wrists), and science is merely an evil corrupting influence on good, honest men like Norman Osborn or Otto Octavius.

Hollywood needs to stop portraying science as evil.

Re:Popular, or useful?

[Chris Burke]

Mythbusters is Pseudo-Science at its worst. They claim a veneer of authenticity, but make broad assumptions based on very limited and highly flawed experiments with no controls groups. It's an entertaining sideshow at best.

Zombie Richard Feynman would like to have a word with you.

Seriously, the xkcd author has a huge point here. You want to improve understanding and respect for science in this country? Start with the basics. When the most common response to "why do you believe X?" is "because I performed/witnessed an experiment demonstrating it", then we can shift the discussion to proper experimental methods and bookkeeping. So what if the experiments are sketchy and their methods wouldn't pass muster in any journal, and as a result some people believe things that aren't true? By simply educating people as to the value of experiment, you've already won 90% of the battle.

Mythbusters is fighting the good fight for science and you should respect that.

What's in it for me?

[mpapet]

Science's irrelevance is some of the long-time-in-coming consequences of a society that emphasizes short-term, extremely self-interested value system with a repudiation of the notion of social plurality.

Unless they adapt by supporting cavemen and women riding dinosaurs or hitching a ride on some other demagogue, Science remains irrelevant.

After all, I don't benefit from science in any special way. Where's my flying car so I (alone) can leave the unwashed masses on the ground. How about my super-smart pill so only my children and I don't have to work very hard?

I mean c'mon... This science thing is bunk unless I alone profit at the expense of everyone else.

DIY science

[wizardforce]

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.

Re:DIY science

[CRCulver]

I learnt much about electronics and radio growing up by getting involved in ham radio. You had to learn some theory to pass the exam for the license, and every month ham magazines had some new do-it-yourself radio project that even a 12 year-old like me could put together. The DIY aspect made it fun. Nowadays, however, amateur radio has mainly lost its appeal against the internet, and what novel things are going on within the ham community often require super-specialized electronics matched to complicated software that a young person just can't grasp entirely.

It's all in the educational system

[4D6963]

Speaking as a European, actually science is pretty popular in the USA, globally (except for the mad handful who think science is the sworn enemy of their faith). Actually, I quite like to think of the USA as the country of nerds. Case in point, that's where all the Europeans nerds want to go cause since some time around the 1930s that's where all the big science and engineering are. In Europe (UK excluded, too much of an American satellite to be representative) we don't make offerings to the holy ghost of Charles Darwin, and we couldn't care less about science fiction (seriously, we care nowhere near as much as people in the USA do). But we're better at mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology, because secondary education didn't fail us. It's not a cultural problem, it's all an educational one.

The problem is not how "popular" or "cool" it is, the problem is with education. To put it simply and bluntly, your educational system sucks, particularly when it comes to science. Reform it. Education is pretty much the same problem for anyone, you're doing it wrong, look at how others are doing it right.

An obvious rift exists between many religious and scientific communities.

Yep, and there shouldn't be one. Science and faith aren't incompatible, some great men of science were also men of faith. But in America more than anywhere else it was turned into an epic science vs faith war where everybody picks a side and the battlefronts are shit that no one would normally care about, like biology and genetics or palaeontology or even palaeoclimatology.

Also, why the hell can't I post this comment? It says "There was an unknown error in the submission.". It seems Slashdot is crumbling to pieces day after day.

Re:It's all in the educational system

[m3rc05m1qu3]

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/

Re:It's all in the educational system

[AthanasiusKircher]

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

Re:It's all in the educational system

[4D6963]

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.

Re:It's all in the educational system

[PitaBred]

You get rid of the tenure system, you get rid of the ability for teachers to speak freely, and only do more to indoctrinate people to maintain the status quo and not question anything. There are cases where tenure needs to be able to be rescinded, but that should only be done in the case of academic dishonesty. And that's it.

The part I agree with you is that it's the parents that are failing. They're teaching their kids that it's ok to be mediocre, that it's cool to not be smart. They'd rather have them play football or basketball, anything other than be smart. And the popular role models for kids? Fucking morons like Kanye West straight-out saying that it's not cool to read. He gets his "information" from talking to people, apparently. Great way to learn anything scientific. Our culture is worshiping ignorance, putting appearance on a pedestal while banishing substance and intellect to the basement. Even the "geek chic" look is just that... a look. You don't have to actually know anything to be part of it.

simple

[acomj]

Become Neil Degrasse Tyson's facebook friend. He's making science interesting again, especially with Nova Science Nows profiles on science. If science oriented kids knew there a lot of people like them, they'd be more likely to pursue it as a career.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/cosmic/

Easy!

[raventh1]

For public school situations take that damn football money and use it for science classes.
2nd Hire decent teachers that actually enjoy learning and teaching.
3rd Encourage questions. Ask the students questions, and then wait for a response. Let them actually think! Have some actual communication.

Optional: go places! Take students to new environments to get them to think outside of the box. Science is awesome, you don't have to dress it up to make it fun!

All else fails: Blow shit up! Then explain why it blew up!

Some ideas...

[khayman80]

1. Graduate education should include mandatory classroom instruction, and a heavier emphasis on giving presentations. I regularly suffer through my colleagues' miserable presentations at conferences, so I strongly believe that scientists need to develop better communication skills.
2. Re-orient science classes so they emphasise curiosity and skepticism rather than rote memorization. I've previously complained about the sad state of science education in high school and general collegiate physics courses. Some people still believe that the seasons are caused by the Earth moving farther towards/away from the Sun, and that sinks/bathtubs drain differently in different hemispheres. Maybe if science classes actually taught people how to think like scientists, these silly myths wouldn't be as widespread. Maybe people would even be interested in science in general if they didn't see the subject as a bunch of equations to be mechanically applied.
3. The scientific community has a tendency to ignore bizarre claims because they don't want to give credibility to people who believe in things like creationism, electric universe, climate-change-denialism, moon-landing-hoaxers, relativity-deniers, etc. This isn't very productive, because some people apparently get the impression that scientists dismiss these fringe views because of a massive conspiracy of suppression. I think it's a better idea to slowly and patiently explain why these examples of pseudoscience simply aren't consistent with the available evidence. I'm trying to do that on my homepage, but there's only one of me versus a horde of pseudoscientists...
4. Science journals need to be made open source, like PLoS ONE and ACP. Maybe the general public's science illiteracy is partially based on the fact that crackpots publish their "research" freely on the internet (which is why the internet is now a tarpit of scientific misinformation), whereas scientists publish articles in peer-reviewed journals that can't be accessed by anyone outside of a major university.

As you can tell, I think this article touches on a very serious problem. Sagan said it best:

"We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster." -- Carl Sagan

More media attention for Academic Decathlon

[Jeng]

If each schools Academic Decathlon team got the same amount of exposure as the high school football team did then you would see a lot more interest in academics from the general population.

My senior year our Academic Decathlon team made it to the national conference in Chicago. I heard that we placed in the top 10 in each category, but I never did see a single thing about it in our local paper. And this was a small rural school.

Wrong question

[MrNaz]

I think you're a troll, but I'll bite anyway. As someone who is fascinated with all things science related, I bemoan the total apathy towards science within the community. However, I feel that it is important to point out that it is not just science that is being neglected by the community; politics, philosophy, social conscience and other highly important fields have also been totally lost to the common mind.

It's not just discussing the latest article in Nature magazine or Scientific American that results in dumb stares, but also trying to discuss things like the relative merits of current geopolitical policies of various nations, how and why the legal system has gotten to its current state, even this very subject, the apathy of the common person, is not the sort of thing that most people are able to discuss in any depth.

This may all sound very high-horsey, however, I challenge anyone to go to a party, bring up a discussion about the question of whether mathematics is invented or discovered, and see how long you can keep it up. I'm likely to get laughed at for the mere suggestion of this, someone will call me a dork or similar.

The thing is, I actually get out a lot. I travel several times a year, and spent a lot of time meeting new people. It's something that I really enjoy. I'm not a dork. I think.

So, how do we make science (and other "intelligent" subjects) popular again? I dunno, how about priming children in an environment that's a bit more stimulating than the modern day care facility. How about teaching them the basics in an environment that's a bit more positive than the jokes that are primary schools where teachers' hearts are rarely in the job. Don't even let me get started on the barbaric mass-cagefight that is high school.

You want to know why science is not popular in the first place? Because we (as a society, we can't just blame the "education system", after all, parents, they're YOUR kids) as a society are teaching our kids to be consumerist, apathetic, self-centered brats. We need a whole new social order, including a new social mindset that teaches people a proper set of values. Science and all the higher arts won't be popular again until people learn to value them.

Thus, asking how to make science popular I feel is the wrong question. The correct question is how to teach people it's value.

Re:Wrong question

[neonprimetime]

Thus, asking how to make science popular I feel is the wrong question. The correct question is how to teach people it's value.

I believe that Science (like many other things) has been hi-jacked by politics. And since it's a given that people hate discussing politics they now hate discussing science too. The only way to make it popular again is to get politicians to stop hoarding it. Science should be for scientists and academia ... politicians should get their dirty little fingers out of it.

Re:Wrong question

[Kell Bengal]

I agree entirely. The summary talks about heros, but most people's adored rolemodel is more likely to be a non-productive sportsman or actor. Sure, they're pretty to look at, but they don't actually do anything materially useful. Compare that with the recently deceased Norman Borlog who changed the world, but nobody knows his name. Perhaps if lauded and paid scientists like we do sportsmen - make it sexy and rewarding to do science - people would see them like the heros they are.

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. 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.

We could give scientists better pay, but capitalism isn't set up to reward the scientist - just the person who exploits their work. The modern mindset is to make money at any cost, and the idea of paying scientists to learn about the fundamental nature of the universe is disruptively out of step with the cash-squeezing mentality of the world.

What are we left with? The fruits of their labour. Scientists discover things of beauty, magnificent vistas of science that are accessible to all. The fact is that most people are taught to shut up and pay attention to the TV, rather than think creatively or examine their lives.

The problem with science isn't science - perhaps it's the very nature of our culture that rejects learning and instead values money, simple ideas and sex appeal. Unless we instill principles early on that value science and learning, it will never happen.

Re:Wrong question

[citizenr]

I believe that Science (like many other things) has been hi-jacked by politics.

It has been hijacked by dump people. If I turn on TV right now and switch to Discovery Ill probably see LA Ink, Most Haunted or other REALITY TV crap :(

Re:Wrong question

[maharb]

You are 100% correct. I live a 'normal' life but I find science, math, computers, etc interesting. I study how things work and why in my spare time and I have found out a lot about how the world works because of it. Some of my peers would point and laugh if I told them I spent an hour reading up on something science related when they used that time to follow a reality TV show. The real enemy here is not a political party. It is our society and culture that ridicules knowledge and science that is the problem. When it is more socially acceptable to watch reality TV than it is to learn useful skills then you know society is going in the wrong direction. I can't believe anyone would be so ignorant as to think that republicans are the enemy here. Clearly Democrats play an equal role at sabotaging progress by succumbing to the masses (reality TV watchers) pleas for handouts. Our education system is fine, our society is so fucked up it it is better socially to be the average kid that gets C's/B's then it is to be the smart kid with A's/B's. Kids intentionally mess up at school at a young age just to be part of that cool crowd. Then those of us that learn and go on to be successful get attacked for making too much money. Fuck that. I don't think anything will change. We will probably throw more money at education and wonder why that doesn't fix it. Just like we are about to throw more money at health care and wonder why that isn't going to solve all the problems. Our society accepts fat and dumb people and only people can change that, not money. Sorry if I offend anyone by using the reality TV show example, but it seems they are the perfect example of a waste of time and effort that also brainwashes kids into thinking life is all about relationships/relationship drama. There are functional people that watch these shows, but for the most part the shows are representative of people that haven't made their own life a top priority.

Re:Easy solution

[Beardo the Bearded]

So how do you get the girls to flock to science?

The problem isn't with a lack of people entering the field; it's that the fields aren't seen as exciting. (Others might note that you can make more money in other fields; for example, I'd be making at least 2x what I make now if I was an electrician instead.)

You then have people who aren't interested in excitement getting into or getting pigeonholed into those fields. "Oh, Beardo is kind of quiet and smart. Perhaps he'll be a good scientist, sitting alone in a lab all day."

That's the problem. Science is exciting, no matter what branch you're getting into. I'm an Engineer -- an applied scientist. I'd like to think that I'm a reasonably exciting guy.

I bike around, I make speeches, I SCUBA dive, I have a house / car / family, I can build a radio with scrap, I've saved thousands of lives, and right now I'm working on a series of billion-dollar vehicles.

There are MILLIONS of people like me, but we don't sell magazines. It's not a matter of comprehension -- I have been able to adequately explain my job to my 5-year-old daughter -- but a matter of the stereotype of the scientist being a dork like Frink or evil like Baltar.

Nobody without decent charisma can do a good job. You have to be able to sell what you do and sell your opinions to you colleagues and supervisors.

Certainly not like this

[stefaanh]

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/closing/
Quote:

All Free Library of Philadelphia Customers,

We deeply regret to inform you that without the necessary budgetary legislation by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, the City of Philadelphia will not have the funds to operate our neighborhood branch libraries, regional libraries, or the Parkway Central Library after October 2, 2009.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[Philip K Dickhead]

Look,

International capital interests are banking against a US role in the future. They own the casino, and you are a fool to bet against this house.

There is an active effort to dumb-down America in particular, and to lose the capability for sound argument in the roar of mindless accusation and countercharges.

There is a reason that Fox News and the like are funded to billions of dollars, every year. These are investments in an outcome, not wild and speculative spending.

So.

Don't get your hopes up, Eloi. You ar ein a Morlock zone - and all your cleverness and intelligence will not change the decisions that have been made for you. Enjoy fighting the school board brownshirts over "Creation Science".

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[joocemann]

I'd say science is not popular because ignorance is easy and science can be inconvenient. It's hard to actually learn things; people are lazy, no doubt. And when those things to learn aren't what you want to hear, that makes it *that* much harder to like.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[Kell Bengal]

Old greek proverb: anything worth knowing is difficult to learn.

Anti-intellectualism

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

However, I feel that it is important to point out that it is not just science that is being neglected by the community; politics, philosophy, social conscience and other highly important fields have also been totally lost to the common mind.

This is an old theme of American history, called anti-intellectualism. The American public isn't so much "anti-science" as anti-intellectual.

I think that GP has a point about the proper relationship between science and policy; all too often people use the authority of science to sneak in policy and value judgements as science (for example, intelligence testing). We need to be critical of the people who insist that science should set policy, as GP recommends.

However, to do so successfully we can't be anti-intellectual, and that's where I part with GP. The Republicans are the party that panders to anti-intellectualism; their war on science was real. G.W. Bush is an anti-intellectual poster boy, too.

This may all sound very high-horsey, however, I challenge anyone to go to a party, bring up a discussion about the question of whether mathematics is invented or discovered, and see how long you can keep it up.

Invented, just like chess.

Thanks for perfectly illustrating my point

[copponex]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/14107/Third-Americans-Say-Evidence-Has-Supported-Darwins-Evolution-Theory.aspx

The poll shows that almost half of the U.S. population believes that human beings did not evolve, but instead were created by God -- as stated in the Bible -- essentially in their current form about 10,000 years ago...

A segmentation of Americans based on their responses to the questions about creationism and biblical literacy finds that a quarter of Americans can be considered to be true literalists -- believing not only in the literal interpretation of the Bible, but also in the creationist view of the origin of humans.

Of course you don't believe there are many creationists out there, because you're not a creationist. I have trouble imagining how many people accept this ridiculous idea myself. But there the numbers are.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[phantasmagoric]

An active effort to dumb-down America? I call bullshit. Do you have any evidence for that besides the fact that Fox News says stupid things? 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. A few weeks ago NPR was talking about a train going through Germany trying to get kids interested in science. The founder is very concerned about the slow degradation of GERMAN intelligence and interest in science. We aren't the only ones with this problem

IQ tests can never be culturally neutral

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Not to add to what is sure to be an offtopic flamewar, but IQ tests are certainly not culturally biased. Unless, of course, you think logic, math, and spatial recognition are culturally biased.

Spatial cognition has been shown to be culturally variable; check out the work of Stephen Levinson on language and spatial cognition. It is possible to design spatial reasoning tests that are culturally biased in that regard; e.g., the Queensland Test was designed to raise the score of Australian Aborigines relative to Australian Whites.

In fact, there's just nothing culturally neutral about getting somebody to sit down to answer an intelligence test. Read the New Yorker's article on the controversy about the Pirahã and ask yourself, in the end: how would you administer an IQ test to this tribe, and would the results be more indicative of their "intelligence" or of their cultural differences to us?

To paraphrase William Labov: if you want to figure out how intelligent somebody is, you have to enter the appropriate social relationship with that person. IQ tests simply fail this; they presuppose that everybody is a well-mannered urban European middle-class authority-fearing white-coat-deferring sit-downer, who is just delighted to sit down and perform decontextualized, pointless intellectual exercise on command.

Re:IQ tests can never be culturally neutral

[tool462]

IQ tests simply fail this; they presuppose that everybody is a well-mannered urban European middle-class authority-fearing white-coat-deferring sit-downer, who is just delighted to sit down and perform decontextualized, pointless intellectual exercise on command.

In high school I was voted the most likely to be a well-mannered urban European middle-class authority-fearing white-coat-deferring sit-downer, who is just delighted to sit down and perform decontextualized, pointless intellectual exercise on command.

I also like crosswords and sudoku.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[h4rm0ny]

An interesting comment, but note that the Morlocks were the smart ones in control and the Eloi were ultimately the pretty, vacant types. Your analogy doesn't fit perfectly, but if it did, it would be the other way around.

Anyway, I can offer a simple cause for Science not being "popular" (whether this cause is deliberate or not, I'll leave open): science doesn't receive much reward. You look at what gets the hero's share in modern Western society - celebrity, fashion, football, whatever. People are frequently motivated by what gets them adulation or appears as if it might. They therefore desire to be like those people that get such adulation, not like those that don't. It's really, very, very simple. If society sees a celebration of people for their scientific ability, then you will get people wanting to be scientists. If its not celebrated, you will get fewer.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[interkin3tic]

Also, the James Hansons and Al Gores of the world are (and let's be brutally honest here) as far from "scientific" as you can get.

Are they in your opinion really "as far from scientific as you can get" or do you just disagree with some of their interpretations of the data? I've criticisms of every study making any conclusions about climate change, and I've heard an argument that we don't have enough evidence to really justify policy change. But that's all disagreements about interpretation. Scientists always do that (well, they do that if they actually care about the data and aren't sleeping during presentations or thinking about their own research... or just sex...).

If James Hanson and Al Gore make their arguments based on faith or "I believe based on what God told me" then yes, they would be as far from scientific as you can get, but "This person interprets the data differently than I do" is not the same as "not scientific." Lumping them in with fake pharmacists is going way too far, and if you're going to go down that road, why don't you go for the full Godwin?

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[Abies Bracteata]

James Hansen is one of the most widely published, widely-cited climate-scientists in the world. (Consult scholar.google.com for more). Calling Hansen "unscientific" betrays a breathtaking ignorance in Earth-science/climate-science. The only thing Moryath's post proves is that many compsci students get a very poor education in the physical sciences.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[moderatorrater]

Not only that, but science requires a lot of preexisting knowledge. You can't pick up a scientific journal in a field you've never studied and understand an article; that's impossible unless you have the necessary knowledge to even understand what they're saying. Modern science is pushing fringes that are bizarre and hard to grasp. With relativity, you can give a nice example of a man taking a trip to Alpha Centauri and returning younger than his brother who stayed here. It's weird, but you can kind of grasp it in a few minutes. Try to do the same thing with quantum physics and see if they don't come back 5 minutes later completely missing the point. Compare the complexity if relativity to the complexity of string theory; relativity is simple by comparison.

People have gotten used to not knowing anything about science because they don't know enough to understand what's going on. We all make fun of articles that try to dumb down the science to make it understandable to people, yet that's what's necessary for people to try to understand it. Right now, the average person doesn't know science because it's inaccessible to them, and because they don't know science they don't trust that they can tell the difference between a lie and good research (this is probably because they can't).

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[mcgrew]

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.

Re:Science =! Public Policy

[Philip K Dickhead]

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.

A paradox!

[Fantastic Lad]

The problem is this. . .

You, (the elite managerial over-seer), wants all the little people to toil in order to provide you with food, shelter, safety, power and luxury. It takes back-breaking effort to provide these things to you and there is no good reason to do it. As with most people of your sort, you live with a constant shadow on your shoulder; you harbor a morbid fear that one day the flow of wealth and abundant resources (which you don't work for) will cease. Because you have never really worked at anything, you fear work; nothing is more terrifying than the thought of being reduced to the status of a common peon. And so in fear, you cast about with great concern! How is your fear most likely to manifest? Why a popular uprising! Any moment now, you will be discovered and the slaves will take back what they have given you and which you do not deserve to have.

Thus, population management becomes a great concern to you. An obsession.

So how do you make sure that the slaves never have enough energy or awareness to see who is making their lives miserable and come together to do something about it? Why you make damned sure they are stupid and distracted and constantly fighting amongst one another!

Thus enters the Paradox! --To have the most fashionable elitist lifestyle, you need to employ the Wonders of Science! However, to employ the Wonders of Science, you need thinking men and women capable of sharp awareness and bright imagination. --And yet thinking men and women of awareness and imagination are exactly the kind of people who are most likely to realize that they are slaves and that you are their bitter enemy. They are the ones you fear most!

If only there was some way. . . --A method to mind-program people so that they retain the brain power necessary to engage in research and experimentation and other skills required by the Wonders of Science, while ALSO being remaining stupid and distracted. Is such a thing possible?

Fortunately for you, the answer is YES!

Among the maneuvers used to create the perfect army of mindless scientists and engineers are. . .

-Age segregation in schools. (Humans are pack animals; in healthy communities children of many ages play together, and the older and more experienced ones naturally take on leader/protector roles. In the school system, there are no clear leaders established through age, leading to endless, un-resolvable competition, generally resulting in the most base physical attributes becoming the dominant deciding factors. Say hello to "Jocks v.s. Geeks" --Those who are strong thinkers tend to seek love and approval from the only authority figures who appear to value such attributes, the teachers. All you have to do is program the teachers according to your system and they will make sure that the students are similarly programmed.

-Media! --Children who have survived the school system are shell-shocked by that war zone social structure. Their brains have developed strong wiring as they grew up, programed to have low self-esteem, to fear above all things, ridicule. So all you have to do is create a popular media which tells the population what is being laughed at this week, and you can rest assured that even the most progressive thinkers will shudder and cringe as their deep-programming kicks in.

-Meaningless debate! --It is important to maintain and nourish two opposing camps of thought on any number of emotionally evocative subjects. The population will self-divide and spend all their free energy fighting and arguing and hating one-another, while you rest safely up in your ivory tower and collect taxes.

-False Money and False Economic Theory. My typing muscles are getting tired, so I won't bother going into this. Any smart person, (who hasn't been laughed at recently), is capable of working out how money and debt keeps everybody in check.

-War. Again, no real need to explain this one.

There are, of course, many other techniques available, but these three are the work-h

Mod parent up! When was science *EVER* popular?

[multimediavt]

It took long enough for me to find this response!

I'm sorry, I've been alive for twenty years shorter than the parent poster and I do not remember a time when science was ever "popular". Popularized, maybe, with the moon shots and all, but NEVER popular. If science was ever popular how would it ever lose popularity? Think about that for a moment. Science is a constantly changing beast, with something new emerging from an enormous variety of fields ... hourly! How could you ever get bored with science should it ever become popular?

I call shenanigans on the whole notion of science having been "popular" ... well, ever! Not even in Newton's time, and certainly not Galileo's when it wasn't even called science. Hell, it wasn't even called science until the last, what? 150 years of its existence. It was a branch of philosophy (natural philosophy) before that!

Science has never and probably will never be popular. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but use some scientific method and tell me when science was ever popular. I have no evidence to support the assertion and know of none to even test.