Global Warming..

..Smobal Warming

How A Bill Becomes a Law

Conjunction Junction what is your function?

I really want to have:

"how an idea becomes a paper", in the form of school house rock.

I haven't figured out how though. If you have any ideas, let me know.

The problem with Science in America

Well, the creative juices have just started to flow this Sunday morning, and like so many things on my plate, I've decided to get around to something I've been meaning to do for some time: write a post to this blog. Why this blog? Well, I've been in academia for some time now. And we often marvel at the vast illiteracy when it comes to Science and Math of the average American. I am also in a unique position as one who has both some education and a very 'average' background. So here we go.

As I see it, we have a very big problem in America when it comes to Science education. And trust me, it is getting worse. There are a variety of reasons for this both culturally and educationally. I'm not sure which one I'll try to tackle first. But the bottom line is that we live in a world that is vastly affected by new Sciences and Technologies. These new understandings of the world affect us in many ways the ordinary person probably doesn't realize. We also live in a world where the average person has the opportunity to make informed decisions regarding political decisions. Political decisions are based on value judgments. Such judgments are garnered from education and life experiences. When persons have no ability to both understand Science or make educated value judgments, informed decisions cannot be expected to be made. Hence, the Bush Whitehouse.

Now I don't think that the average American is stupid. Far from it, however people are not taught to read and think critically. This is the first problem. When one considers that most persons get their news from mainstream sources, we must remember that these are written at an eighth grade level. Seldom are students challenged to read and think critically until perhaps high school, and often late into college degrees. Often not at all.

Secondly, a large portion of the population has been told that they have no ability to understand Math and Science, so they let others do the thinking for them. Unfortunately, a large portion of the country is innumerate (the inability to understand math and numbers). This leads to further misunderstanding.

Third, miscommunication between those who speak the language of science and those who don't. Two words come to mind: Prove and Theory. There is some history which perhaps I will get into later, but science developed out of a desire to understand the world. Early on, it became apparent that often people introduced their own bias into whatever they were looking at. This is human nature, so science developed the so called "scientific method" to deal with such bias. The scientific method addresses the above two terms in some rather interesting ways.

The scientific method begins with an observation about the world. Such observations are then formulated into questions or hypotheses. One important quality of an hypothesis is that it must be falsifiable. In other words, it must be testable and have the ability to be proven wrong. Note that things are never proven. Science can never prove anything, because we simply do not have the ability to measure the world. When hypotheses are tested and fail to be falsified, they are accepted as fact. Further tests may continue to support accepted hypotheses or they may disprove hypotheses. So, here we have the first misunderstanding regarding the word prove. Nothing can be proven. Smarter persons than I have argued this philosophically.

When hypotheses are gathered together, tested over time, and formulated theoretically they develop into a theory. Scientists and non-scientist use this term very differently. Many people use the word theory in place of 'idea' or hypothesis'. Thus we hear commentary suggesting something 'is just a theory', when nothing could be farther from the truth. A scientific theory is a term reserved for ideas that are the most strongly accepted of ideas.

For example, in biology we have the "Cell theory" that states that the single cell is the most basic self supporting unit of life. This has been tested and observed over and over without ever being disproved. Similarly, the Theory of Evolution is the most accepted set of ideas regarding the origin of life on the planet. It has been tested, over and over since first formulated by Darwin without ever being disproven. Further, the tenants of the theory of evolution affect the average American in ways they couldn't even imagine. Those who often say that evolution is "just a theory" have their lives affected by the ideas of evolution every day. I could get more into this later on.

So there you have it, the problem with Science in America has to do with the inadequacy of education regarding critical thinking, math, and a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the way different people use certain words. I won't fault educators, in most cases. I think they are trying their best. However, I think that there are many other factors that are screaming louder at people than attemting to learn. What can we do to change things? There is a lot. I won't get into this now.

Evolution

Smevolution