This blog entry (and the two before it) caused a far bigger stir than I intended. Some people seem to have been offended by it. Given that, what follows is an edit of the original, removing or moderating the bits which (I think) people found most objectionable, and which I probably did not express as judiciously as I might have done. I also offer my apologies, and should add that this edit is unprompted by any authority other than my own remorse. Some of the people I hurt were my friends.
Religion certainly stirs people up. So much so that my most recent blog entry, generated hate mail.
In general, though, the effect of dipping my toes into such murky waters did generate some very insightful comments from people who chose to stick with it. These comments came from a variety of perspectives, all of which improved and enriched my outlook, and made me think about the nature of religion and belief in general. For all of these, I am grateful.
If there is one point which merits further discussion on this particular forum, it is this – if religion generates such passions, can science have a piece of it, please? Wouldn’t it be just great if even a tiny amount of the emotional punch that religion generates could be diverted into enthusing people about science?
To a degree, it already has been.
Science popularizers such as Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Isaac Asimov, David Attenborough and Jared Diamond succeed because their explications of science are invested with strong emotional undercurrents. For all that I disagree – profoundly and absolutely – with Dawkins’ attitude to religion, his popular works such as The Selfish Gene and Climbing Mount Improbable are deservedly regarded as masterpieces, mainly because they are written with such passion.
I think that the motivation for writing anything about science designed to engage the lay person must, primarily, be emotional, to appeal to the feelings – rather than rational, to be didactic, to educate and instruct. I wrote Deep Time because I was enraged by the failure of the public – and many evolutionary biologists – to grasp that evolution is not the linear, progressive process that people usually think it is (a contention which attracted a great deal of misplaced creationist attention – more on this later.)
I wrote Jacob’s Ladder, which is, I suppose, a history of genetics, mainly in response to my becoming a father for the first time.
I’d guess that many of us were prompted to seek a career in science as much by an emotional response to a popular work, a TV series, even an inspirational teacher – as by intellectual satisfaction.
Within science itself, no-one can doubt that passions can sometimes run extremely high. The evidence of twenty years at an editorial desk is enough to demonstrate this – the barbed reports from referees; the heated arguments between authors, referees and other authors about points of science or procedure concerning which anyone outside the immediate ambit of the debate would find utterly mystifying. And if that fails to convince, just go to an anthropology conference. That’ll sort you out.
There is a gap, though, somewhere in the middle. It’s existed for a long time, and whereas some scientists seek to enthuse with passion, other activities might nullify any good this might do. What do I mean by this?
To the greater world, science is dull and incomprehensible, and, increasingly, scientists are viewed with suspicion. This is worrying, given the profound effects that science has, and continues to have, on the lives of everyone, irrespective of their interest in science (an aside – the fact that Bill Bryson wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything as an avowed non-scientist dissatisfied with his lack of scientific knowledge is the main reason why this book is so good – in my view, possibly the best popular science book ever written).
Minds more informed than mine have spent a great deal of time and effort breaking themselves on this question, so I shall advance the following explanation more as a discussion point than a solution.
For me, one of the excitements about science is the disagreements. Perhaps, as an editor, I get off on this sort of thing, so my view might be biased, but I think it’s true to say that science thrives and advances through debate. A field of science in which there is much argument and uncertainty is a field in rude good health. By contrast, a field in which everyone blandly agrees with everything is stagnant and probably in decline (which is why hate mail isn’t always such a bad thing … no, no, please don’t send me any more). The problem is, to the public mind, I deem, debate and discord tend to signal that the science itself is wrong. (Sorry for the archaism. I’ve been tolkien to myself again).
When I wrote Deep Time, which was deeply critical of much mainstream evolutionary thought, and in particular the way in which it was presented to the public, evolutionary biologists warned me that I shouldn’t shout so loudly in case the creationists exploited this discord to claim that there is something rotten at the heart of Darwinism, when there wasn’t – the implication being that scientists, when confronting the public, must always present a unified face. My view was, is, and remains, that one should showcase such debate wherever possible, making clear that debate is the essence of science.
I discussed reactions to Deep Time at SciFoo last year over a convivial lunch with Eugenie Scott and PZ Myers, tireless campaigners against pernicious creationist rubbish – and yes, folks, you read it here first: some of my best friends are atheists. PZ’s gives his account of our meeting here in which he says – and I agree – that we shouldn’t hide important ideas in case they are wilfully misinterpreted by creationists or anyone else. Creationists are going to mine one’s works for quotes in any event, so they should perhaps be regarded more as an occupational hazard than credible opposition. As I remarked to Eugenie, creationists will always be with us, rather like herpes – to which her pithy response was that this was no reason not to practice safe sex. I’d put money on the following quote from this blog appearing on creationist blogs in the near future. I’ve even made it easier for them by highlighting it:
Henry Gee – there is something rotten at the heart of Darwinism
So if you see this quoted anywhere with approval, you can respectfully point out to the (mis)quoter that the joke is on them, OK?
Where is this leading? To this proposal, as follows: to present science as a united front, as a list of facts on which all agree, and which every person should know, is to present science as cold, inhuman, dull and irrelevant. To present science as a series of lively debates, in which scientists get stirred up by things that really matter to them (and never mind that you can’t catch all the details immediately) – that is likely to grab the attention, and maintain interest.
You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m going to stop bothering God for a while, for which He’ll be intensely relieved, I’m sure. Instead I shall look outside at the uneasonable weather…
Cromer, Easter Sunday 2008
… and wonder how (or even if) I shall be able to get to work tomorrow morning.
if religion generates such passions, can science have a piece of it, please?
Perhaps we should start worshiping Darwin, and expelling from our ranks anyone who doubts his word.
Oh, hang on. We already do that, don’t we?
In other news, we have some snow too. And sun:
I took that photo just now, from the eight-floor balcony of my flat.
Perhaps we should start worshiping Darwin, and expelling from our ranks anyone who doubts his word. To get some of the passion of religion into science doesn’t mean we have to confuse one with the other. And yes, snowy weather can be wonderful … if you don’t plan to go anywhere. In the UK the trains are all up the shoot, I expect, and the battery in my car is flat.
Absent science being dragged into religious quarrels (see: stem cells, creationism) I wonder how to get non-practitioners interested in lively science-related debates, without politicizing it?
I think a similar challenge is faced by the arts community — to a large degree, serious artists are talking to themselves and to a small circle of ‘culture vultures,’ until somebody hits the news cycle by creating some work perceived by religious conservatives to be blasphemous. And then the arts community snips back that its offended critics are not equipped to judge, because they aren’t educated enough about the arts to understand the context.
Currently, science appreciation appears to be limited to elites. But does it HAVE to be? Do people need a certain level of discourse and familiarity with the subject to even understand a lively debate?
P.S. I am not arguing that the arts and science should be limited to their own practitioners and communities; I’m just wondering how to get new people involved in ongoing conversations. Hope this makes sense.
The only way to get people involved in ongoing conversations about science is to start them talking about science as young as possible. Science is not really an integral part of ‘popular’ culture, neither are the arts really. To get people talking about science we need a concerted media effort – accessible mainstream tv/radio shows, good science journalism, a commitment from major media organizations to fair and true reporting of science and coverage of debates, and a basic level of scientific awareness within the general population (that can probably only be initiated at school). Where are the scientist celebrities in our culture? We need to get people to ask questions about the world, generate curiosity and show them where to get answers, or participate in the debate. We need to overcome stereotypes and intrinsic perceptions of what science is and who scientist are.
All of this takes time, money and effort.
@ Anna & Katherine
The approaches being batted around the poetry world, have a lot to do with simple exposure as you say. Here’s an article from this past week out of Australia: ABC News: Poetry: better than texting! and here’s former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins’ Poetry 180 site, the idea behind which is to read a poem to school kids every day throughout the school year. And I agree with applying enjoyable exposure. Part of my agreement has to do with taking out the fear of failure, which comes with all the testing and challenging for meaning and such.
On the other hand, what about the poem, the painting, or whatever piece of art, that will never be “gotten” but can be a lifelong meditation with shifts in meaning and such. Billy Collins himself writes what’s known as accessible poetry, but at the end of the poem that was so accessible, you don’t always have it all contained as an easy thought. He gets the reader over the “OMG! a poem! like a test!” feeling immediately, gets them involved in his tangents and such, and then leaves them off in the full sophistication of a poem written by a brilliant man, like his most recent in the New Yorker: The Future. And in science, this similar thing happened with Einstein. He created thought experiments that had poetry to them, he wrote and spoke on many topics, and made what a genius was thinking or, rather, this genius’ lifelong work, very accessible. And I don’t mean to imply that Billy Collins should be the man of the century, it’s that he most personifies this aspect of accessibility nowadays in the world of poetry.
But, these guys are gifts to the rest of us. However, there are also the poets and scientists who are brilliant, but haven’t a drop of the schoolteacher or nanny to the world in them. So I am agreeing with the accessibility idea, while noting that dumbing down will never take place. The people who have the abilities and passions define either Scinece’s or Art’s make-up. By the way, I remember when my own kids were growing up, they had the Science Guy on TV, and PBS was doing some great things through NOVA and such in laying science out for the intelligent and open who would want to listen. I don’t watch too much TV now, but there is the Discovery Channel I think. The problem here is how to bring many brilliant people’s life works to the public.
That’s background for what prompted me to chime in. It had been decades, but I was watching a Chemistry major struggle with her calculus a month ago or so, and I recalled my days of being a math tutor to her. She invited me to help. I sat with her for a while, and the two chapters she was having trouble with weren’t really calculus, but simply dealing with limits, trying to get the student to graph different scenarios and create some thinking benchmarks for what was to come. For me, my calc brain was a little rusty after not being used for a few decades, but she could see my approach, and that each time I had fun coming up with the solutions with her. That was more the lesson, to have her loosen up, and see that nothing was really getting accomplished but this groundwork, and that that in itself could be fun. She got a 90 on her test. But wait . . .
This is unfair. I believe I am in a thread with other smart cookies reading. There’s no brag here to say that with math and science, I always excelled. In fact, what doing that little calc reminded me of, is how I always could put it all into perpective, very quickly, and come up with the right answer, more than anyone in any class I was ever in. It’s not fair. By this time in my life, if I get a problem wrong, who friggin cares. Like you, I am thoroughly unintimidated.
So I take up poetry late in life. The problem with writing poetry, is that there is no answer to get. Most poems take revision upon revision. The musing comes, and what follows is not the light-speed movement through the doors and milestones to solution such that the musing may be expressed in formula, but months of trying to well-express the musing such that it is represented on paper and in sound. Art is more like athletics. You have to keep at it. There is no right answer. This is counter to normal schooling, studying to pass an examination, upon examination, and then those examinations being guides for where you will go in life. For instance here in this thread, there is no right answer to creationism. One cannot get beyond the impossibility of being where we are right now in time and space, no matter how you do the math. This is why I said before, the physical world comes from us, not vice versa. The question arises, then, is where do we come from?
And that ultimately becomes my reason for rebellion, that even though schools may have a teacher or two who were enthusiastic, the structure of schooling is meant to deaden enthusiasm, to force you out where you may not belong—may not. The survivors are the ones who stay, but also stay one step ahead of everyone else. Which means that school is designed for a small percentage of people, the academic excellors who would stay—not everywhere in each aspect, but in its overriding principal. This small minority is recognized by the large majority for who they are. We can all for the most part, here and outside this thread, recall teachers and individual lessons plans that made school worthwhile, no matter how much there may have been struggle otherwise, but this doesn’t make it right. When we create an institution that says to the entire class, that the ones who belong are the ones who strive to excel beyond the class, after graduation and into the workplace of research and such, it is a little late to say we want to integrate the whole world into what we may be doing, that we don’t want to be lonely anymore.
We need to go one step beyond exposure, the NOVA programs, the Poetry 180 programs, and move toward involvement, welcoming involvement, classless, unelitist, enthusiastic, involvement. And where do we find such models? Alfie Kohn wrote a book called No Contest: The Case Against Competition. The point of competition, the usefulness that it is supose to serve in society, is that we find out who would be better off in different roles. If we were to have a singing competition, you win, and I go find something else to do. But in fact, cooperative efforts do this much better.
Let me quote here from a paper of Kohn’s, Progressive Education:
Several newer studies confirm that traditional academic instruction for very young children is counterproductive.7 Students in elementary and middle school did better in science when their teaching was “centered on projects in which they took a high degree of initiative. Traditional activities, such as completing worksheets and reading primarily from textbooks, seemed to have no positive effect.”8 Another recent study found that an “inquiry-based” approach to learning is more beneficial than conventional methods for low-income and minority students.9 The results go on and on.
And later:
But we’re also left with a question: If progressive education is so terrific, why is it still the exception rather than the rule? I often ask the people who attend my lectures to reflect on this, and the answers that come back are varied and provocative. For starters, they tell me, progressive education is not only less familiar but also much harder to do, and especially to do well. It asks a lot more of the students and at first can seem a burden to those who have figured out how to play the game in traditional classrooms—often succeeding by conventional standards without doing much real thinking. It’s also much more demanding of teachers, who have to know their subject matter inside and out if they want their students to “make sense of biology or literature” as opposed to “simply memoriz[ing] the frog’s anatomy or the sentence’s structure.”12 But progressive teachers also have to know a lot about pedagogy because no amount of content knowledge (say, expertise in science or English) can tell you how to facilitate learning. The belief that anyone who knows enough math can teach it is a corollary of the belief that learning is a process of passive absorption —a view that cognitive science has decisively debunked.
The young woman I was tutoring, was in the traditional setting, struggling when she did not have to. She got a 90 on the test because that was a truer representation of who she was in relationship to learning calculus. Yet, the traditional approach to teaching her, the Calculus I classroom, was designed to discourage her.
Yours,
Rus
Rus,
It seems to me that progressive education is to the usual as fine cabinetmaking is to IKEA. It’s a labor-intensive luxury, not well suited to mass distribution. Here in my home state, the legislature has done all it can to turn education into rote memorization and drill sessions, in the name of being able to prove, with state-wide testing, that the kids have “learned something.”
At the same time I am thinking of my father, who is an engineering and math guy who has patented an algorithm: that is to say, not the kind of guy you think would go to graduate school to study poetry. But he did, last year. And he’s now working on a series of chapbooks. Since we’ve both done scientific-type work and we’ve both now written poetry, we’ve talked about the different mindsets one uses to do each kind of work. (And we’re both big Billy Collins fans. I also like X. J. Kennedy.)
I agree (if I get your meaning right) that a work of art cannot really be compressed into some kind of definitive summing up. I think Kant’s indeterminate/determinate distinction applies here. Art is the recreation of experience, and and it doesn’t really reduce well into a closed explanation or definition.
What got my father excited about poetry was that the instructor had several intensive weekend-long workshops during the course. He and his classmates were immersed in it, and that helped him to “get it.”
Which makes me think that getting people more engaged with science and the arts is best done by helping as many people as possible cross the line from being spectators to practitioners.
Whoops, Rus, I see you already made that point here:
“We need to go one step beyond exposure, the NOVA programs, the Poetry 180 programs, and move toward involvement, welcoming involvement, classless, unelitist, enthusiastic, involvement.”
So, I agree.
Oh, yes, and Henry Gee wrote:
I think that the motivation for writing anything about science designed to engage the lay person must, primarily, be emotional, to appeal to the feelings – rather than rational, to be didactic, to educate and instruct.
Yes, I think this is so, because people who already do understand the technology and the science do get emotional when they think of the implications — again, I am thinking of my father talking excitedly, years ago, about how we would have printers that build things, and now there is apparently a printer that prints blood vessels
If you don’t have the science background to extrapolate exciting implications on your own, then yes, someone is going to have to spell them out, to share the excitement with you, and walk you through the adventure.
btw I’ve enjoyed your writing style with this blog so much I’m ordering ‘Deep Time,’ in hopes of an adventure. ;-)
@ Rus – if you have a blog, please give me the URL. If you don’t, you really ought to start one.
@ Anna K – thanks so much for your kind words. They mean a lot amid the apoplexy and hysteria this and the related blogs have engendered.
@ Henry.
Here’s Rus’s blog which I’ve not seen before.
Thanks Graham – I’ve bookmarked it.
@ Henry, Anna & Graham,
Thanks very much.
I also have what was suppose to be a small potatoes blog, where I never use my real name: Clattery MacHinery on Poetry and where I only have time to maybe set up one or two posts per month. Yet the most popular post, Alley War Poetry, will probably end up with 80 hits today, and has done well more than that on “good” days. I think this is because I tend to write longer articles instead of the standard blog post. I notice, Henry, that you favor the longish ones too at times. Yet, my most popular poem posted is becoming “Whatever Is”—a shorty, and this defies the Google search reason for the longish post phenomenon.