At The End of the Pier Show, Henry Gee exhorts us to reconsider the fluffy, media-spun view of evolution many of us now possess. He passes this in one of his comments:
The light of intellect in our society is dying – a point I didn’t make strongly enough in my original post (though I meant to), hence the title. And the unfairness? We have a government that pretends to be in favor of the knowledge economy, but does everything in its policies to prevent this. Money talks, and bullshit walks.
While Mr. Darwin waxes forth about the future of mankind, he ends with this bold statement:
And in a late PS, how I regret the decline in the standard of scientific comment in The Times newspaper…Oh dear, the rot has not yet reached its carrying capacity in the popular prints: the Daily Mail, reporting on my statue being moved in the Natural History Museum, opens its ‘report’ claiming my theories are ‘elitist’…I assume that like many critics the ‘Daily Mail Reporter’ has not troubled his, her or its ‘mind’ with my writings before pronouncing them elitist with such brazen confidence. As a doughty defender of my person mentioned, The Origin was a sellout on its first day.
There is an ever decreasing level of understanding of science among the general public. Universities are shutting science departments, high schools teach an abominable amalgam of subjects labeled general science, or something equally as asinine. Thankfully there are small glimmers of light in the darkness. Individuals and Institutions are trying to engage the public more. Jenny Rohn frequently lets us know about her involvement in various events in and around London, and I remember listening to the Naked Scientists at the Cambridge Science Festival too. These sorts of events are to be funded, lauded and attended. And now those of us residing Stateside, or at least our Yankee cousins in New York, can do their bit.
In yesterday’s edition of That Other Journal Brian Greene and Paul Nurse, of Columbia and Rockefeller Universities respectively, published a Commentary on The World Science Festival. This event has attracted the support of such luminaries as actor Alan Alda and Bourne Identity director James Schamus. In fact, a screening of The Bourne Identity will be used to lead a discussion on the neuroscience of memory and amnesia.
This is a wonderful event and I hope we see reports back from any of our Nature Networkers who might be in and around NYC this week.
Drs. Greene and Nurse, and many others have worked very hard putting this great event together. They end their commentary with an exhortation to us all. I reproduce it below; they have phrased it more eloquently than I could.
Through the centuries, basic science has been a key driver of human growth, advancement, and prosperity. Recently, we have seen not only science being relegated to the back seat on matters of public policy where it should be at the core, but also the marginalization of science in all parts of public life. This was emphasized eloquently by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof who, in December 2005, wrote a column called “The Hubris of the Humanities,” in which he addressed the dangers surrounding the public’s “profound illiteracy about science and math as a whole.” He noted that an educated person could never laugh off ignorance of Plato or Monet or Dickens, yet so many shrug off a lack of interest in quantum mechanics or genetics as a reasonable intellectual stance. The World Science Festival is committed to sparking a movement that will reverse this trend by building a bridge over which the public might pass toward a rich appreciation for the challenges and triumphs of the scientific journey.
Hear hear!
Somehow it is acceptable to say “oh, I’m terrible with numbers, me”, but not to admit to difficulties in reading. It’s fine for my non-scientist relatives to buy me books about philosophy “because you shouldn’t just think about science all the time”, but not for me to reciprocate with gifts like The Blind Watchmaker (“you know I don’t understand all that science stuff”).
Canada is better than the UK for this, but it’s still a problem.
More power to you wossnames, Ian – and to the World Science Festival. But I’d just like to see, just once, some publicity in the proletarian prints to some young kid from the other side of the tracks who wanted to succeed as a scientist, say, and not as a pop star or a footballer. Don’t give me Fame Lab. I’m talking X Factor.
Hear, Hear, Ian. The NY festival has been featuring in the past couple of months in the NY Nature Network group, so I’ve been reading about it, sounds fascinating (they were calling for volunteers a few weeks’ back, you got to go to the sessions free in return for a bit of help, sounds a good deal). I hope there will be some reports in the NYC group.
Unfortunately, the misunderstanding of science is widely promulgated on many, many otherwise intelligent blogs, whose authors seem to equate science with a matter of opinion, eg on topics like climate change. What the blogger happens to think about the weather in the past few days is considered as weighty a view as a scientific paper (usually stated to be wrong with great authority). Nigel Lawson recently posted on Susan Hill’s blog (a novelist) promoting his book — in which he calls a modelling study “gloss and spin”. A model is defined by its parameters, but try telling that to the likes of Mr Lawson, ex UK Chancellor, who thinks his opinion is better than anyone’s actual research.
Sigh.
Cath: I’ve been there too. Gifts actually returned to me unread despite my protestations that it’s not that hard to follow! It frustrates the hell out of me.
Henry: That would be brilliant wouldn’t it. But with the ranks of true science journalists thinning faster than my lawn under the glare of the Memphis sun, I can’t see anyone being picked out and written up anytime soon. Even a relatively young Nobelist would be a start (Mello & Fire e.g.)… Then again… maybe I should volunteer myself!!!
Maxine: If I still lived in the NE I’d probably have taken the weekend off work and gone up as a volunteer. Your comments on the misunderstanding of science remind of poor Ben Goldacre over the Teh Grauniad decrying the “humanities” students following the Mythbusters maxin: “I deny your reality and substitute my own”. I have a hell of a job trying to get people to stop saying “Yeah, but that’s only your opinion,” when talking to them about (e.g.) climate change.
Great post Ian – I do hope the Festival is a success. I believe there is an appetite for science out there but, on our side, we need to find better ways to serve it. Part of people’s reluctance to get engaged (or to accept science books as gifts!) is perhaps due to their fear of the perceived difficulty. I think we have to sympathise to some extent – the last 100 years have seen science move into realms that are so very distant from everyday life!
As Jeff Marlowe co-incidentally pointed out, Brian Greene expands on this theme in an excellent Op-ed piece in the New York Times. He attributes the problem to the structured way that science is often taught in the classroom that expunges the visceral excitement that can be part of the process of discovery and suggests that we find ways of teaching, talking and writing about science that capture its true drama (to paraphrase).
I don’t know what the solution is but part of it is for the scientists to try harder. Asked in the pub the other day about my job, I found myself fumbling for words to describe ‘structural biology’ in lay terms (I didn’t use that phrase – makes it sound like a post-modernist movement of some sort!). Later I chided myself for lacking the wit (or preparation?) to have been able to make an immediately intelligible reply that the questioner could relate to.
The Kristof essay that Greene and Nurse refer to in their article of course recalls CP Snow’s The Two Cultures which made a very similar point. Snow was a friend of the great crystallographer JD Bernal whose life was remembered at a meeting in Birkbeck College that I attended earlier today. Bernal is a fascinating and contradictory character (the Wikipedia entry doesn’t nearly do him justice alas) but he thought deeply about the interaction of science and society and would certainly have appreciated the need to engage everyone in it.
PS: V. small correction – Doug Liman directed The Bourne Identity and did a decent job, but was far out-stripped by Paul Greengrass who directed the two subsequent installments.
I forget where I read the following, but it is increasingly appropriate:
“you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts”.
There’s an interesting article on the BBC website today about the unique pride of the British in their poor maths skills.
I wonder if that is A) unique to the UK; I’m sure it’s fairly prevalent over here too. And B) is it just math, or other “higher”/non-humanity subjects?
Of course I’d like to see “suck” on a quantifiable scale too… admittedly there are people out there who can’t even do basic sums, or don’t know/understand concepts such as percent or ratio or fraction. But are we talking about them or about people who when faced with advanced calculus say “Oh, I suck at maths”. If the latter, then I suck at maths! I stopped after GCSE (16yrs old) and never looked back. I’ve never done calculus, stats, applied maths. none of it. My math education stopped with quadratic equations, basic trig., and the like. Everything else I’ve learned as I’ve gone along.
I wonder how useful some of the more esoteric concepts are to the average person. Claims of logic and beauty are flawed at best. I don’t need to understand imaginary numbers to appreciate a Titian.
Furthermore, I think people can do more than they think or admit. Approach Joe Schmoe in the street and ask what’s two-fifths of 15 and he’ll likely brain fart and freeze up. Ask him to make change, or place his work order or check his bank balance and he’ll be fine.