Do Americans love or hate science?
Monday, March 10, 2014 at 12:20AM Americans are so stupid about science and Americans are so brilliant about science. It’s hard to generalize about a country of 300 million people, but we really seem to have a split personality when it comes to using our brains. American brains: love ‘em or leave ‘em! You choose.
The National Science Foundation recently polled the basic science knowledge of Americans in a (pretty easy) 10-question quiz. Our ignorance was astounding.
25% of those polled answered that the sun revolves around the earth. 60% got the Big Bang question wrong. Probably those same 60% said humans did not develop from earlier species.
Are they (we) just stupid, or is our science education that bad, or are that many people deliberately rejecting science for so-called religious reasons? Who knows? I almost don’t care, it’s so pathetic.
Because we also have the best scientists in the world. Not really, but I need some good news here. Americans are by far the most Nobel Prize winners, over 300, compared to around 100 for UK, Germany, France. Of course we are a much bigger country, richer etc….But surely we have something to contribute to science?
Well, I think we can brag about a few of our science advocates and populizers, folks like Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Public teachers of public science. They’ve all been in the news a lot recently.
Bill Nye is known affectionately as “The Science Guy” after a creative and popular TV show by that name he had in the 90’s. Last month he debated Ken Ham, founder of Tennessee’s Creation Museum on “Creationism vs Evolution.” Many in the science community criticized Nye for even talking with this nutcase, but Nye saw the publicity and education value of a well publicized event. Consensus is he “won” the debate, and not long after he was at the White House and took this cool selfie with President Obama and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
From fb.me/beingliberal.org
One of Ham’s many weird ideas is that religion explains the past, and science is only allowed to discuss the future. The past is over and unobservable. Nye had a great comeback: “You can’t observe the past? That’s all we do in astronomy, that’s what it is – looking at the past. By the way, you’re looking at the past right now. The speed of light bounces off of me and gets to your eyes. And I’m delighted to see that the people in the back of the room appear [makes a minute gesture] just that much younger than the people in the front.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the host of a new TV show on the Public Broadcasting System starting this week, “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey.” The 13 week series, which will be introduced by President Obama (can you picture Bush doing that?) is an homage and sequel of sorts to the historic PBS series “Cosmos: A Personal Journey” that Carl Sagan did in the 80’s. A groundbreaking effort in science-themed TV, the original Cosmos was eventually edited and marketed around the world, rebroadcast with updates in the 90’s by Ted Turner and eventually seen in 60 countries by over 400 million people.
Tyson is the very smart and very personable Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, a great communicator, an irreverent and funny guy. He has a lot to say about stars and space, but also about what scientists do, and don’t do. Like:
“You can’t be a scientists if you’re uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, ‘Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board.’ It’s as though we’re sitting in our offices, feet up on our desk – masters of the universe – and suddenly say, “Oops, somebody discovered something! No. We’re always at the drawing board. If you’re not at the drawing board, you’re not making discoveries. You’re not a scientist; you’re something else. The public, on the other hand seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty.” (Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier)
Carl Sagan died too young, age 62, in 1996, but his wife Ann Druyan, also a scientist, who was a co-writer and producer on the original Cosmos series, got this new one going by talking with Tyson and enlisting the support of Seth MacFarlane, of all people. He’s the creator of crude Fox comedies like Family Guy and the movie Ted, highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. And he’s a science and science fiction geek who saw the original Cosmos series as a kid and was turned on to science. And has lots of money. And good connections with Fox. According to him they shopped their series idea around to all the networks and none would give them much support or artistic freedom or money. Until they went to Fox. Who gave them complete freedom and lots of money.
That’s Fox, whose rabid conservative “news” division feeds the anti-science know-nothings trying to take over America. The same Fox, who will now help inspire a new generation of great American scientists, we hope. That’s America, so ambivalent about science.
Druyan has said their hope, in both the original series, and this one, is to teach both the scientific method, to be skeptical, and to inspire wonder. That was Sagan’s genius, to call his series his “personal journey,” into new possibility, the future, space, the cosmos.
I’m with Jane Austen; that’s the best kind of conversation.
Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter
Reader Comments (1)
Deborah, great post about an amazing new series. Chris and I are enjoying watching it. Amazing to learn that Ham thinks religion explains the Past and science the Future. I think Jesus was all about the Now and how it is constantly creating the Future. Love your writing! -Anne