Cosmic Variance and Scientific Ignorance
I don't know how is it that I didn't find Cosmic Variance earlier. It is one gem of a blog. No, it is not just geeky science stuff, though it is run by five theoretical physicists so, you know...
Anyways, today I found this. It does bring about a very good point: for some reason people seem to think that learning basic science and math is relatively unimportant but that everyone -- or at least everyone who we call educated -- must know basic history, literature and other humanities. Our appreciation of math and science needs to be elevated to the same status as the other subjects.
Let me clarify what I mean by basic science and math. I don't mean what people typically learn in high school or even in college "math" and "science" classes for non-majors. The math taught in high school is to math what learning to read and write is to literature and something similar can be said about science. I mean that people should have some basic understanding of the important theories and ideas of science. For example, understand what the "big bang" is and how do we "know" that things most likely worked out that way. For another, people should have a basic understanding of a chemical reaction and the second law of thermodynamics (someone once said this is roughly equivalent to having read Hamlet). They should know that their computer is not a magical thing that understands them but just a machine which can be in a lot of states which are meaningful to the person looking at it and that the complexity of this machine is quite astounding. Some may say that this is all possible without math. I disagree. Mathematics is the language in which all this is expressed and therefore people should understand basic math. No, not just how to multiply fractions, mathematicians don't just sit around multiplying really big numbers. Quite a bit, huh? And those are just some examples.
But hey, Shakespeare takes a bit of work to read and so does Virginia Woolf and there is quite a bit to be gained by understanding all that is packed into their works. Much like there is something to be gained in learning 20th century history or what Freud thought about the way we think and those also take a bit of work. I find that many scientists feel this way about the subjects they don't specialize in, but it seems that only scientists care about science. It is utterly unacceptable that an academic doesn't know the difference between friction and impact. I do agree, though, that string theorists may not be the best choice when it comes to teaching freshman physics!
Anyways, today I found this. It does bring about a very good point: for some reason people seem to think that learning basic science and math is relatively unimportant but that everyone -- or at least everyone who we call educated -- must know basic history, literature and other humanities. Our appreciation of math and science needs to be elevated to the same status as the other subjects.
Let me clarify what I mean by basic science and math. I don't mean what people typically learn in high school or even in college "math" and "science" classes for non-majors. The math taught in high school is to math what learning to read and write is to literature and something similar can be said about science. I mean that people should have some basic understanding of the important theories and ideas of science. For example, understand what the "big bang" is and how do we "know" that things most likely worked out that way. For another, people should have a basic understanding of a chemical reaction and the second law of thermodynamics (someone once said this is roughly equivalent to having read Hamlet). They should know that their computer is not a magical thing that understands them but just a machine which can be in a lot of states which are meaningful to the person looking at it and that the complexity of this machine is quite astounding. Some may say that this is all possible without math. I disagree. Mathematics is the language in which all this is expressed and therefore people should understand basic math. No, not just how to multiply fractions, mathematicians don't just sit around multiplying really big numbers. Quite a bit, huh? And those are just some examples.
But hey, Shakespeare takes a bit of work to read and so does Virginia Woolf and there is quite a bit to be gained by understanding all that is packed into their works. Much like there is something to be gained in learning 20th century history or what Freud thought about the way we think and those also take a bit of work. I find that many scientists feel this way about the subjects they don't specialize in, but it seems that only scientists care about science. It is utterly unacceptable that an academic doesn't know the difference between friction and impact. I do agree, though, that string theorists may not be the best choice when it comes to teaching freshman physics!
posted by rz at 6:18 PM
3 Comments:
I can't really see what you're talking about when you say math in high school is equivalent to reading and writing and stuffs, well because i just got out of high school =P haha... so maybe ill agree with you later on =D
but i dont think it would hurt to increase the levels of science and math in high school, so yeah
I think you are confused, people don't read literature or history, in fact the amount of science and math most people take is way more than the literature or history they do, the real fact is most people just don't read. I think you are confusing things. USA today reports that 15% of americans have a college degree and sure most of those are not in math or science, but they aren't many of them in literature or history. I think what most people know of literature and history is equivalent to what they know of math and science. The bigger problem is most people just don't care . . . well that and america was kinda founded on anti-intellectualism and hard work.
sorry about repeating myself, I need to learn to edit. I went back and read the original piece and they were actually talking about ignorance of science at the highest level (ie professors of the humanities), and its hard to agree or disagree at that level, and hard to know if they ever knew much, I mean thirty years in one field is bound to push out a lot of other more periphery information. That being said, MIT, Caltech, harvey mudd etc does a core curriculum in the sciences, probably along the line of what you are thinking, however they are also science driven institutions, if people have to take core sciences and humanities they don't get to take specialization classes until their senior year . . . I guess you could force people to specialize at graduate school only . . . be an interesting way to change school, something I think you might be able to get away at the higher end . . . but basically impossible at the lower end, where some people never even get past fractions, or the cliff notes of shakespeare. So to summarize, I think at the high end you would be surprised at how much they do know, at least when they first graduate from college . . . and at the low end I think it might be hopeless . . . since they learn neither humanities or science.
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