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
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