Are you alarmed by gross ignorance of science in the West?

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I think people are reasonably happy to be disenfranchised as long as they are comfortable and entertained. Take the comfort away and they will not be so happy about it.

I don't think abuse of power is going to go away anytime soon. But wouldn't be unhappy to be wrong.

I think we (the U.S., I am American) will have a Sputnik-style wake up call in the near future. It took the Russian launching of Sputnik at the end of the 50's to catalyze Americans into being serious about science education. This pro-science effect started fading in the mid-80's when the right wing religious movement started attacking the teaching of evolution in schools. Science education has been under attack ever since. What will reverse that? I think it will happen when a paradigm changing scientific discovery or technological innovation happens outside the U.S. I thought that was going to happen when Dolly the sheep was cloned in Scotland but that didn't pan out as I'd hoped so maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

I think if we have a hard crash because other countries pull far ahead technologically, that isn't going to help science education any. When times are economically tough, people tend to see science as a frivolity, it's link to technological innovation too remote. Sarah Palin dismissing fruit fly research is an example of that. I think it's important to fight this before we have a hard crash because once that happens, people will hunker down and dismiss science even more as a waste of precious time and money.

I think the single most important fight on that front is the fight to keep evolution in schools and keep creationism out. That right there frames how a child looks at science and I think has lasting effects into adulthood. I was struck by this when I watched the Disney movie Fantasia with my daughter, which was made in the 50's. For those who haven't seen it, it contains an animated segment that starts with the Big Bang and moves through the creation of earth, the life and extinction of dinosaurs, and the evolution of mammals. It is presented as accepted fact- not as controversial theory that must be defended. I was struck by how uncontroversial evolution and the Big Bang were in the 50's. When I saw the movie as a child in the 70's, no thought of controversy crossed my mind. As in the 50's, a scientific worldview was just how the world was presented to children, uncontroversially. All that changed in the 80's and hasn't changed back.

I am alarmed at how few have any idea what science actually is.

The fact that the sciences have tended towards breeding machine tenders instead of thinkers has not helped.

I have met a few I could call scientists, not all practising in the sciences, in North America and Europe. A couple in Africa, none from Asia - but then my sample is extremely limited.

It is ironic that scientific inquiry was tremendously boosted by the first generation of technologic aids, but is being suppressed by the latest generation.

I put it down not to the tools, but to politics, state modulated education being inherently inimical to the mindset that makes a scientist. A quick survey shows that while results have accelerated involvement has declined with the onset of state education and institutional grants.

My idea of it is the idea that the universe is governed by laws which we can discover through investigation and experimentation.





Has it really? There is original research happening all over the world. It gets publicly disparaged in the U.S. which is how this thread started, but it's still happening. I don't think it's quite so rare as all that.



I can certainly see how the first generation of technologic aids boosted it. I'll somewhat arbitrarily call that grindable lenses which gave us microscopes and telescopes. I would say the latest technologic aid is computers. But how do computers- or whichever technologic aid you were referring to- suppress scientific inquiry?



I agree. Grants at the university level steer research, making reseacrhers beholden to grants. At the childhood level (in the U.S.), the attempted insertion of creationism in schools erodes the scientific worldview in children. Possibly even worse is the No Child Left Behind act which mandates teaching to the test and turns children into rote memorizers rather than discovereres.

I don't think ignorance is anything new, but what concerns me is the arrogance associated with ignorance these days. It used to be that if someone didn't know something, they were perfectly content with deferring to experts. Now, experts are considered to be elitists with personal agendas and those less educated see nothing wrong with just going with their gut.

The Dolly discovery that Janissy brought up earlier is interesting. I think that's when a lot of religious people started going a little apesh*t. The creation of life is God's power, and should remain His alone, blah, blah, blah. There's always been a bit of fear associated with the power of scientific discovery, but usually the fear is subdued by the argument for nation security or advancement. Lately, no one seems to be stepping up to make this argument and our country is really beginning to suffer.

Science education is slightly better in the far east than in the U.S. - though more notably in Japan and South Korea than China. However, that hasn't helped the Japanese "eat our lunch" - if anything, they're doing worse on that now than a few decades ago.

In terms of strategic threats, the middle eastern nations are a much larger one, as they have the resources our economy depends on. Their educational system is far, far, behind ours.

Educated nations we can work with. The problem is uneducated nations.

The pro-science effect started fading in the middle 1980s when the left wing made affirmative action a more important factor than actual aptitude in gaining entrance to higher education, thus starving universities of the raw material needed for competent scientists that deserved and could gain the trust of the masses.

Having a population three times that of the U.S. helps. But even without the population differential the Chinese are taking science a lot more seriously than we are.

ruveyn

If I picture mindless automatons, it is certainly not those in scientific fields which come to mind.

It's also the Australians and Canadians. They have an unhealthy number of creationists. Though the percentages are only half of what they are in the US. One of the major creationist orgs, AIG, originiated in Australia.

I think it doesn't help that one of the major political parties in the US spends so much time tearing down science. Republicans probably stand out in the western world as the only major party whose members are usually dismissive of both global warming and evolution. That likely bleeds over to parental attitudes toward science and then trickles down to their kids. They think it's all a mistake or an intentional lie.

I think anti-intellectualism has a lot to do with the society of instant gratification we live in. Impulse control and forethought are both essential for intellectual pursuits. Also this culture of self esteem is a big factor too. All people care about are having all the answers ASAP and not having to go through the trouble of putting effort into it since that would challenge their self esteem.

Wow people seem to think that anything that doesn't always apply to what's right in front of em is useless. Math is one of the most useful things you can know. From functions to algebra to geometry to calculus. I am really sh***y at math but for me to put it down just cuz I suck at it is pathetic.

Make school a privilege, not a chore.



You can afford to be a dogmatist in Science, as you can leech of the work of your predecessors. They were usually right. But any real Scientist questions everything, from the evidence to the methodology to the interpretation. I have little respect for any dogmatist, but I'd tolerate a dogmatist that's generally right.



Understanding Science is virtually impossible without the first two, and the last.

I was going to discuss about anti-intellectualism, but it seems AceofSpades has already started for me. =P

So i'll just continue saying that anti-intellectualism usually demonstrates a certain wariness towards educated members of the populace, which are seen as being absorbed by "the system" (or elite), a system which promotes certain ideas that might not sit well with other individuals of the populace which are "generally" less educated (and more readily influenced by religion <.< ). Hence why those uneducated individuals insist that they hold the "truth" (or at least, part of it) and try to oppose it to science (which obviously makes no sense, since science has mechanisms to correct itself if it is in the wrong). =/

I think another part of the issue is that those who put their religious beliefs ahead of scientific knowledge do so because their beliefs give them a view of the world through rose-tinted spectacles and they prefer the cosy fantasy to what they view as impersonal cold hard science - especially since science is increasingly a huge and complex area of study. Cosy fantasy versus cold hard facts/science? Personally I prefer cold hard facts/science.

Because the The American educational system system was hjacked long ago by teacher Union,left-wing intellectual living in the Ivory tower

They don't teach anything at school these day but only brainwash the future generation into a sort of "liberal agenda" composed by moral relativism , Pro-Islamic, Anti-US,Anti-western ,anti-capitalistic values