Science Unlearned

It came to me in a dream last night to start a blog about education in the news. Lo and behold the first article I see on Salon today is about Why America is Flunking Science. Science and math were my favorite subjects in school so my heart frowns whenever I see people reject the art and beauty of science.

This article doesn't actually talk about why we're failing science, as much as it elaborates on the culture around science and scientist. It argues on the one hand that movies and entertainment have boxed science into the realm of crazy villains and lonely nerds, and distorted it just enough that if someone by chance did want to be a crazy nerd, real science is much harder and more boring than it looked on the screen. On the other hand, we're not failing science--we're just cherry picking the science we want to trust, which most of the time is wrong.

I think that ideally, scientist and educators want to see science as a benevolent, neutral observer of nature. But in reality it is biased and controversial and used in morally ambiguous ways. Science has been manipulated for political and financial gain for centuries, and that also leads people to be suspicious. I think it's unfair to say it's up to the scientific community to dispel the myths and caricatures about science. It's up to all of us to open our eyes and level our heads. I think it would also help if teachers, even in introductory science courses, discussed the way science is applied to our life and our view of life and society. Students should be given the skills to come to unbiased conclusions and recognize biased uses of science. Just my 2 cents...

Bear with me. It's my first blog.