Taking Bearings

August 17, 2003

Science, along with the teaching of science, benefits from a balanced development of print and media resources. Such development promotes a system of checks and balances that, in turn, promotes information integrity.

Although there is wisdom in the motto of National Lampoon’s fictitious Faber College that simply asserts, “Knowledge is good,” the zoo of modern science communication — reference works, general books, research news, policy documents, preprints, seminars, journals, grant proposals, meetings, books, internet sites, email, newsgroup postings, notes, documentaries, and special programs – at best offers a noisy menagerie of public discourse. At worst, because of a financial draught, librarians and educators can be forced to view resource allocation decisions through the eyes of a hungry crocodile attempting to snatch a wildebeest foraging the river. If only one can survive and thrive, science literacy suffers.

The importance of science and the need to dedicate resources to science education has already achieved valued public consensus. Although most students will not become professional scientists, cultural literacy requires a degree of scientific literacy. Similarly, nonscientist citizens must be able to make critical judgments regarding allocation of public health resources, issues regarding nuclear proliferation, and other issues.

In a Gallup survey released last May, 91% of respondents say it is important for Americans to have a basic understanding of science in order to comprehend and cope with threats such as bioterrorism, nuclear terrorism, and cyberterrorism. An equal share of Americans believes that current science education is not up to the task of promoting broader science literacy.

One facet of improving science education involves the ability to cut through the communications clutter. Librarians, teachers, students, and an interested public must be able find the right tools in print, on the Internet, and on television. This ability will increasingly rely on a balanced development of communication resources.

Bold web sites, built with flash and stimulating doses of java, can offer vivid and interactive applications that may fan a student’s natural spark of curiosity into a flame of understanding. However, with scant resources now increasingly devoted to keeping up with technology rather than expanding content, even the most die-hard-wired Internet advocate must admit that the impressive but chaotic development of web resources leaves room for other educational resources.

Results of a 2001 National Science Foundation (NSF) survey indicated that 56% of respondents who had Internet access knew that electrons are smaller than atoms (compared with 36% of those in the “no-access” group). With all respect due to champions of Internet-based teaching technologies, 52% is a percentage satisfying only to politicians. Numbers that low cause teachers and librarians to roll up their sleeves for more work. It also illustrates that many current web users were sleeping through those “Mr. Wizard” and “Bill Nye the Science Guy” episodes that they earned extra credit for allegedly watching.

For science teachers, it’s nothing short of jaw dropping that, among Internet users, only 52% of those with Internet access knew that humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs. As scientists and educators, we can’t blame those numbers solely on The Flintstones. More dismal numbers typical of non-users (only 63% knew that the Earth orbited the Sun) are enough to drive teachers and librarians toward aging bottles of mimeograph fluid. Clearly, the Internet is not going to save the day alone.

In the digital age, the value of the printed book will change. Its best qualities will become more cherished, its lesser qualities challenged to improve. Reference works, providing enduring access and a solid foundation for library collections, along with general science books will continue to play several roles in scientific discourse and teaching. Bruce V. Lewenstein at Cornell University describes books as “markers of science and culture.”

One measure of public interest in books about science is the New York Times bestseller list. Since the late 1970s, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of science books to crack the list. At least twenty science books made the list for three of those years, and 10 to 15 science-based titles per year now routinely make the list. Prior to 1975, ten (or fewer) titles were bestsellers in a “good” year for science. Surprisingly, at the height of the space race from 1963 to 1969, science titles contributed an average of less than five books per year to the bestseller list.

The natural evolution of e-books and web-based supporting resources means that traditional publishers are in a unique position to bring order to the communications chaos. Most publishers, keenly aware of the demand to develop and integrate books into an increasingly dynamic curriculum, have the tremendous advantage of being able to build electronic resources upon a solid foundation. Seizing this advantage will not only facilitate their own financial survival in the information marketplace, but will enhance information stability and integrity.

Science and critical thinking are intertwined.  Not all assertions or ideas are equal. The late astronomer Carl Sagan warned that “If [students] do not know the difference between pseudoscience and science, they are literally cast into a darkness that has once before haunted humanity.” Alas, the wild West-like frontier development of the Internet – and the increasing prevalence of pseudoscience in books and on television — has proved a boon to science snake-oil salesmen. Obtuse pseudoscientific interpretations can now easily reach a worldwide audience, and too easily influence or divert those searching for science literacy.

In 2000, a story posted on the Fox news website, titled “After 25 Years, Martian ‘Face’ Still Raises Questions,” resurrected and publicized pseudoscientific rantings about the alien origins of a “face” on Mars. Such “we report, you decide” efforts often confuse those with borderline scientific literacy. Although NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor’s data and photos had already established that the “face” was simply an interesting, but natural, geographical formation, 69% of respondents to the site’s online poll indicated that they believed that the formation was made by aliens or that there was insufficient data to decide the issue.

Peer review and stable, dependable resources crafted by experts do not always assure correctness, but in an information saturated world they offer the best protection against credulity. Dependable resources mean that teachers and librarians can spend more time as mentors and less time as sentinels to the gates of knowledge or as traffic police on the information highway.

Serious science, once comfortable in a world of books and journals, can no longer ignore the influence of television and the Internet on public perceptions of science. Television is a medium that traditionally does not always have time to explain complicated stories, and a medium in which images can become more important than substance. To a far greater audience than any lone Internet site could aspire, television coverage conveys a legitimacy of interest in stories that is too often interpreted as legitimacy for the contentions or assertions made in the story. Television is the modern equivalent of “If it is in the newspaper, it must be true.” Moreover, there are increasing concerns about organizations that make scientific sounding claims at media conferences, but then present no evidence to support their announcements. The Raelians, a UFO-centered cult who published claims to have cloned humans via headline and airtime-grabbing press conferences, have proved elusive in providing proof for the scientifically improbable. Based upon well-documented evidence, most responsible reproductive biologists dismissed the sensationalist claim. Ominously, an NSF report cites the fact that a “60 Minutes” segment on human cloning was shown at the start of a March, 2001 House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on the topic.

Television also provides a dynamic medium capable of supporting science education. In the August 1,2003 issue of Science, Terry Sejnowski, director of the Salk Institute’s Computational Neurobiology Laboratory and advisory board chair for a fledgling Cable Science Network (CSN) initiative, argues for a television channel devoted to serious scientific discussion. If successful, CSN intends to offer a mix of documentary material, general science special programming similar to the PBS “Nova” series and Sagan’s award-winning “Cosmos” series, live speeches, debates, and C-SPAN-esque unedited coverage of meetings.

In the Summer 2003 edition of Issues in Science and Technology, Daniel Yankelovich’s article “Winning Greater Influence for Science” argues “only a minuscule number of policy decisions can ever hope to be based on verified scientific knowledge.” If so, then quality print, television, and Internet resources for science must all survive and thrive if we are to improve science education.

We have already demanded it; perhaps we will fund it.

A balanced variety of well-developed, dependable, and available resources offers nothing less than the potential for a meritocracy of thought, where barriers based on wealth, religion, race or ethnicity can be most easily cast aside.