We are failing.
In a modern society increasingly ruled by scientific and technological advances, too many people in America are turning an ignorant eye toward the sciences, even to the extent of dismissing the value of a generic passing understanding. Why? Is it too easy to focus on ‘American Idol’ and too difficult understand the difference between planetary revolution and rotation, or a virus and an infection. A general science comprehension is not a matter of memorizing equations, chemical formulas or even constellations, it is a matter of understanding the scientific method, an awareness that the best way to understand the universe is through critical analytical methods, and that without science nearly all of the comforts and infrastructure we enjoy in our daily lives, most likely would not exist.
The ignorance is phenomenally stunning and frustrating at the same time. Hospitals are facing increasing difficulties fighting super-strains of bacterial infections because antibiotics have been over requested/over prescribed for every little sniffle and every little cough. With little knowledge of the distinction between antivirals and antibiotics, patients will fall ill and aggressively request an antibiotic for what is more often a virus and not an infection, many doctors give in because of backlogged caseloads and patient persistence. The ‘bugs’ that were once controllable and curable with conventional antibiotics have now evolved a resistance. It seems nearly every year, one of my co-workers will make the unfortunate claim that they got the flu after getting a flu shot (you cannot, it is a dead virus contained in the shot), then this simple correlation/causation fallacy leads them to abstain from the shot the following flu season. Additionally, there are great misunderstandings among the general population of what the ‘flu’ exhibits as symptoms, and many times the common cold is confused for influenza.
Then, there exists a continual questioning of funding for NASA. A common chorus among those who poorly understand science, “why are we spending millions of dollars to send robots into space or another planet when we have so many problems on earth?” This comment is extremely frustrating and most people simply do not understand the benefits garnered from the space program. Along with a greater understanding of other planets, we also learn more about our own. Additionally, we have gleaned every-day technological advances in our homes, our work, the medical facilities and in our cars from space engineering and technology. The devices with which you text your friends, navigate a car with pinpoint accuracy and view breaking news from around the world would be most likely non-existent without the advances made since we first launched rockets into space.
But, the problem is so much more than appreciation, it is almost a complete incomprehension for many people when it comes to science and methods by which knowledge is garnered. Appreciation will not come from memorizing facts or formulas for a standardized test, it is fostered through inspired teachers who love the field and are excited to pass the knowledge on to others.
Science is not difficult when presented an interesting manner where we can relate it to our every day lives, too many people just do not see the connection.
“Your kindness for weakness I never mistook
I worried you often,yet you understood
That life is so fleeting,these troubles won’t last
Forever”
This article might be too complex to understand than reading some other grapevine rumors of single paragraph at most.
I think the lack of science understanding is a signal of a larger problem. Many people in the US have little to no respect for education. It has become a virtue to be ignorant.
GO BOLDLY WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
If I would say, my fellow-citizens, that we shall send men to the moon,
240,000 miles away from the control-station in Houston,
a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field,
made of new metal-alloys, some of which have not yet been invented,
capable of standing heat and stresses,
several times more than have ever been experienced,
fitted together with a precision, better than the finest watch,
carrying all the equipment for propulsion, guidence, control,
communications, food and survival…
on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body,
and then return it safely to earth,
re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour,
causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun,
almost as hot as it is here today (smile)…
and do all this and do it right,
and do it first, before this decade is out,
than we must be bold.
Whole space program is fake!
I’ll grant you the flu/cold or bacteria/virus nonsense, I grow more frustrated with that fodder year after year. However, I think you might be going a bit harsh on those who don’t understand why the space program is so important. It takes a bit bigger cognitive leap to connect rockets and moon walks to your everyday life. Sure, you or I may see the tangible benefits but I think the bigger issue should be portraying things in a light that anyone can comprehend, not scorning hopeless ignorance.
I could not agree more. Friends of mine recently gave me the whole “Why are we sending people to space when we have all these problems at home” or even worse “I don’t think we landed on the moon at all.” It was terrible.
All I have to say is “Ex astris, scientia” – “From the stars, knowledge”
Good Astronomer is stupid.
Something this article fails to deal with is the near total lack of understanding of the nature and purpose of theory in the sciences and other fields of intellectual inquiry. Most people seem to consider “science” a collection of facts, or worse, nothing more than contestable claims and have no idea of how those facts are derived, how they are connected or how they contribute to a coherent picture of the world.
It’s the ignorance of the role of theory in science and its indispenability as part of scientific method that makes it possible for Creationists to dismiss Darwinian evolution as “only a theory” and insist that the mystifications of Intelligent Design be accepted as an alternate valid explanation.
As a big space advocate, I think manned spaceflight is next to worthless at this point in history. I’m glad the Shuttle is being scrapped, and I hope the money is put towards more projects as successful as the Cassini-Huygens mission.
“Dr E” left a comment and it was deleted by mistake, here it is again.
“When it comes to the space program, it might be a good idea to remind folks that we’re shooting rockets, men, and satellites into space, not money. When the NASA spends money, it going back into the economy, back to men and women who work here in the USA. Perhaps we ought to remind folks that we send plenty of money to countries outside the US which dwarfs NASA’s budget.
Dr E”
I was with you until the NASA rant. While it is appalling that people lack a basic understanding of the physical sciences and the scientific method, it is even worse when you consider the general population’s lack of understanding when it comes to the basics of the social sciences — economics in particular.
It is easy to page through NASA’s history and pick out a few technological advances made through NASA’s research funding. It is not so easy to put your mind to work imagining the scientific and technological advances that were lost because the resources that would have driven these discoveries and advancements were forcibly funneled into space research. We very well may have gained warmer boots at the expense of a cancer cure.
Maybe moon dust holds a cure for cancer, how bout you give it time, eh?
BGH – I couldn’t agree more. Do you think you could put together a Top 10 of basic principles or common knowledge everyone should posses?
Gosh, you’re so stupid … instead of moping as to why science isn’t developing, why don’t you just go find the cure for cancer?
Its a cancer of an economy that is far too focused on the consumer. why should we care about science when we work ourselves ragged to buy useless crap that everything in our civilization is geared twards forcing us to buy. It takes a more educated society to build than to buy. why should your average american care what some over-class geek does in space. they got bills to pay. its not like their going to space anytime soon. remember when colonization was a real promise? also christianity is taking over again.
Its a cancer of an economy that is far too focused on the consumer. why should we care about science when we work ourselves ragged to buy useless crap that everything in our civilization is geared twards forcing us to buy. It takes a more educated society to build than to buy. why should your average american care what some over-class geek does in space. they got bills to pay. its not like their going to space anytime soon. remember when colonization was a real promise? also christianity is taking over again.
“Why are we sending people to space when we have all these problems at home”
That is a perfectly legitimate sentiment. Let’s get our house in order first then we will be better able to concentrate on exploring our universe.
To everyone who agreed with the post, congratulations – you have a functioning brain.
To those who feel we should ‘get our house in order first’ – you bunch of retards have no idea that NASA’s budget is a drop in the bucket compared to what is spent in other areas especially now that the massive think tank in DC lifted finance regulations some years back.
To those who some how managed to perform a complete mental fuckfest in their heads and want to denigrate space exploration so that we can fund cancer research (cancer? really? that is not even the number one killer of humans) I would like to inform you that without space exploration we would not have the imaging capabilities that we do which allows earlier and earlier detection of cancer thereby allowing faster treatment.
I swear if people do not start figuring this out we are all doomed.
Adam, If you are serious, “BGH – I couldn’t agree more. Do you think you could put together a Top 10 of basic principles or common knowledge everyone should posses?”, it sounds like a pretty good idea. I might just write it up.
BGH,
Don’t forget about the new “antivaccination” movement.
Steve,
At what point can we stop and say our house is in order? There will always be problems here.
In all fairness with regard to flu shots, look at the polio vaccine as just one example: We thought we were doing everyone a public service when in reality all cases after ‘79 were from the vaccine. They may be unrelated, but the public memory is long and inaccurate.
And come on people, get behind NASA, and all research sciences for that matter. For one thing, Nasa’s 2008 budget was $17 billion, while our defense spending budget was $713 billion. A single javelin missle costs almost 80 thousand dollars. If you want to complain about not having the cure for cancer yet, talk to Lockheed Martin about their prices. Don’t blame NASA just because you don’t understand what they do there.
The problem isn’t a lack of scientific understand, it’s a lack of wanting to understand at all. “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” – We’re approaching that point you see, if the cell phone works, no one cares how it works. I digress, we should be teaching logic and common sense skills rather than forcing science on people anyway. Print a list of logical fallacies out and see how many you can spot people performing in a day, it’s staggering.
It’s not like all NASA spends is on space research. They hire all types of scientists and researchers and not just aerospace related researchers. Not only that, many of their derivative works including machines to detect cancer as well as many other medical benefits. The problem with the general population is that they don’t know what they benefit from NASA or rather that they are just too ignorant of what is going on.
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