Public Science Literacy Must Be Increased To Stem Tide Of Anti-Science Sentiment

Anti-Science Sentiment Author: LEON M. LEDERMAN Anti-science sentiments have waxed and waned over the past few centuries, shifting with public awareness of science and its conflict with authority. There is little doubt that we are in a waxing phase today (see story on page 1). For the scientific community to react to the new onslaught, it is important to appreciate the diversity of anti-science armies arrayed in the field. Most familiar among them are the religious fundamentalists, some left over from the Galileo affair but now reinvigorated by the political success of clerical states. Fundamentalism -- the polar opposite of scientific skepticism -- is by no means unique to Islam: We recognize Jewish fundamentalists in Hebron, the Christian religious right in the United States, and a variety of other sects around the world. The spread of radical fundamentalism is surely a major concern of our times. Today, anti-science in academia bubbles up out of what seems to this experimental scientist as an interesting brew of far-from- settled philosophical angst. But philosophers have been biting at the heels of science for more than 400 years. How many of them understand that the enduring criteria for good science are, always, rationality and skepticism, freedom and revolution, aesthetics and passion, and, oh yes, internationalism? The scientific worldview, however tentative at the edges, will hold. A quite different critique of the scientific enterprise has been most eloquently formulated by Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D- Calif.), among others. One can put this in the form of a cri de coeur: As our knowledge base has expanded over the past 50 years, why have we not seen a corresponding decline in social problems like poverty, poor education, racism, and pollution? Brown must know that while science and its associated technologies can empower people, science does not direct how these new powers are used. We must distinguish science from scientists. Science is the body of knowledge accumulated over the millennia. Scientists, like policymakers, span the range of human qualities. Scientists continue to work on terror weapons and for tobacco companies. Scientists experimented on concentration camp prisoners. But scientists have also taken the lead in warning the public about nuclear dangers. Epidemiologists blew the whistle on killer cigarettes. Other scientists alerted the public to changes in the ozone layer, and to the greenhouse effect. Yet we have not seen the political will to give priority to environmental remediation, to ban cigarettes, to control childhood infections via vaccination, to attack our educational crisis. In general, we have not used the empowerment that science provides to address the issues that so trouble George Brown. Instead, today, the political mood is to abandon investment in science for the sake of deficit reduction. An important source of all of this diverse anti-science sentiment comes from a failure of our educational system to produce a science-literate general public. Currently we have a public that welcomes and enriches fortune tellers, fakirs, mystics, astrologers, sorcerers, faith healers, seers, palmists, phrenologists, witchcrafters, paranormals, clairvoyants, creationists, and (whew!) others. Needless to say, the absence of critical thinking -- and of the skepticism that a science-literate tradition would instill -- also empowers the televangelist con men and the Limbaugh-esque far-right talk show hosts. Admittedly, it is a matter of faith to assume that a science- literate public would support science. I would take my chances. I would hope that education, rich in the history and content of science, might eventually diminish the hostility of our academic colleagues, which so often derives from a lack of understanding of how science works. It is clear that fear and superstition thrive on ignorance, and an informed population can direct the power of scientific knowledge to socially beneficial ends. Historically, the long-term payback to society of basic research has been staggering. It is clear that the attack on science endangers the prospects of future generations. While economic and pragmatic arguments in support of science are powerful, they do not touch on the cultural force of our deepening scientific understanding of nature: the breath-stopping clarity of special relativity, the awesome truth of our expanding cosmos, and the splendid architecture of DNA. In this sense, anti-science opposes future contributions to human values and culture: This is the transcendent literacy that we must teach to all. Leon M. Lederman is director emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and a professor of science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #14, pg.13 , July 10, 1995) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu

Public Science Literacy Must Be Increased To Stem Tide Of Anti-Science Sentiment

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