As we wrap up our week of op-eds dedicated to science education in America, it feels like we should have some grandiose assessment to make about the state of science. Some sort of condemnation or proclamation should be issued, something that tells us exactly where we are and where we should go in the future.
I won't be doing that—nor could I do that if I tried. The truth is, a week's worth of columns couldn't possibly come up with one ultimate answer.
But it does illuminate some of the problems we have, and in that respect I think we were at least moderately successful. We've looked at the rhetorical tae-kwan-do match between scientists and religious followers, the lack of nuance in environmental education and how Ms. Frizzle was probably a better teacher than that douchebag who taught your high school biology class. But there is one aspect that I have always personally worried about that deserves a look before the week is up: Why is it so hard for people to think like a scientist these days?
Examples of anti-scientific thought have been abundant in recent weeks. Climate change deniers recently pounced on the unusually large snowstorm that bombarded Washington, D.C., causing many who weren't used to seeing snow in the nation's capitol to believe either climate change had been debunked or someone just made the largest cocaine dump ever. A recent op-ed in The Cap Times made the ridiculous alarmist claim that no exposure to radiation is safe, relying on one of the most common anti-intellectual fallacies that we can't know something unless we are 100 percent sure of it.
Granted, these examples were anecdotal, which itself is not a scientific argument. But the important thing is that we realize that. Most of the American public, however, does not.
To look into this phenomenon further, I talked with Dr. John Rudolph, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at UW-Madison who specializes in the history of science education. He mentioned how times have changed since the space race was at its height.
""There was an unprecedented effort among elite scientists to infuse a general understanding of science in the general public,"" Rudolph said.
It seems that in the age of standardized tests, a plague upon all our schoolhouses, we have lost sight of this general understanding. It no longer matters if students understand the ideas behind science, just how much information they can cram and memorize for the test. Even Advanced Placement classes in high school, such as those for biology and chemistry, encourage this sort of thinking with their end-of-the-year tests while claiming to offer college-level learning experiences.
""The problem with AP classes is those courses are focused on content mastery instead of interaction,"" Rudolph said. But in order to appease parents' demand, more testing is put in place and more class time is spent teaching to the test.
I was lucky enough to have a high school AP chemistry teacher who practically gave us free reign over the chem labs (you rock, Ms. Koch-Laveen). We learned considerably more conducting all means of experiments, sanctioned or otherwise, than we did from the textbook. But even Ms. Koch-Laveen had to set aside some time to prepare us for the test, including one class day where we tested scantron sheets to see what pencil marks were acceptable (granted, we did use the scientific method).
This is a trend that the United States needs to get away from. According to Rudolph, other countries such as South Korea and China, which traditionally have relied more on standardized tests than the United States, have been hearing vocal calls to move away from the system and have actually been envious of how much synthesis learning U.S. students experience. Ironically, the countries on the verge of passing us technologically and economically are moving away from standardized testing just as the U.S. is delving deeper into it, and according to Rudolph it may only get worse.
""I think this notion of a testing society has a pretty strong hold and its not going away very soon,"" Rudolph said.
I sincerely hope this doesn't come true. For science to continue to prosper in our country, we need people who can process and truly comprehend its concepts, not just regurgitate information. If not, we might as well be run by robots. And unfortunately, that won't be an option because in the future, we won't be smart enough to create them.
Todd Stevens is a junior majoring in history and psychology. Please send all responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
