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My wife and I just finished watching The Atom Smashers, a documentary covering the search for the Higgs boson at FermiLab. It's an older film, from 2008, but still very interesting. It's a bit downbeat, and I kind of felt like I could just start crying at any moment--but I'm pretty passionate about science in general, and physics in particular.
At any rate, I think the film's most significant message is familiar to many of us on these boards, especially to those of us who will open this thread; and it's something we've talked about at some length: the state of science and science education in the US.
When the last shuttle mission returned, here's what I posted.
What's hurting science in America?
The government certainly isn't helping things along. The 2013 budget for HEP is less than $1 billion. When we're talking a budget in the trillions, a billion is nothing. It's like asking the average American wage earner for a penny. On the other hand, the military spent $1 billion just in advertising! And now we're doing everything we can to weed the ranks. The 2013 NASA budget is a paltry $17 billion, and before you think that's an awful lot of money, it's 0.48% of the total 2013 budget. The government spent $31 billion last year subsidizing the railroads.
There's a lot of tech out there, and our kids are very much integrated into technology and with one another through technology. In fact, I'm presenting a paper this coming winter that talks specifically about the ethics of technology (and its use) as seen through the eyes of our youth. Tech is everywhere, and maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe tech is so ubiquitous we literally don't notice it anymore.
I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone my age and younger who isn't tech savvy, yet I'd be equally pressed to find many people of the same group who could explain how the GPS actually works, or why there's a magnet in their microwave oven.
I could name the top ten physicists in America right now and the overarching commonality would be that 8/10 are senior citizens a year or so from joining the emeriti.
Two schools of thought:
1. Scientists are bad at presenting themselves, so kids don't go into science, and common folks don't trust us because they don't understand what we're saying. Supposed solution: all scientists are required to be hip TV stars, to kids, and "folksy" bumpkins, to adults, and then everything will work out. This is, in essence, what Chris Mooney (Unscientific America) is pushing.
2. People in polls state point-blank that they will ignore any scientific discoveries that contradict their faith, and indeed that they perceive science as an attack on faith and therefore think it's being used for Evil. In the U.S., the vast majority of people share one thing in common: their Christian faith. Jerry Coyne recently wrote a paper (link) outlining the strong correlation between religiosity and rejection of science, and concludes that, unless people in the U.S. become less religious (generally correlated with a rise in quality of life and improved social conditions), they will continue to reject science.
That's an interesting point, Kirth. I just read today that the US is the least upwardly-mobile of all the developed countries--and in a developed country, education is the only real means to assure individual betterment.
Many of the now-washed-out Republican candidates were unique in my memory, this time around, in that abolishing public schools was high on their bucket lists.
Not that the US education system was in great shape before hand, but I'll point out that No Child Left Behind doesn't even mention science. I mentioned in another thread that in grade school (Montessori) my teacher would go to the butcher shop, buy animal organs and bring them into class for discussion. Science, as the field that allowed you to handle brains, was awesome!
Memories are hazy, but I believe I was in second grade at the time.
I have nothing but respect for the teachers, but I think the current public school curricula do little to engage the students. (That relates to the tech is everywhere but might as well be magic problem.)
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I agree with you that the state of science education in America is in trouble. I would argue, however, that is much worse than not knowing how GPS works. I teach mainly premed students introductory algebra based physics classes - something I have done for 5 years. In that brief amount of time I can see a significant decline in the quality of the mental tool set that the students bring from high school.
More than half of my students leave high school not knowing basic algebra. Somehow, they managed to graduate without learning it. I wind up teaching the algebra and trigonometry they need after class hours. Many of them cannot do simple conversions even with the conversion factors. However, one of the biggest problems that I see is that they don't think about their answers and whether or not they make sense. I have had students turn in home works where they are given the mass per unit length of a string, the length of the string, and asked to give the mass of the string in kg and I get answers like 1500kg even though the string is 1 meter long. I have to stress that it is not that they are stupid - they were just never given the foundations they needed in high school and as a result they are terrible at processing and using information. Whenever I have students from almost any other country - they tend to outperform the American students by wide margins (this is not always true but usually it is). As an American this disturbs me. At my university most of the incoming graduate students are foreign because the Americans who applied do not meet the qualifications of the program. Sometimes I get depressed thinking that this is how a country tends to come crumbling down.
I have also seen it outside of academia - among the highly educated. Recently, I was visiting with a friend who is a medical doctor and he invited a few of his doctor friends to have a few drinks with us. We were sitting on the deck and the stars were particularly brilliant that night - one of the doctors asked "what are stars exactly?". One of the other doctors immediately responded "they are like planets but very far away". I thought he misspoke and so I said "you mean like the Sun but very far away right?". He responded "I am not sure actually". I was in shock while my friend was laughing because he was enjoying watching me squirm.
As far as 8/10 of the best physicists in America being senior citizens - I think that is common everywhere and has been throughout history. After working in a field for so long one becomes very good at it. Every now and then you get an anomaly to this and some young gun becomes the world's foremost expert in a particular subject area. In my own field (fluids and acoustics), almost all of the top guys are over 50, but they would be the first to tell you that they were nothing compared to the top guys back when they were young - they still talk about them like they are superheroes and seem to be oblivious to the fact that we young scientist look at them that way. Also, research is becoming so specialized and deep that the days of doing research in multiple fields (say acoustics and general relativity [believe it or not this happened frequently before 1960]) are over.
That's an interesting point, Kirth. I just read today that the US is the least upwardly-mobile of all the developed countries--and in a developed country, education is the only real means to ensure individual betterment.
Pretty much the most stratified too. (Our inequality peers are countries like Senegal.) The old saw is that crazy upward mobility fixes that problem, but it never actually does.
My 2 cents....
I remember taking my son in to his first kindergarten orientation. The kindergarten teacher (who looked to be fifteen to me) started her presentation.
Immediately, one little boy at the front started to crawl around, growling, and and announce that he was "The Lion King."
Now, this child was a kindergartner, and I think it would be safe to assume that he did not show up at this orientation meeting by operating an automobile because his parents were on the verge of discovering a mathematical formula for calculating a trajectory's path from beginning to end. No, they were actually in the room.
But I do not know which parents were the ones responsible for procreating this little Lion King, because nobody as a parental unit exorcised (I know how to spell exercise) their parental powers to shut him up.
The mentality is "he's here now. Somebody paid you money through their property taxes; um......he's your f!%*ing problem, thank you!"
So.
From square one.
Your hopes of having an educational system that is going to compete with educational systems where the children are expected to stand up when the teacher enters the room like some kinda important person like a Judge just entered the room are kinda dashed. Now the teachers all have to try and teach people while they're dealing with this kind of b$%&$#*& out of the Lion King. And the Lion King isn't going to just magically stop it and college prep for particle physics. He's going to pull the least common denominator down just by......being there, man.
When it is the parent's job to work with the teachers, and expect BETTER BEHAVIOR out of their children, instead of saying "he's here now. Somebody paid you money through their property taxes;....DEAL WITH IT!"
There's definitely a societal component to it of some kind. It's a really insipid mentality. You're not going to get anywhere if this sort of thing is allowed to flourish. And it does.
Oh, wait.....oh,.....I see where this thread is going now.
Never mind; it's another attempt to link religion to the downfall of society. I shoulda known better.
Yeah, I blame the church; they're always up there at the pulpit teaching me "let your kids be disruptive in class, and like don't work with the teachers or nothing. THAT'S what Jesus would do."
Then we all throw spit wads at eachother and don't listen to the preacher.
Two schools of thought:
1. Scientists are bad at presenting themselves, so kids don't go into science, and common folks don't trust us because they don't understand what we're saying. Supposed solution: all scientists are required to be hip TV stars, to kids, and "folksy" bumpkins, to adults, and then everything will work out. This is, in essence, what Chris Mooney (Unscientific America) is pushing.
2. People in polls state point-blank that they will ignore any scientific discoveries that contradict their faith, and indeed that they perceive science as an attack on faith and therefore think it's being used for Evil. In the U.S., the vast majority of people share one thing in common: their Christian faith. Jerry Coyne recently wrote a paper (link) outlining the strong correlation between religiosity and rejection of science, and concludes that, unless people in the U.S. become less religious (generally correlated with a rise in quality of life and improved social conditions), they will continue to reject science.
You read the part I bolded, right Spanky? :P
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Spanky,
Or it could have elements of both. I won't deny that parents desire for school to be a daycare centre is a massive part of the problem, but the fact that evolution is considred controversial in the US, well, that is kinda the fault of the bible literalists who tend to be kinda religious. Doesn't mean all christians are that insane, and most fairly obviously aren't, but to say religion has no part is just as disingenuous as blaming everything on it.
Yeah; that's kinda what I figured, and the point at which I intuited that this thread has no real chance of bearing good fruit of any kind.
Spanky,
Or it could have elements of both. I won't deny that parents desire for school to be a daycare centre is a massive part of the problem, but the fact that evolution is considred controversial in the US, well, that is kinda the fault of the bible literalists who tend to be kinda religious. Doesn't mean all christians are that insane, and most fairly obviously aren't, but to say religion has no part is just as disingenuous as blaming everything on it.
Not necessarily.
My point is the whole thing is f!~#ed from the gitgo.You're from England, right?
I think we oughtta should actually go to countries where education works and indeed they're kicking our American asses in and see what they're doing better. But we won't. Americans are kinda sucky at that historically, I've noticed.
India? What the f!+~ do they know about anything? SHEESH!!!
Or we can have a long tedious circle thing about why religion is bad; makes no difference to me.
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I am indeed from England. We...wouldn't be a good country to study as we're having exactly the same debate about why no one's doign science. And your resoning is expressed by quite a few people.
As for the American inability to learn from anyone else, that looks like an inherited cultural trait as we're equally dismissive of 'foreign influences polluting our great nation' ignoring many stupidiites about that statement. On the other hand, I'm not sure the hothousing that goes on in some other countries is all that healthy for children so I have no idea of a good solution.
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Also, neither of our countries have a great history of promoting intelligence. The anti-intellectual culture in both our countries is quite strong, possibly a little stronger in the States with the agrarian tradition, but being smart is not seen as a positive in either of our countries. Being rich is good, being popular is good, being manly (or feminine) is good. Being smart? Not so much.
I worked with a lady who came over from India; I asked her about education here vs. there.
She said one son was doing great, and the other son; when she was in India, they said "I'm so sorry, but he's not gonna be a math genius of any kind. But, we'll figure out something he can do." So she got here, and he's the best at math in his class (well, it is Texas haw haw) but it's Plano, so not exactly dancing with snakes in church or anything. So he's doing great too......
The jist I (think) got from her (it was a quick conversation, years ago) is we in the US are better at teaching creative thought; they teach by rote memorization of facts and drilling skillsets, but we use these facts in more astounding ways somehow.
But I think we need to go over there, and Japan maybe, and figure out what exactly they're doing, because they're kicking our asses real bad.
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When I visited my grandfather last month he gave me his lively, if somewhat vitriolic, opinion on the fading support for the sciences, among like fifty other rants. I would type out the entirety of the conversation that I recall but half of it would disappear under the profanity filter so I’ll just give you the broad strokes. He is of the opinion that part of what changed from the great support of the 50s and 60s to the lackluster care of modern times is that back then the heights of technology where so mysterious and out of reach of the common man that they assumed an almost magical quality in the minds of the uneducated and held immense fascination. Nowadays a startling level of tech is in the hands of us rubes and we have lost our fervor for the arcane powers of science.
“The damnest thing is that people never supported the sciences, not really!” He informed me. “It was merely a replacement mythology and now that the magic is gone you useless wastes of space have dropped support of it even though we are in a position to accomplish more now than ever thought possible! You kids are the worst, you have no interest in the only real thing that can unlock the secrets of the universe and change our lives for the better! I hate you all!”
“I dunno grandpa, I’ve always thought science was pretty cool.” I informed him.
“That’s because you’re so dumb everything is still magical to you boy! I doubt your ability to add two single, positive integers together you stupid piece of s&$!.” He declared.
“I think perhaps I can prove you wrong, but first I’m going to have to Google what an integer is on my iphone.” I replied.
When I visited my grandfather last month he gave me his lively, if somewhat vitriolic, opinion on the fading support for the sciences, among like fifty other rants. I would type out the entirety of the conversation that I recall but half of it would disappear under the profanity filter so I’ll just give you the broad strokes. He is of the opinion that part of what changed from the great support of the 50s and 60s to the lackluster care of modern times is that back then the heights of technology where so mysterious and out of reach of the common man that they assumed an almost magical quality in the minds of the uneducated and held immense fascination. Nowadays a startling level of tech is in the hands of us rubes and we have lost our fervor for the arcane powers of science.
“The damnest thing is that people never supported the sciences, not really!” He informed me. “It was merely a replacement mythology and now that the magic is gone you useless wastes of space have dropped support of it even though we are in a position to accomplish more now than ever thought possible! You kids are the worst, you have no interest in the only real thing that can unlock the secrets of the universe and change our lives for the better! I hate you all!”
“I dunno grandpa, I’ve always thought science was pretty cool.” I informed him.
“That’s because you’re so dumb everything is still magical to you boy! I doubt your ability to add two single, positive integers together you stupid piece of s#~!.” He declared.
“I think perhaps I can prove you wrong, but first I’m going to have to Google what an integer is on my iphone.” I replied.
One of my elementary school teachers would always ask us who our heroes were, but I would never have a good answer.
Now I do. ;-)
My 2 cents.... *snip*
I mentioned this thread to one of my players, who happens to be a history teacher. When I said that the topic was "Why are students of science in the US not progressing?" her immediate response was "because the parents don't practice responsible parenting and teach their kids to behave, be respectful, study, and do their homework, and instead treat the schools like a professional daycare", without a second's hesitation.
That was followed by this rant, which I have her permission to post:
"Because we're so focused on making the schools raise the children to make up for lack of parenting (because doncha know parenting and teaching the little monsters to be citizens who can do more than text during class and learn respect for people who are not Justin Bieber) and catering to the extreme end of the "tolerance" (read: neglect) spectrum that there's no room for actual education. Writing essays? Oh, I can't do that, see I have no creativity and no willingness to even try because my parents will sue you if I get less than an A for my typo-ridden paper because it's my STYLE to spell words wrong and reading's for idiots anyway. Math's for nerds, no one likes nerds*, so I'm not even going to try.
Science has nothing to do with poor education. Society does. Dial back the entitlement and speshulness a few notches, and see if that helps.
Note that I like what I do. It's the politics of the job that rear their ugly heads that ruin it."
*-This mention brings up a very good point, one that we've discussed frequently. Society continues to paint anyone who's intelligent, particularly if their intelligence comes at the cost of or due to a lack of capability in physical performance, as a target for mockery. Thus children grow up with the idea of "no one likes smart people, they're nerds/geeks/dorks to be made fun of" and thus being intelligent is looked down - and thus to be avoided - on until after the childhood years are done. By then you have the people who happen to be lucky enough to be skilled both mentally and physically who are well off, the nerds who have been ostracized thus far and thus are smaller in number than they might have been otherwise, and the rest who are essentially dolts.
How many politicians, administrators, and other people-in-charge have made part of their platform "Let's stop mocking people for being smart"? Not many I've seen.
Yeah; I know; that was on a heiroglyph in ancient Egypt.
And, well.....now look at ancient Egypt.....
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If you feel bad about the state of science in America (or anywhere else)
One of my elementary school teachers would always ask us who our heroes were, but I would never have a good answer.
Now I do. ;-)
Oh yeah, I love that old hater.
My grandpa has a lot of interesting things to say but sometimes I’m not even sure what he is going off about. Like one time we were sitting on his porch and he started screaming at some kids who were walking by to get off his lawn, chased them away good but the thing was they were only ever walking on the sidewalk…
His cantankerousness is legendary and the one incident I really wish I had been there to see that happened years ago but is still laughingly talked about is one Sunday morning my grandpa was at his church and their new minister made some relatively innocuous Creationist claims as part of his homily and my grandpa stood up and interrupted him and started ripping him a new a!%#%%% over how stupid and ignorant and useless he was and how he should read a f@&!ing book other than the bible sometime. Apparently he berated the man for twenty minutes before feeling he was satisfied he had delivered his message and sitting back down. The minister than politely apologized for having offended than got to the point of his sermon, which was that God was great and good.
When people from his church talk about that incident they seem to think it was just my grandfather’s strong belief in a proper education that lead to that rant but I actually suspect it had more to do showing the new minister just who that church really belonged to.
When the Alpha Dog barks, what can you do but listen?
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When the last Space Shuttle completed its mission, I felt very sad, because an exciting era in space science has come to an end.
I also felt a twitch of foreboding: that America appears to be steering itself towards a New Dark Age given the rise of religious hyperbole in the media at the behest of politicians and big business who prefer the masses be kept entertained, distracted, and otherwise ignorant. While not a ubiquitous problem -- yet -- I see blind religiosity is being exploited to undermine democracy. An educated population is too dangerous for the rich and powerful... The manipulation of the general public is a common evil in human history, and the recent attacks on science and education seem like an intensification of the practice.
The good news is people are catching on. More and more people are asking hard questions of those who seek authority... Personally, people who want to be in charge too much are definitely not fit for the job. Or more specifically, leaders have to earn the trust of followers, and not demand it.
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The part I have trouble with is the supposed incopatability of Faith and Science. Both Darwins (Charles and his grandfather, Erasmus) were religious men. Isaac Newton, was as well. And I won't even get into Gregor Mendel. Why is willful ignorance in the face of supported facts now seen as a show of deep faith? And it is not just the Christians either, at one point in history the Moors were the leading engineers of the world, and now Islam is producing as many willfully ignorant extremists.
This is to my perception, the first part of a multi-part problem.
The second part is that people expect the school to be a daycare and have stripped parents of all ability to discipline their children to prevent the excesses of a small minority of abusive individuals. I was recently spoken to in a Wal*Mart, told that I was abusive of my eldest because I made him take a shop-lifted item back in and apologise at the service desk to the assistant manager on duty. I was told it was humiliating and degrading and that I had scarred him. What I had done was made him own up for a wrong behavior.
The last part of the problem in my view (and most people will find this odd, coming from someone of my age), is the end of America's Cold War with the Soviet Union. When we had an implied threat to our very way of life and freedom in the form of a propaganda demonized enemy, our innovative abilities and competitive natures soared to new heights. They did the same things we did, and there was a major push to encourage the best and brightest of their scientists to defect to the West. Since the thaw though, our space program has stagnated, our general research budget has been slashed to non-existence, and our educational system is dying a malingering death. Peace between empires breeds rot from within, and the US is now going to go the way of the HRE and Alexander's Persia.
Our leadership doesn't want intelligent and successful people, they are a threat to its power-base that simply cannot be allowed.
Sorry for the ranting thread-jack.
If you feel bad about the state of science in America (or anywhere else)
Thank you for posting this. I had not come across this before, and I am very excited to hear it exists.
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Here's why the government is important: 1)deep pockets 2)private industry won't invest dime one unless there's promise of profit. Research should be done for research's sake, not just with a profit motive in mind. That's what universities are for, and universities are often largely funded by the state and have close ties to federal agencies to which the students might be hired.
One of my elementary school teachers would always ask us who our heroes were, but I would never have a good answer.
Now I do. ;-)
Oh yeah, I love that old hater.
** spoiler omitted **
Your grandfather sounds just as amusing as Justin Halpern's, who does "S#!t my Dad Says." I would love to read more of his rants.
I am a graduate student in paleontology, and I definitely have stories. For instance, I was TAing the lab portion of a sophomore level basic geology course. As part of the lab, students had to graph data by hand and interpret the resulting pattern. For one of my labs, the majority of students in the class were unable to understand the concept of graphing points on a x and y plot, and most of the lab was walking through a subject I learned in Junior High.
I think the decrease in science education comes from lots of sources.
Parents forcing schools to handle all the work of actual parenting, either because they are too busy supporting the family, they are not physically capable of dealing with a child, or out of sheer laziness.
The "pick your own reality" mentality that occurs on both sides of the political spectrum. Creationists and other of their ilk don't believe in science that disagrees with the bible, and don't want it taught, or want to in generalize water down science education. And, a phenomena that I think largely emerged from the left, the idea that every viewpoint is equally valid, which has also crept into the news media (or maybe the other way around). In science, some viewpoints are flat out wrong and shouldn't be presented with equal weight
Reduced funding for schools and an inability to cater to all types of learning styles
And, a big issue no one has brought up here: the increasingly large number of students who flood colleges not to improve their education, but because "it's a thing to do when you finish high school". It a lot harder to teach a course when a large chunk of the majors are not very interested in the subject, and have no interest beyond filling a credit.
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Why is everyone expecting the federal government to give handouts to science?
Did Edison or Tesla have such handouts?
Tech workers don't have unions and technology, for the most part, doesn't depend on government handouts (obvious exceptions such as the creation of the ARPANET noted). I'm not aware of pharmaceutical companies depending on government handouts either.
So, why is it that scientists in other fields demand it? Can't physicists make a living and advance science by working on integrated circuits (for example)? Can't chemists make a living and advance science doing work on anything from fertilizers to plastics?
Tesla regularly left labs or lost property because he was constantly in debt. Large amounts of his lab work was demolished and sold piece meal in attempts to recoup money for his debtors.
The downfall of the sciences in America is that there are fewer and fewer real families promoting good behaviour and solid academic studies.The attention span just isn't there amongst many of the up and coming generations. They want it done for them and they want it now!
Many of the most influential scientists in history were religous. I don't see the correlation between the downturn in scientific study in America and the church. It's influence is clearly at an all time low, and the popular media goes out of it's way to promote the exact opposite of anything you might learn in church.Ha,i have seen the church blamed for some really bizarre things here on this board, obviously some people have some issues they need to work through.
I have rarely seen textbooks (as opposed to nonfiction) at public libraries. I have also rarely seen libraries accept donated books--unless it was for a fund-raising booksale. I remember one time I lost a copy of C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet and offered to buy them a new copy. No, they said, they'd rather have the monetary value of the book, which, since it was published in the '70s or something, was like $3. Which I thought was weird.
Not that I assume all libraries run the same way.
I'm pretty sure sex is more interesting than science to more people than just Americans.