STL schools widening gap in science education

Could we be moving toward "two St. Louis's" in science literacy?

At the recent Academy of Science - St. Louis awards banquet, the 2007 Innovation Award honoree, UM-St. Louis physicist Sonya Bahar noted her concerns about a growing gap in science education between "the two St. Louis's," extending John Edwards' phrase the "two Americas."

Bahar's concern was sparked by a student at a public school, who told her, not that he did not believe in evolution, but that he did not believe in dinosaurs.

Bahar is right to be concerned. We should all be concerned about science literacy in this country.

The rest of the developed world is surprised at the low levels of scientific literacy in the U.S. Places like Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, all have far higher science literacy than this country. It was not always so, because technology was once our leading edge.

We hear constantly from the Bush Administration, and elected officials of both political parties, about concerns over American students' achievements and test scores in math and science. Still, we are confronted everyday with political attempts to insert religion into science teaching or water down scientific findings that are inconvenient.

You cannot have it both ways. The fall of the Soviet Union, where science had to conform to ideology, should be one lesson from history on the dangers of letting ideology drive science.

Yet, the anti-science drumbeat continues on the right, with the latest example being right-wing comedian Ben Stein's movie "Expelled," an attempt to promote creationism as a new idea that is unfairly being excluded from the classroom by bureaucratic scientists.

Many people in other developed countries, like Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and Australia, are puzzled, even embarrassed by Americans' lack of science knowledge and the on-going Creationism and Intelligent Design movement in this country.

Creationism and Intelligent Design proponents present science and religion as being at odds and seeks to re-fight a scientific debate that concluded nearly two hundred years ago.

Since then, the scientific evidence for evolution has become overwhelming. Also, there are, of course, many scientists of faith. These scientists see no conflict between faith and science, which operate in very different spheres.

There is no scientific debate over evolution, only a social debate. In fact, there are more problems with the theory of gravity than the theory of evolution, although no one so far is disputing gravity's existence.

The reason why there is no scientific debate is because of the huge body of observable evidence in favor of evolution, not because of some suppression of data.

Nonetheless, certain groups continue to argue the point, not because of the scientific evidence but because of their cherry-picking of facts, based on their beliefs.

Certainly, people are entitled to their beliefs but as someone once said, "you are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts."

In fact, many religious people, including Catholics, find their presenting of the Bible as a source of scientific facts to be offensive, and assertions that science and faith are at war to be absurd.

The formation of science and social viewpoints operate in very different ways. In forming one's political, ideological or religious views, one is free to select the facts and bits of information one considers most important and disregard the rest.

One person may find a particular argument compelling while another person may feel that a different set of facts speaks more to him or her.

This means that a multitude of views can be present and even that prevailing viewpoints can shift over time.

Science is different. Unlike religion, philosophy and political ideology, scientific conclusions are based only on observations, data and reproducible experiments: hard irrefutable facts.

All facts must be considered and weighed. No valid reproducible information can be discarded at will.

This means it may take awhile to overturn an old theory and replace it with a new interpretation of the facts. But this inherent conservatism is balanced by the requirement to consider all data.

Science literacy is important for all American citizens, even if they do not pursue science careers, because it is essential to understand the challenges that face the nation and the world.

Ignorance, or leaving the decisions to experts whose work we do not understand is risky. All Americans can gain a basic understanding of science - after all, they do in other countries.

To return to comedian Ben Stein's anti-science movie "Expelled," Stein talks about "big science," whatever that is, rehashing a term that liberals used in the 1970s to distinguish between large, powerful businesses, who often wielded great influence over elected officials, and smaller mom-and-pop businesses, who still are the backbone of the economy and create most of the jobs.

The political right adopted the term as "big government" in the 1980s to describe large federal programs it opposed. What Stein means by "big science" is anyone's guess - science is science.

There is no big central controller, just the consensus of researchers and the body of evidence. If there were sufficient verifiable evidence for creationism, it would be included. But there is not.

The ad for Stein's "Expelled" also has a quote about giving "truth serum" to filmmaker Michael Moore. It is unclear what Michael Moore has to do with creationism or even science but if Stein means Moore's views on health care in America, as shown in his movie "Sicko," it is certain Moore would say those same things under the influence of Stein's "truth serum."

After all, "you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts."