Science
Literacy and Backward Priorities
Art
Hobson
Department
of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, ahobson@uark.edu
ŇThe life-enhancing
potential of science and technology cannot be realized unless the public in
general comes to understand science, mathematics, and technology and to acquire
scientific habits of mind; without a scientifically literate population, the
outlook for a better world is not promising.Ó
[Italics added.]
The
above words are featured in Science for All Americans,1 the
handbook of Project 2061, the science literacy project launched in the 1980s by
the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This statement is even
more painfully true today than when it was written in 1989. It implies that
every student – every
student – needs a culturally and socially relevant physics or astronomy
course.
Science
literacy is important for many reasons, but the most fundamental of them is
this: industrialized democracies cannot survive unless their citizens are
scientifically literate. Think about it:
science and technology drive every industrialized nation. And in democracies,
itŐs the people who decide about science-related issues such as energy policy,
science in the classroom, and much more. If people donŐt understand science, if
they reject science, if they are immersed in pseudoscientific baloney, then the
outlook for the nation is not good.
But
few people are science literate. They donŐt know what a molecule is, or what
causes the seasons. They canŐt or wonŐt read science-related articles in the
newspaper. About 50% of Americans believe that humans did not evolve from other
animals. Physicist and educator David Goodstein observes that Ňour [American]
educational system is bad enough to constitute a threat to the ideal of
Jeffersonian democracy ...Approximately 95 percent of the American public is
illiterate in science by any rational definition of science literacy.Ó2 Despite our many elite scientific
research institutions, America is quite capable of falling into a dismal
third-world status brought on by a scientifically ignorant electorate.
The
physics community is not taking this responsibility seriously. Look at
practically any Ph.D.-granting physics department and ask yourself, ŇWhat are
this departmentŐs priorities?Ó Highest on the list will be faculty research,
faculty grants, and faculty publications, followed closely by Ph.D. students
and graduate-level courses.
Far lower will be undergraduate physics students. Many departments hold
their own undergraduate programs in such low esteem that their stream of
graduating seniors narrows to just one or two per year. My own department was,
for a time, an example. From the 1980s through 1994 we granted an average of
only 2 bachelorŐs degrees per year. Then, in 1994, we tried something new: we
hired Gay Stewart, our first faculty member hired for physics education and
physics education research. Because of her focus on undergraduate students and
on physics by inquiry, our number of majors immediately picked up until we had
about 12 graduates per year during the late 1990s, and over 20 per year for the
past three years.
Even lower are the undergraduate courses for engineers, biologists,
pre-med students, and other scientists.
Lowest, and sometimes non-existent, is undergraduate education for
non-scientists, that is, for that 90 percent of the students who will graduate
to become our K-8 teachers, attorneys, journalists, mothers, business people,
politicians, and presidents. These are the people who will determine the planetŐs
future, but you couldnŐt tell it from the short shrift they often get in
physics departments.
These
backward priorities are built into the hiring, promotion, pay, and tenure
policies of nearly every Ph.D.-granting physics department. Research is practically
the only criterion for hiring and tenure. Untenured faculty members devote time
to general introductory courses at their peril, because time devoted to these
courses is time not spent on research, and such distractions can cost them
their job. Consequently, my department and most others are always short of
faculty members who are capable of teaching introductory courses, and such
courses are often relegated to graduate assistants and other temporary help.
Although
non-Ph.D.-granting colleges do better on the average, I fear that many of them
take their cues from the Ph.D.-granting institutions – poor models
indeed!
Far
from being the lowest priority, physics courses for non-scientists are the most
important courses we teach. All the physics research in the world will do
little good if the state of our nation and the state of the planet continue
deteriorating. Every physics department worth its salt needs to teach physics
and astronomy courses for non-scientists; these courses need to be taken by the
majority of the non-science undergrads on the campus.