And that too a South Indian name.
And, a Tamil name at that.
So, even before I got to reading that piece, I clicked on the author byline, which was darn impressive:
Priyamvada Natarajan is a Professor in the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale. She is the author of a forthcoming book on the acceptance of radical scientific ideas. (October 2014)Naturally, to this curious guy, the next step was to do a Google search, which pulled up her Wikipedia page. She has to be somebody, right, to have Wiki page? I mean, do you have a Wiki page? ;)
There it was on Wikipedia:
Priya Natarajan was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in India to academic parents. She is one of three children. Natarajan grew up in Delhi, India and studied at Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram.From Coimbatore to Yale! A female scientist. Awesome! You read her bio at the Yale page and, if you are like me, you will wonder how people like her and Atul Gawande do all those things they do when I think it is a big achievement when I boil eggs!
Her photo at the Wiki page made me do a double-take, because she looks so much like the comedian/actress Mindy Kaling:
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| This is not Mindy Kaling ;) |
Anyway, back to the original point of departure: the NYRB piece itself. What is it about? On science, scientific method, and why the public, especially Americans, don't seem to understand what science is and what scientists do. Natarajan writes that the public seems to have a problem with the "provisionality" that accompanies scientific findings.
the general public has trouble understanding the provisionality of science. Provisionality refers to the state of knowledge at a given time.Natarajan defines provisionality as:
a slow and gradual honing and growing sophistication of our understanding, driven by accumulating data enabled by the invention of ever-newer instruments.I suppose it can be difficult to grasp the idea that what is held as "scientific" today could be thrown out a few years from now if it is found to be incorrect or an incomplete explanation. So, what can be done? Anything in the education process itself?
The biologist Jon D. Miller of the University of Michigan has been advocating a new standard of “civic scientific literacy,” by which he means a basic level of scientific understanding that would be necessary to make sense of public policy issues involving science or technology. He proposes the teaching of scientific concepts rather than the retention of information. Since the old model is ill-suited to the current pace of scientific and technological progress, the public needs to learn how to reason in the evidence-based manner that is central to science.Did you catch that? "the teaching of scientific concepts rather than the retention of information."
Isn't that what I have been harping on all the time? I repeatedly tell students, blog here, that teaching is not about factoids, and that tests and exams should not be focused on the ability of students to recall information from memory within that defined time. Instead, education ought to be about concepts and how to think with them. Feels great to find validation for my approach in an essay by a fellow Tamil-Indian-American!
2 comments:
If you take "science" broadly, then the principle of logic, reasoning, evidence, proof and repeatability is what the general public seems to have a great problem with. Its not only an American phenomenon ; its a global phenomenon. Many people seem ready to believe a charlatan, or astrology for that matter. There is greater readiness to accept conjecture, rumour, whatever. But when evidence is presented, somehow there is a reluctance to accept. I think the human tendency is to accept what we would like to accept and reject what we don't like - evidence be damned.
Given the American (despite the Tamil origin) author, an American publication, and an American (despite the Tamil origin) blogger, the discussion was about the American context.
However, your point is well taken--damning the evidence and not being able to work with the provisionality of science is a global phenomenon, yes. In fact, one of the examples Natarajan gives there is about Italians suing scientists for not warning them about the earthquake! We are global village idiots ;)
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