Do not believe the hype about science education. It is humbug!

Students incorrectly believe that science classes are only about some random science thingys that they do not ever have to worry about once they pass the classes.  But, that is not really the students' fault--the teachers and the system, who convey such  notion, are the ones who are guilty of an enormous crime.

Of course, we learn about various scientific explanations--from grand ideas like evolution and big bang, to curious questions like why the penis is shaped the way it is, to everyday puzzles like what happens to the boiling point of water when you go from sea level to higher elevations.

What is behind all that content is the real McCoy.  Or, as Joe Biden might put it, the big fucking deal.  It is about students learning to doubt and then learning to ask questions in order to figure out the answers.

The most important goal in educating our children should be to encourage them to question everything, to not be satisfied with unsubstantiated claims, and to be skeptical of a priori beliefs, either their own, their parents’, or their teachers’.  Encouraging skeptical thinking in this way, as well as directing a process by which questions may be answered—the process of empirical investigation followed by logical reasoning—helps create lifelong learners and citizens who can responsibly address the demands of a democratic society.
And there is overwhelming evidence that one of the key collateral benefits of a more scientifically literate populace is that the seeds of religious doubt are thereby planted among the next generation.

That is from the talk that the physicist/public-intellectual Lawrence Krauss gave after picking up the 2015 Humanist of the Year award.  In fact, Krauss opened the talk with a Richard Feynman quote:

Permit us to question—to doubt, that’s all—and not to be sure…. It is our responsibility…to proclaim the value of this freedom, to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed, and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

To doubt. To question.  Two actions that always trouble the establishment, whether it is science or politics or religion.  Especially religion, in which one believes without doubting and questioning.  A good Christian never doubts Jesus rising three days after he died.  In his Hindu faith, my father believes in the gods and godmen whose "miracles" he has even witnessed in person.

Science, on the other hand, makes us think about these very differently.  We begin to doubt the claims.  We question.  We ask for evidence.

The purpose of education may not be to destroy religious belief, but surely, as Richard Feynman alluded to in the quote I opened with, its purpose is to encourage doubt. In that arena we are sorely falling short.

We are falling way short.

[An] AP-GfK poll revealed that less than a third of Americans are willing to express confidence in the reality of human-induced climate change, evolution, the age of the earth, and the existence of the Big Bang. Among those surveyed, there was a direct correlation between religious conviction and an unwillingness to accept the results of empirical scientific investigation. Religious beliefs vary widely, of course—not all faiths, or all faithful people, are the same. But it seems fair to say that, on average, religious faith appears to be an obstacle to understanding the world.

Krauss offers examples from here in the US.  The old country is no different.  Well, it is way worse there.

I am so glad that Krauss added this:

Of course, science class isn’t the only place where students can learn to be skeptical. A provocative novel that presents a completely foreign worldview, or a history lesson exploring the vastly different mores of the past, can push you to skeptically reassess your inherited view of the universe.

As I have noted in many posts, in my dealings with students, I push them to question their views of the world.  "The academy has a far more important and subversive way" of dealing with such issues--the doubt and the questioning are all related to curiosity, and "curiosity is insubordination in its purest form."  There is no doubt about that.

What are we really watching when we watch the Olympics?

That's what Louis Menand asks, when he writes:

If someone described to you an ancient civilization in which, every four years, at great expense, citizens convened to watch a carefully selected group perform a series of meticulously preset routines, and in which the watching was thought of not as a duty but as a hugely anticipated and unambiguously pleasurable experience, you would guess that, socially, this ritual was doing a lot of work. You would assume that it was instilling, or reinforcing, or rebooting attitudes and beliefs that this hypothetical civilization regarded—maybe correctly, maybe just superstitiously—as vital to its functioning. You would say that the spectacle had a content. Do these Summer Games have a content? What are we really watching when we watch the Olympics?

It is one heck of an interesting question.  What are we watching, and why are watching?

The modern Olympics are a model example of what the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger have called invented traditions—ritualized official or quasi-official events, often presented as revivals of ancient practices or in other ways designed to imply continuity with the distant past.

Well, why would we want to invent such traditions anyway?  Why these rituals every four years?

Modern societies are still obsessed with these secular rituals, in part because almost all of them have become successfully commercialized. Maybe they offer an illusion of permanence and continuity in a world characterized mainly by mobility, change, and uncertainty. No matter what happens to us next year, there will be a Super Bowl. Or maybe they feed our tribal instincts, stimulate the irrational basis of loyalty to our community or our country. Even the most cosmopolitan American viewer of the Olympics has a hard time not rooting for the American. If you watch, you don’t just want to see how it comes out. You care who wins.
And, despite the virtuous talk about the honor of competing and the comity of sport—and the talk is virtuous, and fine as far as it goes—winning really is what the spectacle is all about.

Hmmm .... Menand seems to be voicing that ultimate bottom-line often quoted here in the US: Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.

To me, what was way more interesting than anything else in the essay was the lack-of-sports-enthusiasm that Menand describes in his family when he was growing up because of "an aversion to the belief" that

the ability to run faster or throw farther than other people is a contribution to the common good, and that we ought to honor the athlete in the same way that we honor the artist and the statesman.

Now, if only Menand would pursue that thought in another essay of his.  

Here is one real-world situation that reflects that thought: NASA successfully landed Curiosity on a planet about 150 million miles away.  And it took more than eight months to travel from here.

Immediately after learning about the successful landing, did President Obama congratulate NASA and its engineers?  After all, this President has annually made a big deal of his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament.  With NASA, well, not to my knowledge. Perhaps he did after a couple of days? 

Did Candidate Romney immediately congratulate NASA and its engineers? Not to my knowledge.  Perhaps he did after a couple of days?

Will the winning Super Bowl team be invited to pose with the President at the White House? You betcha!  Because, "the ability to run faster or throw farther than other people is a contribution to the common good" more than, for instance, the NASA engineers' contribution to the common good?  And then we wonder why kids in America don't feel inclined to work on their math and science skills? Oh well!

 

Photo of the day: Curiosity eyes Mt. Sharp

Arthur Clarke observed that when technology works really well, it might easily come across as magic.  That is what it felt like when I watched on TV, last night, NASA's coverage of Curiosity's landing on Mars.  After those seven minutes of terror, it was all high-fives all around. 

WALL-E Curiosity will dig, pulverize, and analyze the Martian surrounding so that we can get a little more of an understanding of those big questions that have dogged us forever: how did we get here? are we alone in this universe?

While it is so tempting to anthropomorphize this machine, it is difficult not to think that Curiosity is a brave little pioneer, venturing all alone in a truly alien territory.  And, for now, it is looking at:

This image taken by NASA's Curiosity shows what lies ahead for the rover -- its main science target, Mount Sharp. The rover's shadow can be seen in the foreground, and the dark bands beyond are dunes. Rising up in the distance is the highest peak Mount Sharp at a height of about 3.4 miles, taller than Mt. Whitney in California. The Curiosity team hopes to drive the rover to the mountain to investigate its lower layers, which scientists think hold clues to past environmental change.

At the presser, the NASA folks pointed out that this cost about $7 per man, woman, and child in America.  That is it!  What a deal it is, when even a danish and a latte will cost more than this at Starbucks.  Odd that we are routinely willing to pay multiple millions of dollars to football-playing entertainers, while we balk at funding such scientific endeavors.  Oh well; every day is yet another revelation of the strange humans we are!

Seven Minutes of Terror: D-Day approaches

NASA's coverage of Curiosity's descent through the Martian atmosphere on to its surface will begin at 8:30 p.m.(Pacific Time) Sunday night and go until 1:00 a.m. Monday morning. 

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