Comments on: What is Scientific Literacy?

By: gradstudent

gradstudent — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:46:54 +0000

It just scares me when someone who finished high school and a Bachelors degree in Arts asks me about the veracity of the claims on, for example, this website: http://projectcamelot.org/big_picture.html. That a fairly well educated person can’t distinguish truth from outrageous fiction is highly disturbing.

It is even more unsettling that as a group, people lacking of critical thought could be swayed into believing there is just cause for mass hysteria, which could have a very real impact on society: sudden changes in the economy, crime rates, etc. So while one such person may evoke our sympathy, I think we need to guard against chaos through better education.

By: ashtonB

ashtonB — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:14:44 +0000

…that science-literacy ‘survey’ by Harris Interactive for the California Academy of Sciences is itself a prime example of science ignorance.

It claims to use the science of statistical-sampling to measure the scientific-literacy of adult Americans. But it’s actual methodology so shockingly incompetent … that the survey & conclusions are worthless.

95% of the people originally selected as the ‘random sample’ for the telephone survey did NOT participate in the survey or results. (Non-Response Rate was 95%)

Most Americans these days are tired of telemarketers & pollsters annoying phone calls — and will not cooperate.
And cell-phone-only Americans are usually excluded entirely.

Since the pollsters were not even close to getting a scientific random-sample… their conclusions on the scientific-literacy of the overall American adult population have NO scientific validity — a total joke on those who take the “results” at face value.

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:06:00 +0000

“Unfortunatly, if you think about it, almost half the people you know are of below average inteligence.”

Say what? (I wanted to write “Que?” in the style of Manuel from Barcelona but couldn’t
find the upside-down question mark.) Assuming the people you know are a fair sample,
then it would be exactly half, within the statistical error. (We don’t have to think about
median, mean, mode etc since to first order, IIRC, the distribution of IQ is Gaussian.)
There is a story about President Eisenhower being extremely surprised when an aide
remarked that half the U.S. population is below average in intelligence. We need a
way to get most of our population up to over average in intelligence! Like those spam
emails saying “We’ve managed to get thousands of websites into the top 10!”. On the
other hand, the people you know are probably not a fair sample.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:59:35 +0000

I don’t see anything really alarming here. I wish people could have at least answered a year on the first question, but I don’t think it shows anything other than a knowledge retention problem. After schooling is done, people get absorbed into their daily routine and forget most of this stuff. I’ve only been out of school for 10 years, went through math up through Diff EQ, and I couldn’t do a derivative without looking things up now. I swear I lose an IQ point every time I open up Excel

Critical thinking is the key. I don’t think our problem is that bad though. A better test would be to give a random group of people a problem solving exercise based on their current work activities. To pull a number out of nowhere, I’d guess 30 – 40% of people would do OK. I’m not so sure we can really fault people for not having the curiosity to learn about a lot of things outside of their immediate experiences. Society seems to be driving us into ever more specialized roles.

By: Factoid-based Learning « In the Dark

Factoid-based Learning « In the Dark — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:01:49 +0000

[...] There’s a post over on cosmic variance that asks the question What is Scientific Literacy? Some of the comments reminded me of a book review I did for Nature a while ago, so I thought [...]

By: adrianburd

adrianburd — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:44:12 +0000

chemicalscum

“I would check your own scientific scientific literacy.”

Thank you for pointing that out – I will certainly do so.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:30:32 +0000

When did the Earth start revolving around the Sun, instead of its axis?

By: chemicalscum

chemicalscum — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:34:19 +0000

Adrian Burd

“Mark, I would agree with almost everything you wrote. My only point of contention concerns your
singling out of question 3. Surely question 1 is also of the same type, having a number at ones
fingertips? ”

Umm! The time taken for the earth to move round the sun is one year. That is the definition of a year. I would check your own scientific scientific literacy.

By: wds

wds — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:34:14 +0000

The 3% figure of fresh water apparently includes ground and atmospheric water as well. It’s also a bit of a misleading question asked right after “what percent of the planet is covered by water” as you’ll start thinking in terms of percent of ground covered and lakes can seem to be quite a nice percentage of the world’s surface (though it’s probably pretty low as well, but how can I know without measuring it? mental bias sets in here).

If you think science is about what people are being taught in high school or lower then you’re wrong anyway. I’ve not been to a US high school but to all accounts I’ve heard it was just like mine: sit there and accept the facts. This plays into this idea of science as the deliverer of golden truth. Perhaps what people really need to learn in high school is some basic epistemology.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:10:17 +0000

Another recent depressing statistic is that only ~55% of the country has at least a HS diploma. My own brother resides in that database, and firmly believes that Rush = God.
Lets get real..the primary fault of democracy is simply the credo that `Majority Rules’ is the best possible model for govnt. Sounds great in print, but the last 8 yrs has been a ringing indictment of democracy on that basis. The `majority’ is basically ignorant of the basic tenets of science, is proud of it, distrusts those that are not, and believes in a world view that is medieval. Worse still, we scientists & educators go around naievely believing that we can change that. 40 yrs of failure emphatically reverberate : “No way”.
A few percent or so perhaps, but my post-sputnik generation was the first to receive those infamous shots-in-the-arm known as `PSSC’(Physical Science Study Committee), and the `New Math’ (set theory). Neither approach has worked after 4-decades of valiant effort. It is a lost cause.
As such, we must seriously question historical orthodoxy & ask: Is democracy a failure in this regard ? Might not at least western civilization be better off without majority rule ? Do we really want the Bushian majority to rule & vector the course of future history ? It sounds heretical, but maybe democracy has failed, and it’s time to ask if there is a viable alternative, in which leaders are NOT chosen on the basis of their appeal to a majority ignorant of basic science & mathematics ?

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:55:07 +0000

I have never believed these surveys about how nobody knows anything. If someone called me up and asked “Who is the the Vice President?” or “How many times a year does the Earth go around the Sun?”, I would certainly play along. Really, if you ask dumb questions, then you deserve to get dumb answers.

By: Monroe

Monroe — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:57:46 +0000

I’m wondering if anyone besides me dislikes the ubiquitous phrase “critical thinking”, especially when thought of as a “skill that should be taught in school”. I’m not even sure what people are talking about here. Has education in the past few decades really changed so fundamentally that “critical thinking” (whatever it might be) was once taught in school but for some reason no longer is? I would bet that essentially anyone who is considered to possess good “critical thinking skills”, attained those skills mostly from dealing with life in general (both in and out of school) rather than from specific “critical thinking” exercises invented by some educator. How many adults look back and say something like, “Ah yes, until I took Ms Bader’s algebra class my critical thinking skills were sorely lacking”?

Parents know only too well how adept their kids become at constructing arguments for why they (the kids) should be allowed to do such and such, buy this or that, etc. Children are constantly arguing, analyzing, evaluating, scheming, predicting, and so on. Surely, it’s this constant dealing with life that develops “critical thinking” far more than, say, having a science teacher spend a few days on “the scientific method” and then give the students an assignment where the poor students must gather data, construct a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, blah, blah, ….

I’m not saying that 12 or more years of schooling doesn’t play a role in developing “critical thinking” but I imagine that most of the development comes from students thinking about how to get the best grade for the least amount of work, or predicting what the consequences will be if they skip class or fail to turn in an assignment, or deciding whether or not to hang out with so and so, or…(fill in any one of a hundred other challenges faced by kids at school). Just weigh all those challenges against Mr. Jones saying, “OK, class, now we’re going to do an exercise in critical thinking….” (ARG!)

By: David Dalcanton

David Dalcanton — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:11:46 +0000

I once taught a senior physics class in which no one knew how many weeks there were in a year. When I told them that it was the same number of cards in a deck, they did not know that either. I retired just a few months later.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:10:38 +0000

Are they counting the polar ice caps as “fresh water?”
3% seems to be a bit on the largish side…

By: John R Ramsden

John R Ramsden — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:38:19 +0000

I guess an extreme example, albeit fictional, of favouring critical thinking over rote learning was Sherlock Holmes.

Didn’t his sidekick Watson once mention some elementary astronomical fact to him, such as pointing out that the Earth orbited the Sun rather than the other way round, only to be rebuked for burdening him with useless information which he would forthwith try and forget?

By: Clerk

Clerk — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:12:30 +0000

Feynman once said “There is a difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something” and that’s the problem! No one cares!!! They are all clones on the death star, they don’t know how it works but they know they are there. Personally, I’d like to think that I’m a curious Tie Fighter pilot who was drafted! Now are we wrong for wanting to know or are they wrong for not caring? That’s the $64,000 question! I know I’m not the most intelligent person in the world (without spellcheck I would be legally stewpid!) but I cant help but be struck by the wonderment of nature and it’s mysteries. Is that wrong? In our society for far too long we Hero’s (that’s right I said it!) have been mocked and judged for “Knowing stuff”! But fear not Comrades redemption is near. Our quest for truth* is at it’s zenith and we will triumph! Before the Postindustrial Revolution, science could be ignored and even discarded; not anymore. The masses are becoming more and more aware of the truth (Wikipedia) which plays to our advantage, heart surgery doesn’t perform itself, IPods aren’t magic musicy boxes, plastic isn’t mined from the earth, and a year is 365 days for a reason. Scientific reasoning gave us technology and technology is the interpreter to the masses, that’s right foes** your morning grande fat free extra whip latte is a gift from some clever and highly caffeinated Scientists… And that’s the poop***! Now for a quick tale of my story. I too was once in the dark, I know I know and for that I am sorry, but I hit my own Scientific Revelation not too long ago and I am not looking back! And there are more like me, it’s working (slowly but surely).

* Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici — cheesy I know; but valid.

** Loosely used term, I really don’t think of nonbelievers as foes.

*** Look it up!

By: Simian

Simian — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:56:52 +0000

I also couldn’t find Kuala Lampur (or half the “-stan” countries), but I know exactly where my atlas is. I’m stunned at the numbers of my neighbors who don’t even own a dictionary, let alone any other basic reference materials. The lack of scientific literacy is tied to a simple lack of curiosity, which is a trait I can’t even fathom. What else makes life interesting?

By: coolstar

coolstar — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:03:17 +0000

Casey Jane & Adrian Burd: I often explicitly state Adrian’s version regarding the science section of the New York times as being one of the main goals of my intro classes.

By: Cormac O R

Cormac O R — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:34:07 +0000

Excellent post, I couldn’t agree more. It has always seemed to me that learning who to listen to is the real key. If societ loses this skill, science in particular is in danger of being shouted down

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:31:05 +0000

eh, rote…