Why Science?

Reviewed 9/24/2011

Why Science?, by James Trefil

Access to this book courtesy of the

Why Science? James Trefil New York: Teachers College Press, October 2008				Rating: 4.5 High
ISBN-13 978-0-8077-4831-2
ISBN 0-8077-4831-5	208pp.	HC/GSI	$52.00?

A prolific author, James Trefil has written 54 books on the general topic of science.1 In this one, he explains the reasons every American citizen should understand science, at least at a basic level.

Science is simply a way to learn to understand how the world works. One value of science is that a world whose workings are understood is a world that can be manipulated. That gives us technology — from the stone ax, its blade sharpened by precise impacts of another stone, to the Ferrari Dino 246 GT with its 2.4-liter DOHC engine delivering 195 bhp at 7,600 rpm, triple Weber 40 DCF carburetors, rack-and-pinion steering, independent front suspension, and four-wheel disc brakes.

But an even more important benefit of science is freedom from fear. As Carl Sagan reminded us, science is a candle in the dark. Hold it high, and it will drive away the darkness, banishing fear at the same time.

"Historically, most educators' attention has been focused on finding ways to improve the national supply of technically competent men and women—an important goal. Today, however, faced with national issues that are increasingly acquiring scientific and technological dimensions, we are starting to turn to the question of how to go about providing average citizens with enough scientific knowledge to allow them to participate in public debates in a meaningful way."

– Page ix

In Chapter 8, "The Historical Struggle with Science Education," Trefil makes an important point. He notes on page 127: "That American educators should feel insecure about the results of their work in science is, on the face of it, somewhat hard to understand." He goes on to cite a Duke University study that found that, in 2004, America produced 486 Baccalaureate degrees in engineering per one million population, versus China's 271 and India's 104. This despite the oft-repeated, denigrative statement that those countries outproduce the U.S. in engineering graduates.

Despite this promising conclusion, in the next chapter he turns critical of the entire scope of education, from kindergarten through college. Some of this is based on anecdotal evidence (a course his daughter and a colleague's son took.) He notes correctly that the dirges about the sorry state of American education amount to a refrain of despair. "I am much more interested in finding out why, given widespread scientific illiteracy, our educational institutions have not responded to the problem, regardless of its ultimate cause. About this, I will have a great deal to say, for the fact of the matter is that the educational establishment must be galvanized into action if the next generation of American students is not to turn out as scientifically illiterate as the present one." (Page 130)

A Scientific Habit of Mind

Trefil seems to contradict himself in Chapter 10 when he argues that the goal of scientific literacy should not be for every citizen to be able to think like a scientist. He writes: "The kinds of buzz words and phrases that get tossed around in this debate are things like 'critical reasoning' and 'coming to independent conclusions.' In some sense, the burden of these phrases is that average citizens are supposed to be able to look at scientific arguments, listen to the competing experts, and, using their scientific knowledge and education, decide which side is right." He says, "Let me be blunt—this is a totally unrealistic expectation."

But this is precisely what is required of citizens for deciding questions like the use of stem cells, which involve scientific knowledge. The stem cell debate requires a good deal of scientific knowledge; more, in fact, than Trefil describes on pages 34-38. And he has written that the great ideas of science are simple (a fact which he accuses certain unnamed scientists of wishing to keep hidden.) He's right: the great ideas of science are simple. Einstein's theory of relativity, considered the most abstruse science, is basically simple: it says that mass increases with speed, that time slows with speed, and that gravity warps space and slows time. Getting to these insights took much thought; understanding their implications does not.

I maintain that having "critical reasoning" is nothing more than being able to decide which one of contradictory facts to accept. I further maintain that this is precisely the goal science literacy programs should adopt. You can't teach everyone. That doesn't stop you trying.

Part of the blame in elementary and middle schools he assigns to what he labels the professional mantra of "we teach children, not subjects."2 He thinks teachers should understand the subject they teach, a position hard to dispute. But he acknowledges that much more goes into teaching and textbook preparation than just getting the facts right, confessing that neither he nor any university scientist he knows would last a day in a class of 13-year-olds.3

His conclusions are that elementary and middle schools manage to quench children's natural curiosity about how the world works; that high schools, by a combination of fragmented science curricula and incentive to keep the GPA up for college admission by taking the easiest courses, reinforce that rejection of general science; and that universities put the teaching of undergraduates at low priority. At the university level, he notes, the problem is the tension between time for teaching and time for research, the latter being what the system rewards — a dilemma accurately summarized in the hoary mantra "publish or perish."4 And the Nobel laureates and other top researchers typically get light teaching loads. ""One hallmark of success in academe is to teach less than your colleagues." (page 144)

He bases his curriculum for scientific literacy on "two simple, self-evident propositions" (page 158):

You have to teach the students you have, not the students you wish you had.
If you expect students to know something, you have to tell them what it is.

Fine so far. But then he says, "The second proposition also seems self-evident, but in fact is profoundly out of line with a major school of thought in science education. This is the school that holds that there is something called the scientific method (or, as Dewey had it, a scientific habit of mind), and that all we have to do is teach students this scientific process and they will grasp everything about science on their own." (page 159) I doubt this is what Dewey meant (see the sidebar and the discussion on pp. 118-20) and it is certainly not a sensible position; to reason logically about knowledge, you must possess the knowledge.

And chapter 11 contains an excellent discussion of computer models, what he calls the third way, and how to validate their results. But he declares, "The central issue we have to face from the educational point of view, then, is how to go about familiarizing students with this new kind of science, with all its complexity, so that they can make the kinds of judgments that will be required of them later in life." (pages 169-70) As far as I can tell, this involves teaching them to think about computer models like scientists do. Am I just quibbling here? I don't think I am.

In any case, Why Science? is a worthy effort in a very necessary campaign to increase the levels of competence — literacy, scientific knowledge, numeracy and what Carl Sagan called "baloney detection" — in American society. Trefil understands the urgency of the campaign, and this book shows he has devoted his life to it. It contains endnotes,5 a three-page list of references, and a good index. I rate it a must read, and only mark it down one notch because of the few troubling contradictions in it.

"There are many ways of defining the word democracy, but for me a good working definition is to say that in a democratic system, people who are affected by a decision have a say in how that decision gets made. In the United States, that say is largely exercised through the political process, and the attendant debate takes place in the print and broadcast media. A person who has not been equipped with the matrix of knowledge we call scientific literacy will be excluded from large areas of that debate, and simply will not be able to make his or her voice heard."

"In fact, if you want to make gloomy predictions, it's not hard to imagine the country evolving along either one of two equally undemocratic lines. On the one hand, things may be perceived as being so complex that only a technological elite would be allowed to make decisions. (Oddly enough, I seldom hear this course urged by scientists.) The other, perhaps more frightening, option would be for rational debate to be abandoned altogether and for people to follow leaders who are essentially demagogues. Either one of these paths would be a disaster as far as maintaining the United States as a democratic society is concerned, and the surest way to avoid either outcome is to see that citizens are equipped with the knowledge they need to make their own decisions."

– Pages 35-36

1 This is based on a search at the Library of Congress database, and includes every title he wrote, co-wrote or edited, including original and revised editions.

2 "I still hear occasional echoes of the old 'we teach children, not subjects' in professional circles, although the idea that a teacher has to master subject matter (in addition to teaching methods) is more widespread now than it once was. Part of this bias against subject matter was the notion that the goal of education, at least in the elementary and middle schools, was to enhance self-esteem, to make the students feel good about themselves." (page 133)

3 I was reminded of the passage near the beginning of Piers Anthony's Macroscope. I reproduce it here.

4 Indeed, he notes that given the new focus on grantsmanship, it is possible to publish and perish.

5 I could wish Dr. Trefil had been more conscientious about citing his sources in the text. However, every reference he uses is listed in the References section.

Errata for Why Science?