Scientific literacy or scientific awareness?Chet Raymo Citation: American Journal of Physics 66, 752 (1998); doi: 10.1119/1.18971 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.18971 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/66/9?ver=pdfcov Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers Articles you may be interested in Tracking Recitation Instructors’ Awareness of Student Conceptual Difficulties AIP Conf. Proc. 1179, 281 (2009); 10.1063/1.3266737 An Examination of Children’s Scientific Argumentation AIP Conf. Proc. 720, 145 (2004); 10.1063/1.1807275 Time for Science Education: How Teaching the History and Philosophy of Pendulum Motion Can Contribute toScience Literacy by Michael R. Matthews Phys. Teach. 39, 512 (2001); 10.1119/1.1424609 Rather than scientific literacy, colleges should teach scientific awareness Am. J. Phys. 66, 559 (1998); 10.1119/1.18906 Editorial: What is scientific literacy? Am. J. Phys. 49, 107 (1981); 10.1119/1.4755848

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GUEST COMMENT

Scientific literacy or scientific awareness?In 1989, President Bush’s ‘‘America 2000’’ agenda set the

goals of making U.S. students first in the world in scienceand mathematics, and insuring that every adult Americanknew enough about science to participate responsibly in na-tional debates about scientific issues.

These goals have not yet been met.According to recent surveys, less than half of American

adults know that the Earth revolves about the Sun once ayear. Less than half accept the idea that humans evolvedfrom earlier species of animals. Only 12 percent agree thatastrology is ‘‘not at all scientific.’’

Jon Miller of Northern Illinois University, who has polledthousands of people on these sorts of questions, estimatesthat only 6 percent of American adults can be called scien-tifically literate.

In a recent issue of this Journal, Keith Devlin,1 dean ofscience at St. Mary’s College of California and a senior re-searcher at Stanford University’s Center for the Study ofLanguage and Information, asks whether ‘‘scientific lit-eracy’’ is an appropriate goal.

It is neither possible nor necessary for the general popula-tion to have detailed scientific knowledge across a range ofdisciplines, says Devlin. Science has become too broad, toocomplex, too specialized for even a scientist to keep up-to-date.

Necessarily, we have to rely on experts, he says. But howdo we evaluate the experts? How can we distinguish betweenthe true expert and the quack? How do we assess scientificevidence?

What we should shoot for as a nation is not ‘‘scientificliteracy,’’ says Devlin, but ‘‘scientific awareness’’—an un-derstanding of what science is about and what it means toestablish a ‘‘scientific fact.’’

Devlin writes: ‘‘When I say that all adults should be sci-entifically aware, I mean that they should base their opinionson fact and observable evidence rather than on prejudice orassumptions; be willing to change their opinions based onnew evidence; understand cause-and-effect relationships; andappreciate how science is done—in particular, understandthe role played by observation and experiment in establish-ing a scientific conclusion, and know what the terms ‘scien-tific theory’ and ‘scientific fact’ mean.’’

These are laudable goals enunciated by Devlin, but surelythey are even more difficult to embed in our educationalsystem than the communication of basic scientific facts andtheories about the world.

It would be fantastic if our schools could turn out citizenswho understand and appreciate the scientific process, but theevidence suggests that we are sinking deeper and deeper intoa quagmire of superstition, pseudoscience, and New Agequackery. Not only can’t we distinguish scientific knowledgefrom crank opinion, we seem to positively prefer the latter.

By all means, then, let’s move to meet Devlin’s goal of‘‘scientific awareness,’’ but in the meantime let’s not give upon ‘‘scientific literacy.’’

Here are six bits of knowledge that should constitute mini-

mum scientific literacy for every grade-school graduate.They should not be hard to teach, if one year of the curricu-lum were devoted to each:

1. The world is big. With our best telescopes we observe auniverse of tens of billions of galaxies. Each galaxy consistsof hundreds of billions of stars. Most of those stars probablyhave planet systems. Our Earth is a typical planet of a typicalstar in a typical corner of a typical galaxy.

2. The world is old. Human time is not cosmic time. If ayear is represented by the thickness of a playing card, all ofrecorded human history would be a pile of cards about 10feet high. The age of the universe is about 15 billion years;lay this pile of cards on its side and it would reach from NewYork to San Francisco.

3. The world is made of atoms. Nature’s construction setis astonishingly simple—protons, neutrons, electrons. Ofthese, nature makes 92 kinds of atoms, and these combineinto molecules. Out of simplicity comes complexity—theclear liquidity of water, the smell of bananas, the blue of thesky. A molecule called DNA determines your species, yourgender, the color of your eyes.

4. The world evolves. The history of the universe is agrand unfolding of matter and form from a seed of pureenergy. Stars, planets, and life have histories, determined bylaw and contingency—life and death, building up and tearingdown, beauty and terror. Everything alive on the planet Earthtoday is related by common descent from primordial ances-tors.

5. Everything is connected. Our bodies are made ofstardust—atoms forged in earlier generations of stars as theylived and died. Stars, planets, plants, animals, rocks, soil,sea, and atmosphere are interrelated in a fabric of wondrousrefinement and resilience. We disrupt the fabric at our peril.

6. The world is wonderful. The more we learn about theform and function of the world, the more we realize thedepth of our ignorance, and the more we appreciate the cre-ation as a source of wonder, awe, reverence, praise—or asrevelation of a power worthy of our wonder, awe, reverence,praise.

These six ‘‘facts’’ are the product of thousands of years ofhuman curiosity, creativity, and discovery. They should bethe proud inheritance of every human child. They are thebedrock of scientific literacy.

~The preceding essay originally appeared as one of ProfessorRaymo’s weekly ‘‘Science Musings’’ columns in theBostonGlobe, 16 February 1998.!

1Keith Devlin, ‘‘Guest Comment: Rather than scientific literacy, collegesshould teach scientific awareness,’’ Am. J. Phys.66 ~7!, 559–560~1998!.

Chet RaymoDepartment of Physics and Astronomy

Stonehill CollegeNorth Easton, Massachusetts 02357

752 752Am. J. Phys.66 ~9!, September 1998 © 1998 American Association of Physics Teachers

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