imagination... re-imagined

reflections, thoughts, ideas

let’s make it un-boring: science!

August 10, 2011

There is little denying that there are many challenges facing humanity as we walk boldly into the 21st century. Check the headlines – stories of poverty and war, a changing climate and finite resources, economic collapse and racism, and famine and riots are all present in the daily media discourse. However, despite these headlines, today’s post isn’t about hunger in the Horn of Africa or the Earth’s changing climate – it’s about science. Why science when there are so many other low hanging fruit topics to bite into? Science is a fruit that’s more juicy and cross cutting, that’s why. Behind all of the great challenges staring humanity in the eye there is a role for science to play. Yet at first glance it seems this role is diminishing, and as it diminishes so too do opportunities for positive change to occur.

Let’s take a step back first – “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.” – Albert Einstein.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “science”? Close your eyes for a moment and reflect hard on the topic.

I asked a few friends this question while writing down the notes for this post and I heard the following: white lab coats, gears and machines, test tubes, Einstein. I won’t claim this represents the views of anyone but my friends, but I feel it’s a fine set of clichés to think about. Upon asking my “test subjects” to reflect a bit deeper on science many of the responses involved bad memories of high school chemistry trying ever so hard to titrate correctly. We can all relate to these clichés and experiences, right? Flick on the TV – many shows employ the “scientist” stereotype of the polymath who seems well versed in every area imaginable, wears a white coat, and probably has crazy hair.

When I google image searched “science” this is the first picture that came up… really.

At best, it would seem that in our own memories and the media formulas, titration, and Professor Frink (from the Simpsons) style characters represent science – at worst, science is treated as just another ideology that can be discarded when it doesn’t agree with our predominant world view. In these darker scenarios science is treated the same way we may treat a certain wing of politics or a certain religion.

In my lifetime there have been quite a few instances where media stories flare up on “controversial debates”. Should “creationism” be taught alongside the “scientific theory of evolution”? Can we really trust these “climate change scientists”?

The same people who use laptops attack the effectiveness of another electrical device – the mass spectrometer – and claim dating to be a farce. The same people who every day trust thousands of scientific innovations ranging from air bags to engines and asphalt roads are more than happy to throw their support of “science” out the window when its application suggests that we have dark days ahead due to climate change.

Rather than be treated as a systematic tool for us to enrich our world view and potentially improve our quality of life, science has too often been placed into its own box on the shelf of philosophies, religions, and political ideologies. People pick up and discard the scientific method as they see fit. Does it really hurt society if one person doesn’t accept evolution? Likely not – it’s their loss really. But on the macro level, when whole groups of climate change deniers work to undermine hard-working scientists around the world and hijack policy there is a serious storm brewing. Other citizens may be so disengaged with science that they are unable to understand the technical world behind many current challenges or provide serious critical thinking to them.

From my perspective, this represents a serious problem – whether we want to understand our current energy needs, impacts of human activity on the environment, or even human behaviour science plays an important and irreplaceable role. But as we fail to explicitly recognize the role of science in our day to day lives we begin to lose our grip on a tool that is incredibly important in the 21st century.

Many science teachers talk about “first principles” in whatever field they teach – so let’s talk bottom line first principles about science by opening up a few negative stereotypes associated with the field.

Myth: Chemistry and high school “science classes” are the full breadth of science

A good friend of mine recently remarked to me that he “wasn’t good at science” and shared how he “found it boring”. When I asked why he shared stories of long classes staring at blackboards trying to explain stoichiometry. Somehow the chemistry and science became the same thing to him.

Science isn’t about atoms and chemicals, it’s not about populations and change, and it’s not about gravity and electricity. Rather it’s a systematic approach to try and understand how all these things – and everything else in the world – work. We can all relate to that right? Who doesn’t like understanding? We need to separate the purpose from the process – the purpose is understanding, the process is chemistry. Chemistry relies on the scientific method – it’ a type of science, but it isn’t the full field of science.

Many students can recite chemical formulae from their high school days, but how many learned what was essential – the scientific method?

Myth: Science is all about math

Science isn’t a game of math and illegible Greek symbols forming long double integral formulas. Rather it’s a deep and long term relationship between humanity and the universe that’s all about asking why, why, why. It’s grounded in the desire to critically look through phenomena and situations to try and garner deep understanding. Those Greek characters are just a tool that scientists can use to express complex ideas. You wouldn’t define an architect by a t-square, so why define science by its tool set? Similar to myth 1, we cannot mix up purpose and process – math may be part of the process, but science is about understanding and knowledge.

Myth: science is some sort of competing world view / conspiracy

Science isn’t an agenda for or against any political affiliation or religion, rather it’s an objective system of developing understanding. Despite the claims of some critics, such as an Australian senator going so far to say climate chance science aims to “de industrialize the world” , or others that feel topics such as quantum mechanics and evolutionary biology are out to attack organized religion, science doesn’t have much to say about the unprovable and unobservable, and if people are manipulating ideas to further their perspective it isn’t science. Science seeks to use past ideas and new data to develop models and theories on the inner-workings of the social and physical world. It’s beyond politics and opinion – it relies on evidence and analysis. No matter how much I will it, gravity won’t shut off…

—————–

So what is science? According to the British Science Council science is “the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence”. This seems to be a catch-all-cocktail of critical thinking, empirical inquiry, and hypothesis testing – and we all use these skills on a day to day basis when making decisions. Science combines our limitless imagination with a desire to understand in such a way that has equipped humanity with deep insight and learning.

For our visual readers, here is a nice visualization of the scientific process – note the lack of test tubes and mathematical formulae:

This sure makes science look more exciting and practical than our friend in the lab coat up above.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/building-a-better-way-of-understanding-science.ars

Let’s return to the challenges facing our species – climate change, economic instability, conflict, and poverty – to name a few – we see an underlying pattern of complexity, ambiguity, and a lack of understanding. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way for us to dig deep and aim to understand these challenges? Looking at the British Science Council’s definition it looks as though science is one tool for the job. However, it seems like science has become so far removed from the discourse on public policy, and has become less attractive to young students – both are worrying trends. The second link argues times of economic uncertainty are closing in as students and citizens lose sight of science.

In his book “The Clockwork Universe” Edward Dolnick explores the history of science in Britain and makes a claim that the birth of science at the hands of Newton and his contemporaries was also the birth of the modern world. From his perspective, science replaced mysticism and superstition as dominate methodologies to explore existence and it immediately was applied by critical thinkers to explain how the world (and even the universe!) around us works. A few hundred years later our world is run by scientific innovation. Life saving sanitary sewer systems, innovative new medicines, and communication technologies have left an undeniable mark on how long we live, how we live, and what opportunities are presented to us.

So, with the great impact of hundreds of years of new discoveries and innovations why is it that in our stereotypes and extremists we see such a divorce of science and every day life? In many modern states there is a notion of separation of church and state. Why is it that some politicians, anti climate change community organizers, and creationist teachers (to name a few groups) seek to treat science as another religion and force its separation from state and policy?

Let’s abandon the stereotypes of science being the same as long and boring chemistry lectures, let’s make an impassioned stand for rational thought in our public policy, let’s use the tools of science (developed over hundreds of years) to dig deep into the problems facing humanity and find solutions! How do we start? Let’s make science un-boring.