Tag: literacy

Scientists and science communicators often make the point that the public are scientifically illiterate and that this needs to change. But why? The line goes that as we live in an age of science so everyone should be comfortable reading, writing and talking about science such is its pervasiveness in 21^st century society. Robert Hazen argues for the importance of literacy saying, “A scientifically illiterate person is effectively cut off from an immensely enriching part of life, just as surely as a person who cannot read” (1). However scientific literacy is not something that is easily defined. So it is important to look at the various conceptions of it before asking if we can improve it.

Many authors consider science as more than a body of facts or something to be learned by rote and bemoan the dry science curricula, “It has for long been my contention that we are crushing our students into the flatness of equation-grinding automatons and forcing them into blind memorization of problem-solving procedures.” For example, there is the argument that scientifically literate individuals should possess a skill set of attributes and, for instance, be able to answer “How do we know …?” and “Why do we believe …?” questions (2). Richard Feynman said as much when he emphasised the important distinction between knowing the name of something and knowing something. There’s a world of difference between a person who can list off every bird species name and someone with an education in ornithology.

In contrast, it’s been argued that a pursuit of scientific literacy for all is futile. There are two purported stumbling blocks to widespread scientific literacy: the cumulative nature of science, resulting in an ever increasing amount of information and science’s use of counter intuitive descriptions (3). These barriers are so great as to prevent the majority of people attaining literacy. Instead we should engender an appreciation of science. The point is that a person’s early encounters with science involve fascination and curiosity, only for this to give way to courses that stress memorisation and dry subject matter.

But I think this is overly pessimistic. The important concepts in science are readily explicable to a lay person and the same goes for the process of making hypotheses. Even quantum physics, that byword for the impossible, has a legion of eager physicists who draw on a series of ingenious analogies to convey the main points behind it. I would suggest that there is a scale of scientific literacy from an appreciation of science, on to an understanding of how science works and then on to knowing the particulars of a given area i.e. a scientific vocabulary.

References

1. Hazen RM. Why should you be scientifically literate. ActionBioscience org. 2002.
2. Arons, A.B. (1983). Achieving Wider Scientific Literacy. Daedalus. 112 (2), p. 91-122.
3. Shamos, M. 1988. The lesson every child need not learn. The Sciences 28(4):14–20.

Author: Adam Kane, kanead[at]tcd.ie

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