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Teaching bacteriology. If clinical bacteriology were taught in high school, the entire society would be much the better for it. Would it be difficult? No. There are five major groups. Less than fifty important genera, many of which might as well be lumped together, for example the GNR, anaerobes. An example: Umm, what else?
You can decide for yourself. Let us suppose that the easily enumerated and easily described details about the infectious, disease causing bacterial organisms were part of an a priori body of knowledge common to all citizens. Or even more far fetched, to all global ctizens. How would that benefit young people, old people, and everyone in between? If one has to pose such a question, there really isn't any need to answer it, is there? Do responsible citizens vote on matters of public
health?
Vigdor Schreibman , Federal Information News Service. Vigdor Schreibman asked buddycom what the future holds for science. This is the open reply. Genomics is threatening to lengthen average life spans. It is also threatening to make equally important improvements in the quality of health. Use of the word threaten is somewhat humorous. We use the word threaten because as the promise of genomics is realized, the current socio-political structures will disappear. The methods of and the reasons for continuing them will melt away. It should be a gradual painless process as benefits are realized and compared to past paradigms. An intelligent electorate is the most dangerous of things for democracy in its current form which most agree is a substitute for the real thing. Lengthened life spans necessarily threaten to cause modification and change in the current socio-political systems. Let's suppose that genomics had advanced to a stage in which the average life expectancy were to be 150 years with a quality of health commensurate with that of a thirty year old individual. What could be done with eighty extra years? Would you choose to run longer on the treadmill? Would you prefer to spend the time in hedonistic pursuits? More importantly, what about learning? With eighty extra years the standard time for the learning process will likely be extended, by an amount equal to ten percent of the increase, to twenty years. Everyone will have plenty of time to attain a truly broad based education. That is something which is extremely rare at present. In contemporary society, education is simply an erstaz term for training. Competitive training. Higher learning merely narrows the focus of the training; the higher the level, the more specialized and competitive the focus. A longer life span will necessarily decrease the need for haste and competitiveness. Specialization will have less value than generalization. And science? Science will be appreciated much more fully in the future. That isn't as silly as it may at first seem. It is a natural progression. As natural as water flowing downhill, for two reasons, both stemming from the fact that genomics will increase life expectancy and quality. Firstly, all will have plenty of opportunity to appreciate science, the source of the increase in life.. There will be one heck of a lot of extra time. Without something as interesting as science to enhance and expand the enjoyment of a life expectancy increased by eighty extra years, life would become very tedious and boring. Secondly, all will have plenty of reason to appreciate science. Science will have provided something tangible which arbitrary and abstract belief systems had not, namely long life. Longer life means more time. More time means more opportunity to contemplate and to understand the patterns of life. People will have seen that marginalization of science had been a disingenuous attempt to prolong an outmoded socio-political system. They will be less willing to give up a longer life in defense of socio-political systems which had primarily benefitted elites. Presently people in America begin their race for the aquisition of material wealth just after puberty, some even sooner. In the search for any avenue which may prove to be lucrative, they investigate science. They ask what science can give them. When that question is answered with nothing leading directly to a dollar sign, they quickly reject it. Future generations will find that the answer is initially, long life. Thereafter they will find many other tangible benefits. |
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Teaching Science That the teaching of science is in an apallingly absurd state has become axiomatic. It has been said often and by many concerned individuals. Consider the statements of one such person, David Goodstein in an article fromtechreview.com, Science Education Paradox; How can the same system produce scientific elites and illiterates? "The United States by any conceivable measure has the finest
scientists in the world. But the rest of the population, by any rational
standard, is abysmally ignorant of science, mathematics and all things
technical. That is the paradox of scientific elites and scientific illiterates:
how can the same system of education that produced all those brilliant
scientists also have produced all that ignorance? "The problem starts in grade school, where few children ever come into personal contact with a scientifically trained person—including, unfortunately, their teachers. In most of the United States the only way you can graduate from college without taking a single science course is to major in elementary education. And, it is said, many people major in elementary education for precisely that reason. Our elementary school teachers are therefore not only ignorant of science; they are hostile to science. That hostility must, inevitably, rub off on the young people they teach." "A few years ago, I was on a committee to look into how well the "breadth" requirement—that all students take at least one course in science—was working at one University of California campus. We found that, of those students not majoring in a technical subject, 90 percent were satisfying the breadth requirement by taking a single biology course known informally among the students as "Human Sexuality." Now, I don't for an instant doubt that it was a useful and interesting course. It may even have tempted students to do hands-on experiments on their own time (a result we seldom achieve in physics). But I don't think it constitutes a sufficient education in science for university graduates at the dawn of the 21st century." "But imagine a world in which teaching in high school is such an attractive profession that it would be worth the trouble of a doctoral level education to get the job. For that to happen, we would have to pay teachers more, at least as much as what graduating doctoral students get. And they should be paid more. But that's not the whole answer. Just as important, schools would have to learn to treat these teachers with professional respect, and society would have to afford them the honor and admiration that professionals expect. This is not unthinkable. Something like it was true in much of Europe before World War II. But it is very far from true in today's United States." "Much more is needed, of course. The revolution would have to extend right down to the first grade. Teachers would have to be literate in science, and kids would have to find learning science as cool as following the fortunes of rock groups. That's an awful lot to ask for. But then again, only our future depends on it." The article is similar to many. Serious, well presented and flawed. The ideas have been repeated so often they sound like a broken record. The situation won't change until values change. Values won't change until life spans lengthen. When life spans lengthen, values will change. You can count on it. |
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