I think we're not in Kansas anymore...

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Author Topic:   I think we're not in Kansas anymore...

Beta1 posted 08-26-99 03:46 PM ET
Just to bring this back up...
A recent editorial put the Kansas evolution/creationism decision down to "science being treated as a series of facts and not as a method of thought" - and implied that in this case the "educators" were not themselves sufficently educated to make a sound decision.
So with science taking an ever increasing part in our lives the question is this:
Who is responsible for the public view/suspiscion/lack of understanding of science?
Is the scientific community at fault - the "ivory tower intellectuals"
The education system?- "the blind leading the blind"
The press? - "nothing like a good scare story"
Society as a whole?
I personally agree with the sentiment that "one cannot be considered fully educated without a basic understanding of science" (cant remember who said that) but would alter it to "scientific thought" and would lay the blame at the door of all of the above groups. After all without this how can you understand anything?
Beta-1
Apologises in advance for bringing up an exam question he once had to answer.
Natguy posted 08-26-99 06:48 PM ET
The people. After we landed on the moon, they didn't care about any more Apollo missions (except Apollo 13) and NASA's funding was all but obliterated. Other examples abound. They cloned a monkey. Did you know they cloned a monkey? Actually some time ago. The masses only care about new, absolutely breakthrough stuff, not something that will enable breakthroughs next year, or something that is similar to anything done before. The people don't care, so the press doesn't publicize it, so the people don't know about it, so funding dies. I blame it on the reknowned fickleness of the people.
(Curse them!)
And of course teachers can't teach something they don't know.
Natguy the Young
who just returned fomr his first day of high-school freshmn year an who has a headache so please don't flame him he isn't thinking clearly.
GaryD posted 08-27-99 05:28 AM ET
Really ? Pre or post Dolly ?
Beta1 posted 08-27-99 07:02 AM ET
Natguy - Perhaps to take your point once step further: By only publishing "breakthroughs" the press further reinforces the image that science is a series of facts/achievments rather than a ongoing process. I also think that the press is responsible for bluring the boundary between "hard" science - physics, biochemistry, etc. and the "pseudo" sciences - sociology, and to some extent pyscology (that should annoy a few people). Hell somepeople think astrology is a science.
Here in the UK the Independant newspaper has habit of publishing lots of science stories during the summer when theres no politics going on. In the past few weeks I've seen the hard science stories (cancer discoveries mainly) alongside a report from some nutcase who published a paper claiming a link between finger length and depression. While the scientific press undergoes peer review to ensure only valid science gets into print (at least in major journals) the press that the oublic reads does not (and probably cannot). As a result the public who, by and large are not science educated, are not in a position to judge the importance/merits of these stories.
Beta-1
May just be rambling now
OhWell posted 08-27-99 08:21 AM ET
�The people don't care, so the press doesn't publicize it, so the people don't know about it��
A little circular logic there?
sandworm posted 08-27-99 12:25 PM ET
Part of the problem is that the press publicizes reports that are considered by many within the field to be only preliminary data, not yet accepted as fact. The inital hype over angiostatin being a cure for cancer was way off base. It worked in mice. The press took a giant leap forward and "marketed" it as an up-and-coming cure for cancer in humans. It got more people to watch their network. Some of them backtracked later, usually during interviews with experts, but the damage was already done.
Day 1
We have a cure for cancer. Everyone flips out, cancer patients are calling their oncologists on an hourly basis to see if the cure is available yet. Hope springs eternal.

Days later,
Well, we can't cure cancer in humans yet, but we can cure some cancers in mice. Someday we might get it to work in humans, but we haven't even started clinical trials. If you have cancer now, you'll either be cured by current medical methods or you'll be dead, long before the new treatment is available. Patient hopes are crushed, people get angry.
Ouch. The public blames the scientific community for creating hype and false hopes, just to get more funding for their research. The press gets little blame for some reason, and suffers no consequences. People might refuse to give money to the American Leukemia Society, but they're not going to stop watching the telly.
So if that made no sense, lets just say I blame the press.
***
FYI... just for clarification purposes
Dolly was the first clone created from a fully differentiated somatic cell (I would add that their are some valid doubts as to whether that's actually what happened)
Previous cloning was done using nuclear transfer from embryonic cells into an egg cell that had its own nucleus removed, Embryonic cells retain the ablility to differentiate into many different tissues. Previously, it was thought that a differentiated cell nucleus (in this case from breast tissue) could not be "deprogrammed" into one that could form all of the tissues required to form a complete organsim. This is what the Scottish researchers are claiming to have done. I'm waiting for a repeat performance before I completely buy into it.
Never puts too much trust into anything involving both Scotsmen and sheep
- sandworm
Beta1 posted 08-28-99 11:09 AM ET
Sandworm - You ever heard Judah Folkman live?
I was at a meeting he spoke at last year. The angiostatin data in mice is stunning - There were some pretty big guns there and I've never seen them stunned like that before. Anyway as you say in the bar afterwards someone pointed out it wasn't even in clinical trials yet and life returned to normal.
Anyway - if the public were better educated in the scientific process then perhaps some of them would be able to realise that day 1 dosnt automatically lead directly to day 2....
Beta-1
Wonders what everyone will die of if they do cure cancer
Spoe posted 08-28-99 12:35 PM ET
"I personally agree with the sentiment that 'one cannot be considered fully educated without a basic understanding of science' (cant remember who said that) but would alter it to 'scientific thought' and would lay the blame at the door of all of the above groups."
Agreed.
One thing science needs to get better at is writing popularized accounts of it. I'm sorry, but while usually good, an article in SciAm doesn't always bring it to the right level.
The education system, in my experience, is sorely lacking(in the elementary schools in Lexington, KY when I attended, we had 1 hour of science instruction a week) and usually amounts to "Here's how you can calculate the acceleration of gravity, now go do it." rather than asking the question, "How might we try to find out the acceleration of gravity?"(Probably pretty obvious I've a physics background, eh?).
And like you have said, the press seizes the most tantalizing version of a story and lays the blame with science when it doesn't pan out(anyone remember the asteroid that was going to hit us?).
But I really don't see the point of replacing 'basic understanding of science' with 'basic understanding of scientific thought'; you cannot really have the former without the latter.
sandworm posted 08-29-99 01:47 AM ET
Beta-1, never had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Folkman speak.
***
For the record, I didn't want to suggest that the angiostatin research wasn't exciting, its just that there's a lot of work to be done between treating mice and treating humans, and the general public doesn't seem to realize it when its on the evening news. The news people don't tell us how many man-hours of research it took just to get to "point A" or how far they have yet to go.
The asteroid near miss that turned out to be a wild pitch, now that was entertaining. Was that just a matter on getting better data on the asteroid trajectory as it got closer to the earth? It was originally supposed to pass within the radius of the moon's orbit, right?
JohnIII posted 08-29-99 12:25 PM ET
Spoe:
"The education system, in my experience, is sorely lacking(in the elementary schools in Lexington, KY when I attended, we had 1 hour of science instruction a week)"
If it was intensive then it was probably better than my 2 1/2 hours of fudge-logic. Except our Head of Science, who is able to answer most of our questions.
John III
sandworm posted 08-29-99 02:01 PM ET
Anyone catch the news about the "monogamy" master control gene they transferred between two closely related species of rodent (which one?). One was a monogamous species, the other "promiscuous". They transferred a gene from the monogamous species that caused the transgenic "promiscuous" rodent to behave like the monogamous species.
Its not Clinton's fault, he's got a genetic disease
sandworm posted 08-29-99 02:04 PM ET
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/07/970716024320.htm
It was prairie voles.
sandworm posted 08-29-99 02:06 PM ET
http://www.emory.edu/WHSC/YERKES/newsroom/gene_990818.html
More voles.
Spoe posted 08-29-99 10:51 PM ET
JohnIII:
You note my description of a typical "experiment"(though granted, that specific example was grade 12)? In elementary school(grade 6, to be exact), typical "experiment" was to learn that if you connect a light bulb to a battery it lights up.
JohnIII posted 08-30-99 02:10 PM ET
LOL, we still did stuff like that last year! Thankfully we're in ability groups for the GCSEs, as I had to get a high SATs level through independent learning.
John III
Beta1 posted 08-31-99 11:43 AM ET
Spoe - I was merely trying to distinguish between science as a way of thinking/looking at facts and between those facts themselves.
Someone who understands how to interpret data/observations and is able to judge the validity of of ideas based on those observations is a scientist. Someone who has been taught about the things science has achieved is a historian.
Beta-1
probably should be a historian
Spoe posted 08-31-99 03:46 PM ET
Beta1:
"Someone who has been taught about the things science has achieved is a historian."
And therefore is not, IMNSHO, a scientist.
Spoe posted 08-31-99 03:48 PM ET
Erk. Misworded that last.
Should be:
And therefore does not, IMNSHO, have a real understanding of science.
Beta1 posted 09-01-99 06:56 AM ET
Spoe - I'm confused, are you agreeing with me or calling me a historian?
Either way I agree
Beta-1
Natguy posted 09-01-99 05:07 PM ET
If you ask me (You did, you just don't remember ) the science teachings in schools is just pathetic. I love science, but it's not real high on my favorite subject list for several reasons, one of which I'm usually in a class which is mostly imbeciles (And druggies, and slackers, and jocks, none of which really care or know much about science). And the atmosphere, partly affected by the afforementioned reason. They create a rigid, cold, and hurried atmosphere so you can't really have a goo discussion and things move slowly. It would be interesting if it were a one-on-one process. I'd enjoy moving at my pace and sparring with the teachers (some of the teachers don't really help the situation too much either. My history teacher has decided that if everyone in the world spoke English then we would have world peace and everyone would be happy. I considered raising my hand and asking why English; why not Mandarin Chinese, if you go by population. I (wisely, I think) did not. He also said the that the Confederate states "succeeded" from the Union) OF course, we have a lot of coaches who teach, too. We have one teaching chemistry. Chemistry! Now that may be okay for like Consumer Math or something but NOT, I think, for CHEMISTRY!!
Now don't get me wrong, I think that there are a great number of good teachers, like the one I have for english, but the science department is forced to teach what the government says they should. And we wonder why we scored so low on those worldwide testing things. I think we need to restructure our science education programs, definately!
Anyway, yeah, I remember those things in 6th grade with connecting a light bulb to a battery. Oooh... Gee, I didn't know it would light up like all the other light bulbs I've seen!
Um... my mind just sort of fgizzled out, so I guess I'm done now.
Natguy the Young
who has really easy homework tonight (Interesting that I have no science homework, hmm?)
Spoe posted 09-01-99 07:04 PM ET
Now to somewhat contradict myself.
My two best teachers in high school were my chemistry and physics teachers. Both had the sense to let those of us actually interested in science to sort of separate from the rest of the class and do our own thing(with some guidance from them). We built rocket engines in chemistry and devised ways of measuring their impulses in physics. We figured out how to build holography apparatus(and then did so). Oddly enough, these were also the only teachers I had with advanced degrees in their subject area(ok, so the physics teacher's degree was in mechanical engineering -- close enough); one had a master's and the the chemistry teacher had his Ph.D.
Beta1 posted 09-02-99 06:50 AM ET
To follow the trend..
My favourite teacher was in biology - so dispite being pretty good at maths, chemistry and physics I'm now a cell biologist.
Thank god my favourite teacher wasnt a teaching religon.
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Author	Topic: I think we're not in Kansas anymore...
Beta1	posted 08-26-99 03:46 PM ET Just to bring this back up... A recent editorial put the Kansas evolution/creationism decision down to "science being treated as a series of facts and not as a method of thought" - and implied that in this case the "educators" were not themselves sufficently educated to make a sound decision. So with science taking an ever increasing part in our lives the question is this: Who is responsible for the public view/suspiscion/lack of understanding of science? Is the scientific community at fault - the "ivory tower intellectuals" The education system?- "the blind leading the blind" The press? - "nothing like a good scare story" Society as a whole? I personally agree with the sentiment that "one cannot be considered fully educated without a basic understanding of science" (cant remember who said that) but would alter it to "scientific thought" and would lay the blame at the door of all of the above groups. After all without this how can you understand anything? Beta-1 Apologises in advance for bringing up an exam question he once had to answer.
Natguy	posted 08-26-99 06:48 PM ET The people. After we landed on the moon, they didn't care about any more Apollo missions (except Apollo 13) and NASA's funding was all but obliterated. Other examples abound. They cloned a monkey. Did you know they cloned a monkey? Actually some time ago. The masses only care about new, absolutely breakthrough stuff, not something that will enable breakthroughs next year, or something that is similar to anything done before. The people don't care, so the press doesn't publicize it, so the people don't know about it, so funding dies. I blame it on the reknowned fickleness of the people. (Curse them!) And of course teachers can't teach something they don't know. Natguy the Young who just returned fomr his first day of high-school freshmn year an who has a headache so please don't flame him he isn't thinking clearly.
GaryD	posted 08-27-99 05:28 AM ET Really ? Pre or post Dolly ?
Beta1	posted 08-27-99 07:02 AM ET Natguy - Perhaps to take your point once step further: By only publishing "breakthroughs" the press further reinforces the image that science is a series of facts/achievments rather than a ongoing process. I also think that the press is responsible for bluring the boundary between "hard" science - physics, biochemistry, etc. and the "pseudo" sciences - sociology, and to some extent pyscology (that should annoy a few people). Hell somepeople think astrology is a science. Here in the UK the Independant newspaper has habit of publishing lots of science stories during the summer when theres no politics going on. In the past few weeks I've seen the hard science stories (cancer discoveries mainly) alongside a report from some nutcase who published a paper claiming a link between finger length and depression. While the scientific press undergoes peer review to ensure only valid science gets into print (at least in major journals) the press that the oublic reads does not (and probably cannot). As a result the public who, by and large are not science educated, are not in a position to judge the importance/merits of these stories. Beta-1 May just be rambling now
OhWell	posted 08-27-99 08:21 AM ET �The people don't care, so the press doesn't publicize it, so the people don't know about it�� A little circular logic there?
sandworm	posted 08-27-99 12:25 PM ET Part of the problem is that the press publicizes reports that are considered by many within the field to be only preliminary data, not yet accepted as fact. The inital hype over angiostatin being a cure for cancer was way off base. It worked in mice. The press took a giant leap forward and "marketed" it as an up-and-coming cure for cancer in humans. It got more people to watch their network. Some of them backtracked later, usually during interviews with experts, but the damage was already done. Day 1 We have a cure for cancer. Everyone flips out, cancer patients are calling their oncologists on an hourly basis to see if the cure is available yet. Hope springs eternal. Days later, Well, we can't cure cancer in humans yet, but we can cure some cancers in mice. Someday we might get it to work in humans, but we haven't even started clinical trials. If you have cancer now, you'll either be cured by current medical methods or you'll be dead, long before the new treatment is available. Patient hopes are crushed, people get angry. Ouch. The public blames the scientific community for creating hype and false hopes, just to get more funding for their research. The press gets little blame for some reason, and suffers no consequences. People might refuse to give money to the American Leukemia Society, but they're not going to stop watching the telly. So if that made no sense, lets just say I blame the press. *** FYI... just for clarification purposes Dolly was the first clone created from a fully differentiated somatic cell (I would add that their are some valid doubts as to whether that's actually what happened) Previous cloning was done using nuclear transfer from embryonic cells into an egg cell that had its own nucleus removed, Embryonic cells retain the ablility to differentiate into many different tissues. Previously, it was thought that a differentiated cell nucleus (in this case from breast tissue) could not be "deprogrammed" into one that could form all of the tissues required to form a complete organsim. This is what the Scottish researchers are claiming to have done. I'm waiting for a repeat performance before I completely buy into it. Never puts too much trust into anything involving both Scotsmen and sheep - sandworm
Beta1	posted 08-28-99 11:09 AM ET Sandworm - You ever heard Judah Folkman live? I was at a meeting he spoke at last year. The angiostatin data in mice is stunning - There were some pretty big guns there and I've never seen them stunned like that before. Anyway as you say in the bar afterwards someone pointed out it wasn't even in clinical trials yet and life returned to normal. Anyway - if the public were better educated in the scientific process then perhaps some of them would be able to realise that day 1 dosnt automatically lead directly to day 2.... Beta-1 Wonders what everyone will die of if they do cure cancer
Spoe	posted 08-28-99 12:35 PM ET "I personally agree with the sentiment that 'one cannot be considered fully educated without a basic understanding of science' (cant remember who said that) but would alter it to 'scientific thought' and would lay the blame at the door of all of the above groups." Agreed. One thing science needs to get better at is writing popularized accounts of it. I'm sorry, but while usually good, an article in SciAm doesn't always bring it to the right level. The education system, in my experience, is sorely lacking(in the elementary schools in Lexington, KY when I attended, we had 1 hour of science instruction a week) and usually amounts to "Here's how you can calculate the acceleration of gravity, now go do it." rather than asking the question, "How might we try to find out the acceleration of gravity?"(Probably pretty obvious I've a physics background, eh?). And like you have said, the press seizes the most tantalizing version of a story and lays the blame with science when it doesn't pan out(anyone remember the asteroid that was going to hit us?). But I really don't see the point of replacing 'basic understanding of science' with 'basic understanding of scientific thought'; you cannot really have the former without the latter.
sandworm	posted 08-29-99 01:47 AM ET Beta-1, never had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Folkman speak. *** For the record, I didn't want to suggest that the angiostatin research wasn't exciting, its just that there's a lot of work to be done between treating mice and treating humans, and the general public doesn't seem to realize it when its on the evening news. The news people don't tell us how many man-hours of research it took just to get to "point A" or how far they have yet to go. The asteroid near miss that turned out to be a wild pitch, now that was entertaining. Was that just a matter on getting better data on the asteroid trajectory as it got closer to the earth? It was originally supposed to pass within the radius of the moon's orbit, right?
JohnIII	posted 08-29-99 12:25 PM ET Spoe: "The education system, in my experience, is sorely lacking(in the elementary schools in Lexington, KY when I attended, we had 1 hour of science instruction a week)" If it was intensive then it was probably better than my 2 1/2 hours of fudge-logic. Except our Head of Science, who is able to answer most of our questions. John III
sandworm	posted 08-29-99 02:01 PM ET Anyone catch the news about the "monogamy" master control gene they transferred between two closely related species of rodent (which one?). One was a monogamous species, the other "promiscuous". They transferred a gene from the monogamous species that caused the transgenic "promiscuous" rodent to behave like the monogamous species. Its not Clinton's fault, he's got a genetic disease
sandworm	posted 08-29-99 02:04 PM ET http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/07/970716024320.htm It was prairie voles.
sandworm	posted 08-29-99 02:06 PM ET http://www.emory.edu/WHSC/YERKES/newsroom/gene_990818.html More voles.
Spoe	posted 08-29-99 10:51 PM ET JohnIII: You note my description of a typical "experiment"(though granted, that specific example was grade 12)? In elementary school(grade 6, to be exact), typical "experiment" was to learn that if you connect a light bulb to a battery it lights up.
JohnIII	posted 08-30-99 02:10 PM ET LOL, we still did stuff like that last year! Thankfully we're in ability groups for the GCSEs, as I had to get a high SATs level through independent learning. John III
Beta1	posted 08-31-99 11:43 AM ET Spoe - I was merely trying to distinguish between science as a way of thinking/looking at facts and between those facts themselves. Someone who understands how to interpret data/observations and is able to judge the validity of of ideas based on those observations is a scientist. Someone who has been taught about the things science has achieved is a historian. Beta-1 probably should be a historian
Spoe	posted 08-31-99 03:46 PM ET Beta1: "Someone who has been taught about the things science has achieved is a historian." And therefore is not, IMNSHO, a scientist.
Spoe	posted 08-31-99 03:48 PM ET Erk. Misworded that last. Should be: And therefore does not, IMNSHO, have a real understanding of science.
Beta1	posted 09-01-99 06:56 AM ET Spoe - I'm confused, are you agreeing with me or calling me a historian? Either way I agree Beta-1
Natguy	posted 09-01-99 05:07 PM ET If you ask me (You did, you just don't remember ) the science teachings in schools is just pathetic. I love science, but it's not real high on my favorite subject list for several reasons, one of which I'm usually in a class which is mostly imbeciles (And druggies, and slackers, and jocks, none of which really care or know much about science). And the atmosphere, partly affected by the afforementioned reason. They create a rigid, cold, and hurried atmosphere so you can't really have a goo discussion and things move slowly. It would be interesting if it were a one-on-one process. I'd enjoy moving at my pace and sparring with the teachers (some of the teachers don't really help the situation too much either. My history teacher has decided that if everyone in the world spoke English then we would have world peace and everyone would be happy. I considered raising my hand and asking why English; why not Mandarin Chinese, if you go by population. I (wisely, I think) did not. He also said the that the Confederate states "succeeded" from the Union) OF course, we have a lot of coaches who teach, too. We have one teaching chemistry. Chemistry! Now that may be okay for like Consumer Math or something but NOT, I think, for CHEMISTRY!! Now don't get me wrong, I think that there are a great number of good teachers, like the one I have for english, but the science department is forced to teach what the government says they should. And we wonder why we scored so low on those worldwide testing things. I think we need to restructure our science education programs, definately! Anyway, yeah, I remember those things in 6th grade with connecting a light bulb to a battery. Oooh... Gee, I didn't know it would light up like all the other light bulbs I've seen! Um... my mind just sort of fgizzled out, so I guess I'm done now. Natguy the Young who has really easy homework tonight (Interesting that I have no science homework, hmm?)
Spoe	posted 09-01-99 07:04 PM ET Now to somewhat contradict myself. My two best teachers in high school were my chemistry and physics teachers. Both had the sense to let those of us actually interested in science to sort of separate from the rest of the class and do our own thing(with some guidance from them). We built rocket engines in chemistry and devised ways of measuring their impulses in physics. We figured out how to build holography apparatus(and then did so). Oddly enough, these were also the only teachers I had with advanced degrees in their subject area(ok, so the physics teacher's degree was in mechanical engineering -- close enough); one had a master's and the the chemistry teacher had his Ph.D.
Beta1	posted 09-02-99 06:50 AM ET To follow the trend.. My favourite teacher was in biology - so dispite being pretty good at maths, chemistry and physics I'm now a cell biologist. Thank god my favourite teacher wasnt a teaching religon.