This unscientific age?

The famed physicist Richard Feynman once gave a lecture entitled “This Unscientific Age,” wherein he pointed out that while society was awash with technology and scientific gadgets, society as a whole was not truly embracing scientific values. Four decades later, we have more technology, gadgets, and the Web, and yet the question remains: do we live in an unscientific age? This question can be parsed several ways. Let me limit my analysis on just three aspects of assessing whether or not we are in an “unscientific age”: science education, how the public relates to science and scientists, and the ubiquity of pseudoscience.

First, are we teaching real science in our schools? Here Feynman was clear: science is not simply defining, it is understanding, questioning, figuring out, testing, and making sense of nature. For example, elementary and high school students are taught (by teachers and textbooks) that “a bacterium is a microscopic single-celled organism.” I would bet that the teacher or book will likely add “…that can make you sick.” But that is not teaching science. A true science teacher would make students discover that bacteria are like machines, that in the process of extracting electrons from a food source and transferring these electrons to an acceptor, they get energy that is used to make more bacterial cells. In the making of more cells, the building blocks, such as carbon and nitrogen, come from the cell’s immediate environment. To make more cells, information required for coordinating the needed reactions (the instructions) has to somehow be copied from one cell to another. This is done through information molecules (DNA), which are copied and read through a machinery that makes proteins. These proteins then control other reactions needed to process food and make more cells. Indeed, bacteria are like all other life forms: they need an energy source, a carbon source, a nitrogen source, and an electron acceptor.

The true science teacher will show that bacteria are everywhere, and there are millions and millions in soil, in water, in the air, in the human body, and they all interact and do things in groups, and that they live in all kinds of environments, as long as there is a way to get energy, to make a living. Then the true science teacher can point out the relevance of microorganisms to disease causation, to industry, to food safety, to waste treatment, to new products, to our understanding of life and where we came from.

So instead of merely memorizing names and terms, students should be discovering how things actually work, and why. This is the beauty and fun of science.

Unfortunately, this is not how science is usually taught in schools, where good grades are given for giving the “right answer.” Teaching science in a fundamental way requires that explanations be clear, and free of the circular logic typical of textbooks. A good test to figure out if one truly understands anything is the grandmother test: if you can explain it to your grandmother, then you’ve grasped the concept clearly (alternatively, this can be called the six-year-old daughter test). I would encourage teachers and even specialists and experts to try this with whatever concept. Try to explain DNA, antibiotics, polymer chemistry, stars, nanotechnology, energy, graph theory to a six-year-old. It will be fun and enlightening!

The second aspect of “this unscientific age” is the lack of understanding by the public of what science is and what scientists do. This lack of understanding leads to: (a) confusion when conflicting “scientific” reports are published by the media (so is chocolate really good or bad for you?), that leads to (b) skepticism of scientific results and of scientists. In the most extreme cases, this skepticism is accompanied by a belief in pseudoscience, such as astrology, faith healing, miracle water (and other miracle cures), numerology, and creationism.

When scientists say that they are sure about something (say, evolution), what they really mean is that the overwhelming weight of the evidence points to that direction. Notice that there is always uncertainty, and scientists hardly talk in absolutes. The common person, however, likes to think in absolutes. The non-scientist does not have the patience or perspective to realize that to a scientist, very few things (if any) are absolute, all the time, at all scales. Everything can be questioned. However, some things have so much evidence behind them, that it would take enormous amounts of contrary proof to overturn them. So, for example, when scientists say “theory of evolution,” they are using the word “theory” in a different way than most people use them. In this sense, “theory” is an overwhelming explanation of a phenomenon, that is entirely self-consistent, that can be used to make predictions, and has the might of overwhelming evidence behind it. A “theory” to a scientist, is a very serious thing, what the layman can probably think of as fact. For example, gravitation is also a “theory,” but most people do not question it (and jump from tall buildings)! Because scientists are open to new evidence and new explanations, they can appear to be uncertain, but it takes a lot to disprove a solid mountain of evidence. Thus, the maxim “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”

This is a problem in science communication. News organizations (TV and newspapers) typically do not convey all the uncertainties when reporting science. Thus, people get confused when scientists do not agree 100 percent, or when a newer study contradicts an older one. Uncertainty and doubt are natural characteristics of scientific knowledge, and the goal is to ask how we can know more. To scientists, nothing is really “sure.” The data just have to be analyzed and interpreted as objectively as possible. Pseudoscience takes advantage of this natural uncertainty, and people’s lack of understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. 

What are the usual hallmarks of pseudoscience and just plain wrong science? One is the lack of statistical analysis. This includes reliance on anecdotal evidence (my uncle got cured by this miracle water, therefore this is a cure), the propensity to see patterns where none exist (the number 7 explains everything), and the inability to include probability (if you guess many times, you will sometimes get it right). False science relies on disregarding contrary evidence (you remember coincidental events, but not the many times there was no coincidence). Pseudoscience does not explain (i.e., every piece of data should make sense), cannot be tested (or does not want to be tested), and cannot predict.

Here are a few simple questions we can ask when confronted by junk, false, and pseudo science:

Is the reported cause plausible? What is the evidence? Are the lines of evidence consistent with what is known (or do we have to invent things or change known scientific laws)? What statistics support the claim? What is the sample size (your uncle is a sample size of one)? How can we objectively test the claim? How open is the proponent to testing the claim (scientists accept that others will test their results)? How transparent is the proponent in revealing methods used? Is it logical? And finally: who stands to gain if the claim is true?

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Francis L. de los Reyes III is an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. He conducts research and teaches classes in environmental biotechnology, biological waste treatment, and molecular microbial ecology. He is on the editorial board of Water Research, was a 2008 Balik-Scientist of the DOST, and is a 2009 TED (Technology Entertainment Design ideas worth spreading) Fellow. He is a member of the Philippine-American Academy of Scientists and Engineers. E-mail at [email protected].