What good is science education?

(Second of two parts)

A statue in memory of the pioneering ecological physiologist Knut Schmidt-Nielsen (1915-2007) now stands at Duke University. Recalling how he became a scientist, he wrote: “A sarcastic soul once observed that the primary function of our schools is to impart sufficient facts to make the children stop asking questions. Those with whom the schools do not succeed become scientists. I never made good grades in school, at times I nearly failed, and I never stopped asking questions.” When I was an undergraduate at the Ateneo de Manila, learning biology was mainly an exercise in brute memorization. So, as a young man, I felt that the biology I learned by reading science magazines in the library was far more valuable than all the facts that got crammed into my head. Memorized facts can be forgotten. On the other hand, the critical evaluation of scientific information and the understanding of concepts that give the facts meaning are skills that, once gained, are not easily lost. They become part of one’s being, as much a part of daily life as the ability to read and write.

To be educated is to be transformed and to see the world in a different light. Science education should therefore help citizens see a world illuminated by science. As a professor, I see much evidence of our collective failure to properly educate students. There are far too many with heads crammed full of facts, not understanding their significance, unable to explain what they mean. Accustomed to the mere regurgitation of information, they object to the novelty perceived in a course rich in concepts and requiring understanding. It almost seems that many science courses offered have become impediments to learning.

If money can’t buy a scientific culture, how should a scientific community go about fostering the emergence of one? The goal of mass education cannot and should not be to turn all citizens into scientists. Nevertheless, a certain level of scientific literacy and the ability to critically evaluate information are required to make informed decisions and to participate productively as citizens in a democracy. If popular culture, the educational system, and the communications media have failed majority of Americans, what is the situation in the Philippines? One could argue that Filipinos are in as much (if not greater) need of a scientific culture as Americans, given the nature and magnitude of problems concerning population growth, environmental degradation, food production, poverty and disease in the Philippines.

A better understanding of the nature of science on the part of the scientists themselves is essential. Then, perhaps more would teach science courses that place critical thinking and understanding above the parroting of facts. Why the emphasis on critical thinking? People hold beliefs for various reasons. Certain beliefs are accepted not because they have been subjected to critical evaluation or empirical verification, but because they have become part of popular culture, or because believing them feels good, or because someone in authority declares them to be true. Some beliefs are claimed to be immune from challenge and guarded with threats of physical harm or eternal damnation. In contrast, beliefs based on the application of the scientific method are mostly tentative answers arrived at by the constant testing and refinement of ideas. As we know from the history of science, as testing continues, the answers change over time. Our entire world, once considered flat and occupying the center of “everything,” is now known as a planet orbiting around a star in an immense, expanding universe. The process by which questions are answered — the scientific method — is as or more important than the answers themselves.

Scientists and non-scientists alike are bombarded with information that they use to formulate world-views and on which they base decisions made in daily life. Among scientists, one measure of the current validity of a scientific claim is whether it has been published as an article in a peer-reviewed journal in the appropriate discipline. It does not contribute to the development of a scientific culture when scientists themselves accept claims that have not been subjected to proper scrutiny. Nor is it productive to continue to reject the idea that the publication of scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals is important and essential to the process of doing science. The ecologist Angel Alcala observed (ASEAN Biodiversity, Jan-Dec 2004, pp. 26-31) that out of 131 biodiversity-related projects funded over a period of several years in the Philippines, only a small fraction (17 percent) generated publications and an even smaller fraction of these (seven percent) were submitted to peer-reviewed journals. A necessary goal in the work toward a scientific culture is for the scientific community itself to consider this unacceptable.

Even non-scientists need a basic understanding of the scientific method; it is a tool with which to discriminate between what is likely to be real and what is not. There are those who claim to perform surgery without making incisions or using anesthetic. There are those who believe in such “psychic surgery,” pay to have their diseased chicken livers extracted, and then feel they have been cured. The widespread inability to filter information resulting from lack of understanding of science is exploited in other ways, for example, to perpetuate the notion that humans are not major contributors to global warming, or that this is still a controversial theory. Uncritical thinking cannot only lead to widespread inaction in the face of impending environmental catastrophe. It can even lead to public support for a foreign invasion based on false claims.

One wonders whether it is the same kind of uncritical, “unscientific” thinking that leads some Filipinos to ignore overpopulation and others to claim it is not a problem because natural resources are plentiful and food production can be increased. The scientific method reveals that fisheries are crashing, forests are mostly gone and coral reefs are disappearing. The further expansion of aquaculture is ruining mangroves. The average yearly production of rice per hectare in the Philippines already greatly exceeds that in Thailand (but in case you wonder why Thailand exports while Philippines imports rice: there are 26 million fewer Thais and they have more arable land per capita than Filipinos) (http://www.irri.org/science/cnyinfo/philippines.asp). Given all these, consider what citizens would do — if, let us suppose, they were scientifically literate — when elected officials block the implementation of population control programs, all the while ignoring the constitutionally mandated separation of Church and State? Next, consider what scientists should do, given their scientific culture and responsibility for its transmission to others? What good is their science education?

Perhaps it was a combination of western colonization and religiosity that led Filipino parents to wring their children’s ears while accusing them of being “pilosopo(s).” As I recall, the intended lesson was to not question authority. There have been periods in history when the light of science was extinguished, critical thinking was prohibited, and unquestioning belief in various dogmas was imposed. Even today, there are those who try to suppress critical discussion. In various countries, this is done in the name of fundamentalist versions of either Islam or Christianity. In Sagan’s rich metaphor, science should be a candle that illuminates the darkness. Scientists in the Philippines and elsewhere should hold it high.

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Raul Kamantigue Suarez is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, California and an editor of the Journal of Experimental Biology, Cambridge, UK. E-mail him at [email protected].