Re: science&publicity

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 21:25 +0200 5/1/03, Ramon Sala wrote:
> I'm a physics teacher and actually I'm preparing a TV report on the
> abuse of the scientific terms in publicity, how this kind of stuff tell
> us something about the scientific cultural level of society and how to
> deal with it in the educational programs.
Sounds like an interesting project. Unfortunately, I cannot direct
you to any studies on the subject you ask about, but I would like to
nudge your attention over to the converse problem, which, from an
educational point of view is at least as important as the question
you have raised, if not more important. What I refer to is the habit
of scientists to take over everyday words, and give them new meanings
which may or may not have any relation to the everyday usage. I think
this would be a very worthwhile follow-on to your first question.

From a student's point of view, difficulties often arise related to
both of these problems. They may enter their study with distorted
ideas of what some well-defined scientific terms actually mean (like
"conservation of energy" means "turn off the lights when you leave
the room" or "don't leave the refrigerator door open"). But these
problems are often readily identified, and the problem then is to
intervene is such a way that the students realize that the meaning
they had for the word or phrase before is either incomplete or just
wrong.

On the other hand, the problem of everyday words changing their
meaning when they walk into science class is more difficult to
identify, since, often the teacher doesn't realize that they are
using a word in a way that "doesn't compute" to the students.
Students see a word that they are familiar with, but the way it is
being used doesn't make any sense. A danger for the student, is that
when they read sentences in which every word has a definite meaning
to them but the sentence as a whole is incomprehensible, they are
likely to get the mistaken idea that they are too stupid to do
science.

Two words with significant political ramifications, at least in the
USA, are "law" and "theory." To the general public "law" is thought
of in the context of morality or the governmental structure. Such
"laws" may be obligatory, but if one is prepared to face the
consequences, they can be ignored, and sometimes, at least, the
consequences do not occur. But in science, a law is not something
that can be broken, it is merely a description of the way things
work. One can ignore the law, but one cannot break it, and if one
ignores it, the consequences are certain, and often catastrophic. The
public uses the word "theory" as essentially the same thing as
"guess" or "hypothesis," while is science theory is at the opposite
end of the spectrum from guess or hypothesis.

Anyway, I see these two problems as more or less complementary, and
worthy of public airing. Is it possible that an English-language
version of what you prepare could be made available at some time?

Good luck,

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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