[Phys-L] Re: Is the US becoming hostile to science?
From: rrhake at EARTHLINK.NET (Richard Hake)
Date: Fri Oct 28 15:11:43 2005
In his valuable Phys-L post of 28 Oct 2005 09:43:05-0700 titled "Is
the US becoming hostile to science?", Mark Shapiro wrote [my angle
brackets <. . .> that preserve hot linking in some (but not all) mail
systems]:
Mark's uninformative bare URL (scourge of the internet) might have
been more usefully replaced with one of those succinct academic
references, e.g., [Elsner (2005)] so rarely found in discussion
lists.
Elsner (2005) wrote [bracketed by lines "EEEEEEEEE. . . ."; my
insertions at ". . . .[insert]. . . "]:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in U.S. high schools is
prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, and some senior
academics warn that science itself is under assault.
In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and
the dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both
spoken on this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term
consequences.
"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science
sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which
extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a
letter posted on the school Web site on October 3 . . .
[<http://deansnewsletter.stanford.edu/archive/10_03_05.html>, scroll
down to the third paragraph].
Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the
university" address last week. . .
[<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct05/State.Univ.05.ssl.html>].
. ., spoke about the challenge to science represented by "intelligent
design" which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast
majority of scientists is fatally flawed.
Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious
and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division
replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education
suffers," he said
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at
odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month
found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in
their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation
was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less
advanced life forms over millions of years.
Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept
the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the
concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.
"When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20
percent turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller,
director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern
University.
He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most
U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and
general scientific ignorance.
U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests
of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed
24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy
of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE