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Ok here is an important entry into PER and education. The average person
...can you draw any possible conclusions? (like epidemiology, public
health,
and proving a connection between lung cancer and smoking - it
isn't necessarily easy!)
simply can't understand epidemiological connections involving statistics.
From my testing using the Lawson test, only about 1% of high school seniorsunderstand statistical evidence. So the reason for "the war on science" is
that we have done a woefully inadequate job in both science and math
courses. The evidence is that the thinking skills of students are very low
and that conventional math and science courses do not increase them. The
thinking skills seem to increase independently of those courses. But
Karplus and his collaborators and currently Anton Lawson have shown in a
number of papers that thinking skills can be improved by use of the
"learning cycle" in teaching.
As to the "Republican" part, it is unfortunately true that the previous
administration was particularly prone to distort and cover up scientific
evidence. All administrations have used spin to promote their ideas, but
the previous one was outrageously activist in rewriting reports to cover up
the evidence. The rewrites were often done by nonscientists. They tried to
jettison all of the evidence for what works in education by taking previous
reports off of the web. After a hue and cry they put them back on in vary
obscure but findable corners.
The recent flap over a supposedly suppressed report on global warming was a
report by an economist who used sources that would not be allowed in any
good undergraduate paper. So of course it was treated as trash. So it was
picked out of the trash barrel and now serves as a political tract. But who
is circulating the trash?
Both sides have their crazies, but currently for political advantage the
Republicans have gotten into bed with particular religious groups and other
groups that oppose science. This is of particular concern to everyone in
science and education because it means that your classes can be censured,
and your legitimate papers can be questioned on political and religious
grounds. The Republicans like Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon... would have
been aghast at this type of behavior. Even Reagan, who used a lot of
incorrect unscientific anecdotes, still did not overtly censure science.
Neither did Bush senior. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and many of the
founding fathers would also have been shocked by this sort of thing.
Incidentally many of them were Unitarians or Deists and so they founded the
country on philosophical ideas and not Christianity.
This problem is quite evident in the TX state board of education which
almost evenly split between moderates, and activist Republicans. All of the
activist Republicans have supported creationism and ID in schools. They
have tried very hard to censure the texts. The head of the board has used
fundamentalist preachers as expert witnesses, and has circulated essentially
religious tracts that attach science. Meanwhile they fired a person in the
department who publicized a lecture on evolution. Some of the Republicans
and all of the Democrats are moderate, but the Republicans on the board are
split with only 1/3 being moderate. The governor of TX is also activist
against scientific views. This is not a liberal vs conservative issue.
There are some signs that the younger generation may not be buying into this
type of behavior. The number of people who "believe" in the literal
biblical account of creation has been steadily decreasing since the 50s.
The fundamentalists are very concerned because they know they are slowly
losing. They used to be fairly apolitical and not openly support one party
or another, but their current overwhelming support of Republicans has caused
this political shift. If Republicans can be convinced that this will in the
end drag them down, most of them will disavow the religious connection. But
until then I think it is correct to call it a Republican war on science.
But we do need to be concerned. Currently many biology teachers either
ignore evolution or treat it lightly because of fear. This happens even in
non-public schools such as Catholic schools. But according to a friend the
best teaching he had on evolution was by a nun in a Catholic school. All of
the mainline churches support teaching correct scientific thought. Even
mentioning homosexuality in a class can get you in trouble, and bringing up
scientific evidence on the subject is often taboo. Let us not forget that
Alan Turing was tolerated for his openly gay behavior during the war, but
afterwards was prosecuted.
You can be politically attacked and even fired for giving good scientific
opinions! Incidentally Houston and Austin have public schools that do teach
evolution, but at the same time at Houston Baptish U (HBU) it is officially
taboo. They call themselves a "liberal" arts university.
John M. Clement
Houston, TX
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