Americans are becoming more
scientifically literate, according to a
new survey, but we still have a long way
to go.
Researchers at Michigan State University
found that in less than 20 years the
scientifically literate portion of the
population almost tripled, from 10
percent to 28 percent. They define
scientific literacy as having enough
science background to understand a
newspaper article on a science topic.
Despite the big jump, twenty-eight
percent may still not sound very high,
but Michigan State professor Jon Miller
says it's enough to place the United
States at number two, behind Sweden, in
a worldwide ranking of scientific
literacy. One reason for the strong
showing, he suggests, is that American
universities are not as specialized as
those elsewhere.
MILLER: "The United States is the only
country in the world that requires its
college students to have a year of
general education, which means a year of
science."At many American universities,
first-year students are required to take
courses in science, history, and
literature, before specializing in later
years.
That's not typical in many other
countries, says Nick Allum of the
University of Surrey in England. "Yeah, it's very unlikely,
indeed, that they would have any science
courses. It would be almost impossible,
I would say. And that's not unusual. And
in fact the specialization in Britain
occurs much earlier, even at [age] 16,
where you only study three or four
subjects. It's possibly to study only
arts subjects from 16 onward."
Allum, and Miller before him, were among
the researchers who addressed the
question of scientific literacy at the
recent meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of
Science in San Francisco.Another was Raymond Eve of the
University of Texas, who described a
survey he did several years ago when
there were plans to build the
Superconducting Super Collider, a very
expensive giant atom smasher, which was
eventually cancelled.
EVE: "I did a survey of both college
students and the public and asked them
were they in favor of funding it or not,
but the interesting question was one
that, down at the bottom said, what does
the super collider do? And a very large
percentage said, well, it knocks down
missiles, doesn't it?"
Well, actually, no. The super collider
had nothing to do with a missile defense
system, except that both were
controversial and both carried
astronomical price tags.
Scientists often cite the interest in
astrology as a symptom of scientific
illiteracy. As the late Cornell
University astronomer Carl Sagan used to
point out, virtually every newspaper in
the United States publishes a daily
horoscope, but few if any have a daily
astronomy column. What might be
considered an alarming number of people
claim that astrology is scientific, but
as Nick Allum of the University of
Surrey points out, maybe they're
confusing astrology with astronomy. He
conducted a survey in Europe and got
very different results, depending on
whether he asked about "astrology" or
"horoscopes."
ALLUM: "And sure enough we find only
about 10 percent of people think
horoscopes are very scientific —
although that's rather a high proportion
in some ways — compared with about 25-30
percent thinking the same about
astrology."
Whatever the exact percentage, a lot of
people put their faith in astrology, or
at least have an interest in it and
other pseudosciences. One scholar in the
field, Susan Losh of Florida State
University, suggests that a horoscope
may provide answers to questions about
life and love — questions that science
doesn't even try to answer.
LOSH: "I think what a lot of what we
call pseudoscience speaks to things that
science does not speak to: the meaning
of life, the uncertainty of life. So I
really think that issues of, can I make
it through life unscathed? What's going
to happen to me next week? I mean,
science doesn't tackle any of these
things, but a lot of features of
pseudoscience do."
Researchers say that among the weakest
areas in Americans' understanding of
science are evolution and biology.
Michigan State University professor Jon
Miller says that may be because
acceptance of science in those areas is
more personal and more likely to
conflict with deeply held personal or
religious views.
MILLER: "It's very clear now that you
cannot both accept modern genomics and
think that Adam and Eve are your distant
relatives."
Miller's survey found that almost 30
percent of Americans are now
scientifically literate. But, he said,
we should take no pride in a finding
that 70 percent of Americans can't
understand the science stories in
today's news.
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根据一项新的调查，一般美国人在科学方面的知识正在不断提升，但是还有很长的一段路要走。美国密西根州立大学的研究人员发现，对科学有所了解的美国人在不到20年之内增加了两倍，从10%增加到28%。研究人员对科学知识的定义是：具有基本的科学常识，可以看得懂报纸上以科学为主题的文章。
尽管提升的幅度很大，28%的比例听起来可能并不算很高。但是密西根大学教授米勒说，这个比率使美国名列第二，仅次于瑞典。他说，美国人的科学知识所以会提升是因为美国各大学不像其他地方的学校那样专门化。
米勒说：“全世界只有美国的大学生必须先接受一年的综合教育，也就是修一年的科学课程。”美国大学一年级的学生在开始攻读主修的科目之前必须先修科学、历史和文学的课程。
英国苏瑞大学的艾勒姆教授说，英国的人文学科的学生通常不会接触任何没有关联的科目。他说：“要文科的学生去修科学课程是不太可能的，我认为几乎是完全不可能，这也并不是异乎寻常的。事实上，英国的学生很早就开始攻读专修的学科。有些学生在16岁就只选修3门或者4门课程。他们接下来可能只修文科的课程。”
美国科学促进协会最近在旧金山举行会议，讨论科学知识的问题。参加会议的研究人员包括艾勒姆和米勒。美国德克萨斯大学的伊夫教授也参加了这次的会议。他提到他在几年前所做的一次调查。当时有关方面正计划建造一个超导超级对撞机，这个巨型对撞机造价非常昂贵，建造计划最后被取消。
伊夫说：“我对一些大学生和民众进行了一次调查，问他们是不是赞成花钱建造这个对撞机器。但是，他们提出的一个有趣的问题是：这个撞击器有什么用途呢？有很大一部份人说：它可以击落导弹，对不对？”
实际上，除了都可能引起争议和造价非常昂贵以外，超级对撞机和导弹防御没有任何关系。
科学家常常说，对占星术感兴趣显示对科学缺乏了解。已故天文学家萨甘曾经指出，在美国，差不多每一份报纸每天都会刊登一个星象图，但是没有什么报纸会每天刊登一篇天文学专栏文章。把占星术当做一种科学的人可能多的令人惊奇。
苏瑞大学的艾勒姆教授认为，他们可能把占星术和天文学弄混了。根据米勒教授的调查，目前有将近30%的美国人具有相当的科学知识，但是有70%的美国人还看不懂有关科学的新闻，这难以引以为自豪。 |
