Observations on the STS Scene
by Irma S. Jarcho
The lead article in the April-June 1997 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, "The Economic Impact of a Bioterrorist Attack: Are Prevention and Postattack Intervention Programs Justifiable?" reminds us that there are other forms of terrorism besides suicide bombers. Authors A. F. Kaufmann, M. I. Meltzer, and G. P. Schmid constructed a model that compared the impact of three classic biological warfare agents -- anthrax, brucella, and tularemia -- on a suburb of a major city with 100,000 people exposed. The model showed the economic impact ranged from an estimated $477.7 million per 100,000 persons exposed (brucellosis) to $26.2 billion for tularemia. In their models all three biological agents would cause high rates of illness and death. In the absence of an intervention program for the 100,000 persons exposed, B. anthracis would result in 50,000 cases of inhalation anthrax and 32,875 deaths. The F. tularensis cloud would result in 82,500 cases with 6188 deaths, and the brucella cloud would result in 82,500 cases of brucellosis and 413 deaths. Numerous tables and graphs present data and estimates in detail. The authors urge preparedness measures to both reduce the probability of an attack and increase the rapid response capability.
Don't shrug off the danger of biological warfare! Saddam Hussein was well on the way to achieving this type of capability. It is much more effective than a bomb or two!
This quarterly, reviewed in the Fall 1996 issue of this Newsletter, is an interesting and worthwhle free journal for biology and health sciences teachers with particular interest in infectious disease. Other articles in this issue are also of interest and importance, one of them a detailed analysis of the Hantaviruses as a global disease problem, including an epidemic in Argentina where epidemiologic evidence strongly suggests person-to-person transmission.
Are We More Scientifically Literate Than We Thought?
It is always stimulating and challenging to read anything by Stephen Jay Gould. He frequently presents a point of view that hadn't occurred to me and leaves me with the idea that "He's right! Why didn't I think of it before?" This is certainly true of his essay in the September 1997 issue of Natural History, entitled "Musings on the Teaching and Learning of Science: Drink Deep or Taste Not the Pierian Spring." He states that "a commonplace of our culture, and the complaint of teachers, holds that, of all subjects, science ranks as the most difficult to learn and therefore the scariest and least accessible of all disciplines." If true, this explains the central concern of the National Science Education Standards that scientific literacy (however defined) be made accessible to all. The belief exists that public knowledge of science may be extraordinarily shallow, but Gould writes to argue against this belief and to insist that "science is wonderfully accessible, that most people show a strong interest, and that levels of general learning stand quite high. . . ." Our error, in his opinion, stems from the fact that we have failed to include domains of maximal public learning within the scope of science.
Gould then proceeds to enumerate some of the fields in which millions of Americans have learned to love science. These include 1) sophisticated knowledge about underwater ecology among tropical fish enthusiasts, 2) horticultural experience of millions of members in garden clubs, 3) bird watching, safaris, and ecotourism, 4) intimate knowledge of natural history among hunters and fishermen, 5) astronomical learning of telescope enthusiasts [Please note that many current astronomical observations are the produce of amateur viewers], 6) technological expertise of amateur car mechanics, model builders, and weekend sailors, 7) the statistical knowledge of poker players and racetrack touts, and 8) the dinosaur lore so thoroughly learned by five-year-olds.
Gould insists that most of us are born with a love of science and here I completely agree with him. As one who has taught science in the elementary grades, I can attest to the fervor and enthusiasm with which young students approach their learning, and I have always bemoaned that, as Gould says, this love is beaten out of them in later life. He then assigns "the task of nurture and rescue" to those who represent what he has often called the most noble word in our language -- teacher. A clarion call to action for all teachers who agree with his premise that there is a great deal of love of science in our children and we must combat the dying of the light of childhood's fascination.
Did The New York Times Know More Than Goddard?
Readers of this column know that I love to collect examples of misguided prophecies. How wrong can you be? In 1921 a New York Times editorial had this to say about rocket scientist Robert Goddard: Prof. Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
Twentieth Century Eugenics Practices in Developed Countries
This Newsletter has frequently covered the history of the eugenics movement (most recently in Resource #30 of our Fall 1996 issue) -- from its inception in the United States to the distorted uses made of its tenents by the Nazis: their ideas of the inferiority of Jews, gays, gypsies, and other breeds outside the law. But I thought all this had finished with the Nazis. Now, in little more than one week, come reports of the forced sterilization of the "unfit" in Sweden (of all places!), France, and Japan.
The Washington Post National Weekly Edition for 8 September 1997 states that from 1934 to 1974 some 62,000 Swedes were sterilized "as part of a national program grounded in the science of racial biology." The article states that Sweden was the first nation to establish an institute on racial biology (1922) and enacted its first law authorizing sterilization for the mentally ill in 1934. By that time Germany, Denmark, and Norway had similar laws. Among the cases cited in the article was that of a young woman who had not mastered her confirmation studies well enough to satisfy the priest. Another was judged mentally slow as a child because she could not read the blackboard at school. She suffered from poor vision.
As for France, a short item in The New York Times for 11 September states that the government has ordered an investigation into allegations that 15,000 Frenchwomen were sterilized after being deemed mentally or physically inferior. The total included women whom psychologists considered difficult.
Another article a week later in The New York Times quotes the Japanese government as refusing to apologize or make compensatory payments to more than 16,000 handicapped women who were sterilized over five decades without their consent. Japan legalized sterilization as a means of improving the Japanese people by preventing childbearing by certain women. The law, which was revoked last year, allowed doctors to sterilize women with mental or physical handicaps or certain hereditary diseases without their consent but with the approval of local government committees. The government believes no compensation or apology is needed because the program was legal at the time.
It is quite possible that, with this increased publicity, reports of like nature will appear in other developed countries. Who are we to criticise? The United States did this for decades until the excesses of the Nazis threw eugenics theories into disrepute.
A Game a Computer Can't Beat?
The chess contest between Grand Master Kasparov and Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer, ended in a victory for the latter and attracted enormous media attention. The final triumph of the computer? Artificial intelligence at last?
Yet at the same time there is a simple game, far more popular than chess in the East -- GO -- played with black and white flat stones, which cannot be programmed effectively. The two contestants take turns placing their stones (black for one side, white for the other) on any unoccupied intersection. The object of the game is to surround and capture opponent's stones while building your own fence-like structure enclosing as much territory as possible.
A $1.4 million prize has been offered by a Taiwanese organization for a computer program that can beat a champion human player. Meanwhile about $25,000 in prizes will be given to the best programs in two annual international contests in Japan and the United States. The best GO computer programs so far devised can be defeated by an amateur GO player.
The difficulty lies in the fact that, to play GO, the computer must be able to recognize subtle and complex patterns. In GO, the "tree" of possible moves is so broad and dense that not even the fastest computer can negotiate it. On an average, a player is faced with 200 possible moves compared to just 35 in chess. As a computer scientist would put it, the "branching factor" is much higher for GO than for chess. The number of possible board positions after only four moves in chess is typically 1,500,625. For GO it is 1,600,000,000.
This information, and a great deal more fascinating lore about GO, is contained in a long article in the "Science Section" of The New York Times for 29 July 1997. The detail provided in the article leaves one with the conviction that winning that million dollar prize is an impossible dream. The prize offer expires in the year 2000. GO programmers are hoping it will be extended for another century.
(Editor's Note: GO is played on a 19 x 19 grid. The 7 August 1997 issue of the Trenton Times reports that a computer program defeated the world champion in the similar game of Othello, which is played on an 8 x 8 chess board.)
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