Further Thoughts on Science Appreciation
by Morris H. Shamos
In the review of Michael Friedlander's At the Fringes of Science in the Fall 1996 issue of the Teachers Clearinghouse Newsletter, my advocacy of teaching science appreciation is invoked as an antidote to the way the public views pseudoscience on a par with science. I agree with you that teaching science appreciation to the general public might help to counteract the effects of the pseudoscience that all individuals are exposed to, mainly by the media. But this would come about primarily because the public has learned to appreciate the power of critical thinking, not because a course in science appreciation should be designed to counter specific instances of pseudoscience; there are simply too many of these to attack on a case-by-case basis. Rather, the public must learn how to analyze and decide for itself whether a statement is logically correct or falls in the realm of pseudoscience. I believe we can help the public to achieve this by teaching science appreciation, a large part of which would be devoted to critical thinking. If you want a rank ordering of (a) critical thinking and (b) recognizing pseudoscientific approaches, I believe that endowing the individual with the power to think critically must come first. There are other reasons for my advocating science appreciation, of course; chief among these is that it provides one the freedom to emphasize the structure of science rather than its specific content.
Three pages later, in a box headed "Science Appreciation vs. Science Knowledge," you cite President John Adams' misunderstanding of Newton's Third Law of Motion and raise the question, "Adams clearly had an appreciation of science, but in his case was that enough?" I believe that Adams' appreciation of science was enough for his purpose and stature. I do not think that understanding Newton's Third Law in the technical sense should be a requirement for the general public; rather, it is enough for them to appreciate that there are laws governing the motion of bodies, and that these laws explain why a body sometimes remains at rest. I am sure that most of our key executives in the government do not understand science, but they certainly appreciate it in the sense that it is important for them and society to support. Whether they appreciate science for its own sake (I prefer using the phrase "science awareness") is also questionable, but they at least have the services of experts to advise them on scientific issues. I cannot say that if all government executives understood science things would be much different. I would like to think so, but I cannot be sure. If the general public only appreciated science, let alone understood it, things would certainly be much different.
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