AAAS marks 150th anniversary with Science and Society series
by Irma S. Jarcho
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), our premier science organization. In tribute to this event the "house organ" of the AAAS, Science, is publishing a weekly series of personal viewpoints on the theme of science and society.
Essayists include prominent scientists plus a wide range of nonscientists, artists, politicians, religious leaders, science fiction writers, and philosophers. With a new essay each week through the end of the year, the series will build into a fascinating portrait of how the sciences and their effects on society are perceived today.
I have been intrigued by the scope of this enterprise and the variety and breadth of the essays already published. I plan to list, in this and the two following issues of this Newsletter, the essays published during the corresponding interval of time and discuss in some depth those which I feel are most relevant to the scope and mission of the Clearinghouse -- to disseminate, primarily for K-12 teachers, information relevant to Science, Technology, and Society (STS) education.
As can be noted from the titles listed in the accompanying box, Science is spreading its wings wide and is encompassing in this series a great variety of opinions on a great variety of topics, written by as diverse a group as one can imagine.
Pride of place was given to Stephen Jay Gould's "The Great Asymmetry." Gould characterizes our particular tragedy with regard to science as a great asymmetry. Science must break through the strictures of custom to become either our greatest glory and our most potent engine of benevolent change or an accelerator of destruction on the wrong side of the great asymmetry." Humans make that choice; it is not inherent in the intrinsic content of science. The choice is rooted in our social and ethical values, and only time will tell which way the balance tips. What can be a greater asymmetry than the role of some scientists in conquering illnesses and the role of others in perfecting biological warfare? Both are scientists, but the asymmetry Gould refers to could not be greater.
In "The Third Culture" Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired, discards C. P. Snow's proposal of a Third Culture wherein literary intellectuals conversed directly with scientists. Since this never really happened (and I believe Kelly doubts that it could), he insists that a real Third Culture has emerged -- a pop culture based on technology for technology. A "nerd culture," if you will. Kelly amusingly describes the components of this culture -- nerds become cool and grace the cover of TIME. While "nerd culture deeply honors the rigor of the scientific method, its thrust is not pursuing truth but pursuing novelty."
Kelly sees other reasons why technology has seized control. We can now ask interesting questions and get answers we never got before. He sees the nerd way as a new way of doing science -- and explains why, at length. It is readily accessible to everyone, everywhere, steadily changing the way we do science. (Think of the complex models of atmospheric phenomena.) The nerd culture explains old things in new ways. Technology now has its own culture, the third culture, the culture of nerds.
In the third essay, Jose; Goldemberg, physical science professor at the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil, explains why science in developing countries cannot slavishly follow the patterns and procedures of more technologically advanced domains. In Goldemberg's view, scientists in developing countries should 1) help adapt technologies to local circumstances, 2) incorporate new science into education, and 3) be involved in government. He gives reasons and examples of his recommendations.
The essay by Norman Augustine, Chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp., is perhaps most relevant to our purposes. In "What We Don't Know Does Hurt Us. . . ." he bewails the enormous ignorance of science and apathy about science and technology that he sees as rampant among fellow Americans. Such indifference is almost considered a badge of honor. Yet, as he points out, both the American economy and our attendant standard of living are based on a foundation of rapid scientific advances. Scientists are too often perceived by the public in the "Dr. Frankenstein" mold. He proposes an "Augustine's Second Law of Socioscience" -- viz., "For every scientific (or engineering) action there is an equal and opposite social reaction."
The achievements of scientists and engineers are increasingly taken for granted, and the occasional failures are subject to intense public criticism. How could it be otherwise when there is widespread scientific illiteracy among those in high-level decision-making positions? Only 20 of 435 Representatives in Congress have a science or engineering background, only two in the Senate, none in the Cabinet, and only nine of the 50 governors. Augustine proposes a two-pronged effort to help this situation. First, we need a "Rocket Science for Beginners," a proposal reminiscent of Geoffrey Heal's suggestion to the 29 January 1998 Scientific Literacy Seminar that there should be science courses for economists, as reported in this issue. Augustine's second proposal is that scientists learn to communicate far more effectively with nonscientists. We have had magnificent exemplars of this art of communication -- Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, and Edward O. Wilson come immediately to mind, but Augustine does not mention them. Yet Augustine sees encouraging signs and declares himself an optimist. I hope he is right!
The 150th Anniversary Committee asked students of Holmdel High School in New Jersey to express their thoughts on science, and a few are presented in the 20 March essay, "Science -- Far More Than Required High School Coursework." One of the students states that "science is about understanding the world around us, and understanding ourselves." Not a bad description! May I suggest that this would be a marvelous exercise for you to try out in your school? As an assignment, as a contest, or in any way you can, solicit opinions that can serve as a springboard for discussions on the nature of science.
Edward O. Wilson is an ant expert and expert on biodiversity, which makes him a promoter of global conservation of species and natural ecosystems. Writing on "Integrated Science and the Coming Century of the Environment," he defines science as "the organized systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses the knowledge into testable laws and principles." Its defining traits he sees as "first, the confirmation of discoveries and support of hypotheses through repetition by independent investigators; second, mensuration, the quantitative description of the phenomena; third, economy, abstracting the largest amount of information into a simple and precise form; and, fourth, heuristics, the opening of avenues to new discoveries and interpretation. A fifth defining trait he characterizes as consilience, the interlocking of causal explanations across disciplines, which forms the basis of his recent book, Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. Within the natural sciences Wilson sees the webwork of established cause and effect almost continuous from quantum physics to biogeography. He then goes on to list, and elaborate upon, what he sees as an unexplored domain of causally-linked phenomena and lists the disciplines of the natural sciences that have "entered this borderland." The four are cognitive neuroscientists, behavioral geneticists, evolutionary biologists, and environmental scientists in diverse specialties. This was for me a difficult paper but a rewarding one.
There will be many more essays from now until December. Already there are studies on China and on India, as well as others less focused geographically. It is a rewarding series to keep track of all year.
Science and Society essays in Science
Author Date Title Stephen Jay Gould 6 Feb "The Great Asymmetry" Kevin Kelly 13 Feb "The Third Culture" Jose; Goldemberg 20 Feb "What is the Role of Science in Developing Countries?" Daniel Janzen 27 Feb "Gardenification of Wildland: Nature & the Human Footprint" Lita Nelson 6 Mar "The Rise of Intellectual Property Protection in the American University" Norman Augustine 13 Mar "What We Don't Know Does Hurt Us: How Science Illiteracy Hobbles Science" R. Jackel, et al. 20 Mar "Science: Far More Than Required High School Course Work" Edward O. Wilson 27 Mar "Integrated Science and the Coming Century of the Environment" Shiv Visvanathan 3 Apr "A Celebration of Difference: Science-Democracy in India" Bruno Latour 10 Apr "From the World of Science to the World of Research?"
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