Scientific Literacy Seminar continues series on social professions
by Irma S. Jarcho and John L. RoederColumbia University's Scientific Literacy Seminar has continued its series of talks on "Education in Science Relating to the Social Professions," with Paul Garrett Professor Geoffrey Heal of the Columbia University Business School speaking on "Economics, Business, and the Environment" on 29 January 1998.
When C. P. Snow lectured on "The Two Cultures," he had in mind the humanities and the sciences (which at Cambridge University meant mainly physics). As a physics student at Cambridge, Heal was directly exposed to this "Two Cultures" debate and, in fact, knew Snow. But, in the intervening years, Heal was struck by the notion that there has been a proliferation of cultures in academia, among them the social sciences, computer sciences, and biological sciences. Each culture, Heal pointed out, has its own techniques and outlook. Moreover, increasing the number of cultures increases the ways in which we can fail to communicate with each other.
Just as Snow associated science at Cambridge with physics, Heal associated the social sciences primarily with his own field of economics, which, in addition to attracting him as a graduate student, is now attracting more undergraduates at most American colleges and universities today than any other major. Economists, who are also employed to teach in departments of business and public affairs, may be familiar with relevant computer science and mathematics -- and even know some philosophy -- Heal admitted, yet be completely ignorant of the physical and biological sciences.
Heal saw environmental issues as a way to bring together the diverse cultures, because they require knowledge of both physical and biological processes, social and ethical interactions, and even the expressions of the arts. "The Planet Earth and How It Works" would be an ideal interdisciplinary introductory course, he suggested, noting that Stanford University has something like this in its "Introduction to the Physical and Social Sciences through the Environment."
The failure of intercultural communication has its cost, Heal pointed out, particularly with respect to the environment. Oscar Wilde's quotation that "An economist is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" suggests a narrowness in the education of economists, which is all the more serious since economists are primarily employed in government and business and are increasingly involved in making decisions. The viewpoints of the scientific cultures have emphasized the environmental limits of sustained economic growth, while economists have held that the environment is not an issue in economic growth, he said, causing us to recall physicist Al Bartlett's criticism of economist Julian Simon's assertion that "We have . . . the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years [later retracted to 7 million years] . . . ." (p. 23, Fall 1997 issue; pp. 20-21, Winter 1998 issue). There is a complete mismatch between scientific perception and economic precept.
This mismatch is furthered by the fact that a Ph.D. in environmental economics can be earned with no courses on the environment: this field dwells on environmental regulation rather than on the environment itself. Calculating costs is an economic problem; calculating the benefits is not. Thus economists focus on the costs of avoiding climate change but not its benefits. Their reaction, for example, to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is to insist that technological fixes will come to the rescue, as they have often rescued us from disasters in the past. Heal, in fact, faulted the scientific cultures for failing to appreciate this.
Heal summed up his concerns as follows:
1. Communication between economists and scientists is weak.
2. This is dangerous.
3. This is partly due to our educational system. (More economics Ph.D.'s now have economics B.A.'s while more had science B.A.'s in the past.)
4. Technology and science have a greater impact on everyday life, while decision makers lack scientific background.
These concerns could be addressed by greater breadth in education, but Heal suspected that the U.S. already had too much breadth in its educational system already (it certainly has much more than the British system). A more promising answer, Heal felt, was in postgraduate continuing education, such as a one-week short course the Columbia Earth Institute (p. 13, Fall 1997 issue) is offering for environmental regulators at Biosphere II this fall.
The 26 February 1998 speaker, Willman and Albert Musher Professor Edward Mullen of Columbia University's School fo Social Work, addressed "Scientific Research and Social Work." Mullen adopted a historical approach, citing the development of social work from "social therapeutics" leading to "scientific charity" -- "to make alms giving efficient" -- during the Industrial Revolution. In those days cases were investigated by unpaid "friendly visitors," who, like the social workers of today, served as researchers as well as practitioners. At the outset, efforts were made to study causes as well as individuals, with an emphasis on making the work scientific, as first described by Mary Richman in Social Diagnosis.
Since then, largely in response to Abraham Flexner's proclamation that social work was not based on scientific inquiry, psychoanalytic methods have jostled with scientific methods in social work to this day. But the follow-up discussion found scientists in the audience pointing out that the data gathered by social workers could not form the basis of a controlled study. Individual cases vary too much, and the need to serve all clients precludes the establishment of a control group.
The speaker on 26 March 1998 was Professor Dickson DesPommier of Columbia University's School of Public Health. Though his position clearly relates to the social professions, his talk on "If You Don't Do It, You Haven't Done It: How to Bring Science Education Out of the Classroom" focused on scientific literacy in the more general sense.
DesPommier spoke passionately about how he has been involved with two science education projects outside the classroom, in hopes that today's children will learn a greater appreciation for their environment: 1) the LORAX Project, named after the Dr. Seuss book of the same title, in which a third grade class in Roscoe, NY, plants trees on Arbor Day and makes observations of the surrounding environment; 2) an elementary graduate course in Environmental Health Sciences. In either case he operates from the same set of basic principles: 1) Nothing stays the same, 2) The living world evolves, 3) Humans are part of the living world, 4) All things in the living world depend on each other, 5) Observation leads to understanding, and 6) Observation can't be made without being there. "If you're not passionate about understanding your natural world, you have no place in it," he exclaimed.
Just as he has involved third graders the past five years in planting trees and charting their growth, writing essays (this year's topic: "What good is a tree?"), measuring stream temperatures, and observing the food chain in the stream, he has similarly involved his graduate students. They take turns measuring a tree's age with a borer and the pH of streams; they also observe the Columbia University collection at the Bronx Botanical Garden. This year's class is determining the financial value of Earth's ecosystems' services. (According to Science, DesPommier said, it is $33 trillion per year -- see D. Pearce's review of Gretchen C. Daily (ed.), Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems (Island Press, Washington, DC, 1997) in Science, 277(5333), 1783 (19 Sep 97).)
"We are all connected to the natural world -- why aren't we all interested in it?" DesPommier wondered. For DesPommier this interest was awakened by catching butterflies with his mother, and he would like to see the curiosity of every person similarly tapped. To make sense of what's here and how it got here requires scientific literacy, he said, and that's the purpose of science education. But, he added, "if you don't look, you won't have any questions to ask."
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