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Scientific papers often begin by posing a atrived at such a result? How can OUf miserable
paradox, even if it is one that had nOt previously system of education have produced such a bril-
seemed particularl y d isturbing. Having posed liant community of scientists? 1 would li ke to
the paradox, the author then proceeds to resolve refer to this si tuat ion as the Paradox of the
Is American science
it. At first glance, we don't seem to make muc h Scientific Elites and the Scientific Il literates.
education like progress that way. A paradox that was previously In my view, chese tWO seemi ngly contradiccory
mining? Here Geor- unnoticed is now no longer unexplained. Such observations are both true, and they are closely
gius Agricola iIIus
trates the process of
exercises, however, can sometimes be useful. For related to one another. We have created a kind
mining and sifting example, Albert EinStein's famous 1905 paper of feudal aristocracy in American science, where
copper ore in the introducing the theory of relativity was very a privileged few hold court, while rhe roiling
Carpathians in De He
Metallica, 1556.
much of this form. He began by pointing our masses huddle in darkness, metaphorically
that when a magnet induces an electric current in speaking, of course. Bue I think inexorable
a loop of wire, we attribute that effect ro entirely historic forces are at work that have already
different causes depending on whether the mag- begun to bring those cond itions ro an end-not
net or the wire is in motion. Finding th is para- that lig ht will be brought to the masses necessari-
dox intolerable, he proceeded to resolve it, g ivi ng ly, bur that OilY days at court are clearl y num-
new meanings ro time and space along the way. bered. To underStand all this, and before we get
Today, with my custOmary modesry, 1 would more deeply mired in dubious metaphors, it may
like to follow in Albert's bicycle tracks and begin help CO go back CO the beginning. I mean
this talk by posing a paradox. The paradox is literally The Beginning .
that we, here in tbe United States today, have the In modern cosmology, the accepted [heory of
finest scientists in the world, and we also have the the beginning of the universe goes something
worSt science education in the world, or at least like this: at a certai n instant around 10--15 bil-
in the industrialized world. American scientists, lion years ago, the universe was created-in a
trained in American graduate schools, produced cataclysmic event called [he Big Bang. It has
more Nobel Prizes, more scientific ci tadons, been expanding uniform ly evet since. What we
more of JUSt about anything you care to measu re, do not know is whether the density of matter in
than any Other country in the world; maybe more the universe is great enough to reverse that
than rhe rest of the world combined, Yet, Stu- expansion eventually, causi ng (he universe to
dents in American schools consistently rank at slow down, come co a scop, and then finally f.1l1
the bottom of all those from advanced nations in back upon itself. If that does happen, rhe
testS of scientific knowledge; and furthermore cosmologists are prepared with a name for the
roughly 95 percent of the American public is final cataclysmic moment when the universe
consiStently found to be scientifically illiterate by ends. Ir will be known as the Big Crunch.
any ra[ional Standard. How can we possibly have I would like co offer a somewhat analogous
R~pri nr"" w i,h pe rm i" ion from Sd",a. Copyrish t 1992 by t h~ Ame rican As;()~ia,i ,,,,
fot the Advancement of Sci~nc~.
to the number of scienrisrs rhat already existed. I believe it is a serious mistake to think of our
We have already seen how that process works at system of education as a pipeline leading to PhDs
the final stage of education, where each ptofessor in science or in anything else. For one thing, if it
in a research university turns out 15 PhOs, most were a leaky pipeline, and it could be repaired,
of those wanting to become research professors then, as we've already seen, we would soon have a
and turn out 15 more PhOs. flood of PhOs that we wouldn't know what to do
Recently, however, a vastly different picture with. For another thing, producing PhDs is
of science education has been put forth and has simply not the purpose of our system of educa-
come to be widely accepted. It is the metaphor of tion. Its purpose instead is to produce citizens
the pipeline, illustrated above on the cover of an capable of operating a J effersonian democracy,
issue of Science magazine from last November. and also if possible capable of contributing to
The idea is that our young people start out as a their own and to the collective economic we ll
torrent of enthusiastic, curious minds eager to being. To regard anyone who has achieved those
learn about the world, but as they pass through purposes as having leaked out of the pipeline is
the various grades of schooling, that eagerness worse than arrogant; it is silly. Finally, the pic-
and curiosity is somehow squandered, fewer and ture doesn't work in the sense of a scientific
fewer of them showing any in terest in science, model: it doesn't make the right predictions . We
until at the end of the line, nothing is left but a have already seen that, in the absence of external
mere trickle of Ph Os. (The artist for Science didn't constraints, the size of science grows exponential-
get the idea of a trickle quite right.) Thus, our ly. A pipeline, leaky or otherwise, would not
entire system of education is seen to be a leaky have that result. It would only produce scientists
pipeline, badly in need of repairs. As rhe cover of in proportion to the flow of entering students.
Science indicates the leakage problem is seen as I would like to propose a different and more
particularly severe with regard to women and illuminating metaphor for science education. It
minorities (even the "trickle" at the end is milky is more like a mining and sorting operation, de-
whire), but the pipeline metaphor applies to all. signed to cast aside most of the mass of common
I'm not quite sure, but I think the pipeline meta- human debris, but at the same time to discover
phor came first out of th e National Science Foun- and rescue diamonds in the rough, that are capa-
dation, which keeps careful track of science work- ble of being cleaned and cut and polished into
force statistics (at least that's where I first heard gli ttering gems, just like us, the existing scien-
it). As the NSF points out with particular urgen- tists. It takes only a little reflection to see how
cy, women and minorities will make up the ma- much more this model accounts for than the
jority of our working people in future years. If pipeline does. It accounts for exponential
we don'r find a way to keep them in the pipe- growth, since it takes scientists ro identify
line, where will our future scientists come from? prospective scientists. It accounts for the very
real problem thar women and minorities are along with Big Macs and designer je-dns.
woefully underrepresented among scientists, Getting back to America, the mining and
because it is hard for US white, male scientists sorting operation that we call science education
to perceive [hat once they are cleaned, CUt, and begins in elementary school. Most elementary
polished rhey will look like us. Ie accoums for school teachers are poorly prepared to present
[he fact thar science education is for the most parr even the si mplest lessons in scientific or mathe-
a dreary business, a burden co student and teacher matical subjects. In many places, elementary
alike at all levels of American education, until [he education is the only college major rhat does nO[
magic moment when a teacher recogn izes a po- require even a single science course, and it is said
tential peer, at which point it becomes exhi lara t- that many students who choose that major do so
ing and sliccessfui. Above all, it resolves rhe precisely to avoid having to take a course in sci-
paradox of Scient ific Elites and Scientific 111irer- ence. To the extent that rhis is true, elementary
arcs. It explains why we have the best sciencisrs school teac hers are not merely ignorant of science,
Our colleagues and the mOSt poorly educated students in rhe they are preselected for their hostility to science,
abroad can take world. It is because Ollf entire system of ed uca- and no doubt they transmit that hostility to their
what scant mm- tion is designed co produce precisely that result. pupils, especially young girls for whom elementa-
It is e'dSy co see the sorting operation at work ry sc hool reachers muse he powerful role models.
fort they can find in the college physics classroom, where mOSt of Even those teachers who did have at least some
in the promise my own experience is centered, bur I believe it science in college are not Likely to be well pre-
works at all levels of education a nd in many other pared co reach rhe subjecr. Recenriy, I served on
that our dilem- subjects. From elementary school to graduate a kind of visiting committee for one of the elite
mas m sCience school, from art and literature to chemistry and campuses of the University of California, where
physics, students and teachers with similar incli- every student is required to have at least one
and education are nations resonate with one another. The tendency science course. The job of (he committee was to
on the way, along is narural and universal. But, if it is so universal, determine how well this requjrement was
with Big Macs you might ask, why is America so much worse off working. We discovered rhar 90 percene of (he
than the rest of the world? The answer, I think, students in majors outside science and rechnology
and designer is that in education and in science, as in fast food were satisfyi ng the requ irement by raking a very
Jeans. and popular cu lture, America is nOt really worse popular biology cou rse known informally as
than the rest of the world; we are me rely a few "human sexuality." I don't doubt for an instant
years ahead of the rest of the world. What we are that the course was valuable and interesting , and
seeing here wil l happen eve ryw here soon enough. may even have tempted the students to do
Our colleagues abroad can take what scant com- voluntary "hands on" experimentation on their
fort chey can find in the promise that our dilem- own time (a result we seldom achieve in physics).
mas in science and education are on the way, Bu( I do nor rhink rhar such a course by irself