The Evolution of the 40 - 40 Club

This just in from the Nov. 28, 2006 Onion -  Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution:

TOPEKA, KS - Any living being that undergoes genetic modification favoring survival could face jail time under the new law.

A really clever piece on our favorite state, I enjoyed reading it today probably a whole lot more than if I had seen it yesterday - a day of unfortunate and fortunate events.

I was at Penn State attending a meeting of the Scientific Benchmark subcommittee of the PA Governor's Commission on College and Career Success.  The subcommittee's charge includes proposing revisions to the current PA state teaching standards.  This was my first meeting, and I was amazed to meet such an energetic and dedicated group of secondary and higher-ed faculty working on this important project.  Everyone in the room has one overarching goal - to ensure that ALL students learn essential mathematics and science concepts  and skills - necessary for success in today's, and especially tomorrow's world.

This was the fortunate event.

The unfortunate events were my reading two disturbing articles earlier in the day.  In one, I read a report of the August survey done by Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The results of the poll suggest that only 40% of the U.S. believe in evolution (BTW, the only country with a smaller percentage is Turkey, while countries such as Sweden and Denmark have an 80% belief rate)  Miller's study attributes this disturbing dichotomy as a perfect-storm effect of religion, politics, and LACK of GENERAL SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE of core biological ideas.  (Check out the National Geographic report on the poll.) 

The other article was even more depressing:  The Chronicle of Higher Ed reported that in a survey by the American Council on Education, 46% of those polled said that colleges and universities should not require students to take more courses in math and science, while 46 percent said students should be required to do so. This deep division is evidence that all of the messages and news about American students falling farther and farther behind in terms of essential skills for the 21st Century are not being heard.  (Click here to read the original study - "Math and Science Education and United States Competitiveness: Does the Public Care?")

Where is the Math/Science PR?  With the constant stream of news stories about American students falling further and further behind the rest of the world's students, it seems to be everywhere, but no one (or at least 40% aren't listening.

Luckily for me, but really luckily for our students and our country, the fortunate event outweighed the unfortunate events.  The effort to make science standards the best they can be as a preparation for our students' future success will also produce a perfect PR machine, as students who are successful realize that it was the mathematics and science that formed the foundation of their success.   And the students who follow them will generate the demand that will lead to more math and science at all education levels.

Then we won't be in the 40-40 club anymore, which will be quite an evolution!

Prediction, Fiction, and Science Policy: The Jurassic Park Syndrome

Michael Crichton needs to visit an ER for an arrogancectomy...

It's amazing to me how global warming is now accepted as fact, when not too long ago it was still being described as possibly a climate condition that appears, and has appeared, from time to time in the course of the lifespan of the earth.  There now seems to be an article every week in the major press about the latest discoveries confirming a warming trend that does not appear to be part of some grand cycle through earth's history.  This has led several countries and continents  to proclaim global warming to be the BIGGEST threat to humanity in the not-so-long term, enacting legislation and controls that will stem the tide of further warming.  

The U.S. is not one of them, of course.  Hopefully, this sad state of affairs will begin to change with the  new makeup of Congress.   If so, it will be those who aren't fans of Michael Crichton that may make the difference.

Click to read more ...

To Drill or Not to Drill: Modeling Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Click to enlarge mapThe Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a flash point for environmental and energy issues, combined in a volatile atmosphere of anti-terrorism. If only the U.S. could start drilling for oil there, the up to 8 billion estimated recoverable barrels of oil would surely lower our dependance on foreign oil, especially from the Middle East.

Or so proclaim those in favor of opening the refuge for drilling. (See ANWR.org - with a tag line of "Jobs and Energy For America" - for a collection of pro-drilling arguments.)

Currently, ANWR drilling is not permitted by federal statute. Over the past few years there have been several attempts in Congress to allow drilling - on some occasions from the House, only to be turned down by the Senate, and then from the Senate, shot down by the house.  (Click here for more details.)

Even though it appears as if those against drilling are currently holding their own, the no-end-in-sight Iraqi situation combined with the explosion of jihadist sentiment and activity could tip things enough so that both the Senate and House finally agree to open up the slopes for drilling. (Which is just one of the reasons that the upcoming mid-term elections, and possilbe change in majority party in both the Senate and the House, are extremely significant for the ANWR.)

The Sierra Club is one of the more public groups leading the charge against ANWR drilling.

Click to read more ...

Politics and Framing Science

One of the best "teaching moments" I experience teaching the Chaos and Fractals course is when students get enmeshed in BIG issues and start linking the concepts presented in their readings and discussed in seminar to the various uses - good and bad, utilitarian and political, of modeling in the world.

In the past two versions of the course, the science and politics of climate change has been one such issue. This is mainly because both courses were done while the Kyoto agreements were very much in the news - I taught two versions of the course that straddled the change in presidency changed from Clinton to Bush, with the concomitant refusal to sign Kyoto and strong attempts to dismiss the science of global warming predictions and causes. The class discussions that term indicated to me that students were starting to grasp the full impact of how we come to learn about scientific issues from the media and, in turn, how the media's presentation is ultimately channeled by prevailing political ideology and efficient spin doctors.

Until recently, I didn't have a really good context and source for helping out these class discussions, other than my own bristling at what I saw as clear anti-science stance taken by the current administration. I have since been reading about the work of Matthew Nisbit, in the Communication Department of Ohio State. Nisbit is a communication theorist who specializes in what he terms Framing Science (also the name of his blog) In his words:

At FRAMING SCIENCE we track how political strategists, scientists, and the news media selectively define science in ways that shape policy decisions, public opinion, and political culture. We apply "framing analysis" to understand the social meanings behind technical controversies (and sometimes we will look at other areas of politics.) Frame analysis is an incredibly useful invention of the social sciences, diffusing across a number of academic disciplines. Frames are used on an everyday basis by political operatives, journalists, and average citizens (though they may not realize it.)

I could have really used this blog as a resource this past semester, when the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Debate was clearly being "framed" from all sides of the political spectrum.

So add the Framing Science blog to the must-subscribe-to list (especially in conjunction with the science/politics blog The Intersection, described in my previous post.). At the very least, it will give me, and my future students, a special resource to "frame" our own discussions and understanding of whatever the scientific/policy debate happens to be during that term.