The Intersection

My latest Science Progress column is about the "2009 Year of Science" efforts underway--centered in significant part on the twin Darwin anniversaries and the 400th anniversary of Galileo's invention of the telescope. I juxtapose these events with the likely role of science in Washington over the next year, and worry about culture war divisiveness as the anniversaries bring up the bad old science-religion battle. To wit:

It's totally Bush era to argue endlessly over how science clashes with religion; and it's absolutely critical to use science to get us out of the energy and climate mess we're in.

My answer: Don't refrain from celebrating Darwin and Galileo, but focus on the importance of science to policy today, and add another anniversary--a fifty-year one--to the mix:

On May 7, 1959, a British scientist and novelist named C.P. Snow delivered a now-famous lecture entitled "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution." Snow wasn't nearly as important a researcher as Darwin or Galileo--in fact, his early scientific career involved a publishing-related scandal that may have helped push him on to literature--but his delineation of the broad disconnect between the scientific and humanistic ways of thinking has resonated powerfully across the last half century, and describes a problem that's very much still with us.

The COPUS "Year of Science" advocates want to communicate about science--they want to bring science to the rest of America, seizing upon this year's auspicious timing to do it. It's a noble goal, but Darwin and Galileo alone don't necessarily get you there. You need a lot of Obama--and more than a little bit of Snow--as well.

You can read the full column here.