But where is halfway?
The Scientist has published an article by Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, on communicating science to the general public. The basic premise is that scientific literacy must increase, and scientists must perform the outreach in order to increase the science literacy of the average American. But what is the basal level of understanding that scientists can expect from the general public? To where are we expected to increase the scientific literacy? In other words, how much ground must we cover?
From the example Woolley gives, the prospects look bleak:
Consider the complaint I received recently from a university president (a nonscientist) about a scientific presentation he was asked to introduce concerning a subject he understood to be called the "Nome Project." The president assumed that the presentation would be some sort of Alaskan adventure story--perhaps addressing methods of preventing another Valdez disaster; as it turned out, the presentation dealt with the Human Genome Project. The president complained that, with all due respect for the genome project's immense importance to science and civilization, he finds such in-group titles alienating. He and like-minded nonscientific colleagues want to know what's going on in the world of research--but they would like to learn about it in understandable terms.
I've pointed out before that I expect the general public to be comfortable with the term 'genome'. They should be able to explain what a genome is (and what genes are, and what the central dogma is). It's especially sad that a university president was so out of touch -- although it's unclear whether this happened in the past ten years (when genomes became part of the public discourse) or earlier. And even though most people have heard the term 'genome', very few actually know what it means.
The university president would like to learn about science in understandable terms, but where do we begin? Woolley argues that the Human Genome Project should have been called "Mission: Human Life" for marketing purposes. But this doesn't tackle the issue of scientific understanding. Just giving something a clever title does not suddenly mean the public will grasp the concepts. For that we need good education. And therein lies the problem. This goes beyond outreach by practicing scientists and into the realm of primary and secondary education.
Woolley's focus on marketing may pique the interest of the general public or increase the awareness of certain large projects. But to get them to understand the research -- even at a cursory level -- requires more. Either scientists must explain very basic concepts and terminology or the level of scientific education received in public schools must increase. Woolley expects scientists to transmit both a general overview and the groundbreaking science, and I think this is a bit too much.
The best solution is a general public primed with the basic knowledge required for understanding contemporary science. And such a public can be actualized by improving science education in primary and secondary schools. Outreach by scientists is important, but to maximize their efforts, the public should possess a decent background understanding of the most basic concepts.
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Maybe we should suggest instead of the Human Genome Project, "The War on Chromosomes".
Then I suggest that you are stunningly out of touch. Go walk down any street and ask people at random. If you get 1 decent response out of 100, I'd be surprised.
Um, Scott's right. As a new professor, I expected all my students to be able to find the average of four whole numbers. Ha! How unreasonable of me. As for the central dogma and "genome," I had students with several years of college biology behind them who couldn't define either term.
Expecting the average citizen to know what current college students don't is completely unrealistic. And honestly, I'm more concerned about their inability to do basic math than their ignorance of my biological specialty. Sad, but pragmatic.
The current level of understanding must be differentiated from the ideal. A scientifically literate society will understand the concept of a genome, gene, central dogma, etc. That's what I mean by expect -- this is obviously not the case presently.
And I wholeheartedly agree that math skills are way below where they should be. I think a course in basic probability and statistics should be required of all college graduates (not just those in the sciences) and these topics should receive greater coverage than they currently do in secondary education.
By the way, did you notice the dateline on that article is 1992?
If one is a "gnome," can one still be called "human?"
Well ... not to beat a dead horse, but I find it worrying that someone concerned about communicating with the public could be so staggeringly unrealistic. You can expect whatever you want, but your efforts will go nowhere, I suggest.
This blinkered approach is by no means limited to scientists. I've seen the same sort of unrealistic statements made about what a literate society "should" know about world events, politics/government, music, art, literature, sport ... you name it, and someone has their own idea of the "irreducible minimum" that people should know.
In fact, if you add all of these up, I'm not sure that any of us could qualify ...
Jeez... what version of the central dogma do you expect citizens to be able to explain? Most biologists of my acquaintance aren't even aware that there are different versions of the CD, let alone that the original formulation (Crick's) has yet to be successfully challenged.
By the way, did you notice the dateline on that article is 1992?
I did. At first I thought it was misprint -- the reference to George Bush as the "education president" was one cue -- but now I'm wondering if the author was referring to George HW Bush. Did he claim to be the education president?
what version of the central dogma do you expect citizens to be able to explain?
DNA -> RNA -> Protein
Nice post. Try to guess which line got made homepage quote o' the day.