Americans Are Dinosaurs When It Comes to Science, Survey Finds
Can a nation debate the merits of cloning when fewer than half its adults can give a decent definition of DNA?
Can it render good judgment on genetically engineered food when only a quarter can define a molecule?
And can Americans assess competing medical claims when only a third show a good understanding of the scientific process?
Experts see cause for concern in the latest report card on American scientific understanding. But they aren’t surprised.
Like many people, Shirley M. Malcom, head of education for the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, has seen “Tonight” show host Jay Leno’s quizzes of people on the street.
*
Leno: “Where would you find chlorophyll?”
Dante from Michigan: “Probably in your toilet.”
(Correct answer: In plants.)
*
Leno broke the news about the new study to his audience last month:
“Here’s something shocking. According to a study by the National Science Foundation, 70% of Americans do not understand science. Here’s the sad part: 30% don’t even know what 70% means.”
That second statistic is only a joke. But the foundation did report that a survey of American adults turned up low numbers like these:
* 45% could define “DNA,” the substance carrying the inherited genetic code.
* 22% could define “molecule,” the basic unit of a chemical compound.
* 48% knew electrons are smaller than atoms.
* 48% knew it’s not true that the earliest humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs and humans missed each other by some 60 million years. But “we’re interviewing people on the phone who grew up watching ‘Flintstones,’ ” said Melissa Pollak, senior analyst at the foundation.
Only about one-third showed a good understanding of the scientific process, including ideas about probability and how to do an experiment.
Americans did better on some other questions. Ninety-four percent knew cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, for example, and about three-quarters knew that some radioactivity is naturally produced, that continents are moving and that light travels faster than sound.
The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
In its current form, the survey has been given every two years since 1979 and overall the results haven’t changed much, Pollak said.
“It’s discouraging,” she said. “We’d hope people would know more than they seem to know about some basic science facts and concepts.”
If it’s any consolation, the United States did slightly better than 14 other industrialized countries in the early 1990s, ranking about equal to Denmark and the Netherlands, Pollak said. Her quick look at new survey data suggests this country is still somewhat ahead, she said.
But some see reason for hope in survey results over the years. Jon Miller of Northwestern University, who directed the survey from 1979 to ‘99, has his own index of scientific literacy. It includes an understanding of scientific process plus vocabulary.
By that gauge, “the trend in the last decade has been very encouraging,” he said, with science literacy growing from 10% in 1988 to 17% in 1999. He hasn’t calculated the number for the new survey.
*
Leno: “What keeps the Earth orbiting around the sun?”
Sarah from Cleveland: “The gravitational pull ... of the moon.”
(Correct answer: The gravitational pull of the sun.)
*
What bothers Pollak the most is the finding that only about a third of adults showed a good understanding of the scientific process.
“This is where science can benefit people in their daily lives,” Pollak said. People get bombarded with claims by psychics and medical quacks, she said, and if they don’t understand about critical thinking and scientific evidence, they can waste time and money.
That understanding also helps citizens confront scientific political issues where the media are often content to present both sides of an argument, no matter which side has better evidence, said Malcom of the AAAS.
There’s another related concern. How will the United States provide a sufficient supply of qualified workers for careers in science and technology? Nowadays, the nation is leaning heavily on foreigners.
“We could not function in our government laboratories, in our academic laboratories and in our industrial laboratories without these workers,” says William Haseltine, chief executive officer of Human Genome Sciences Inc. “I would guess we would drop in productivity by about 50% or more.... We simply don’t train enough [American] people.”
The science foundation reports that as of 1999, about a quarter of all U.S. workers holding a doctorate in science or engineering were foreign-born.
For computer science and engineering doctorates, about 45% were foreign-born, and for biological sciences, 27%.
Some observers are queasy about the future supply of foreign expertise.
“You can’t depend on it,” Haseltine says. “As economic conditions improve abroad, it’s less likely these foreign workers will come to the United States.... We’ve already seen some reverse brain drain, back to China, back to Europe, back to Germany in particular,” by people who’ve gotten years of training in the United States.
The obvious response, Haseltine and others say, is to produce more Americans with science and engineering expertise.
So, if it’s up to this country, how does it increase Americans’ understanding of science? The real engine, experts say, is the schoolroom.
*
Leno: “Who invented pasteurization?”
Kerry from Denver: “Um, some agriculture person ... [from] Nebraska.”
(Correct answer: French scientist Louis Pasteur.)
*
Nancy Ridenour, science department leader at Ithaca High School in Ithaca, N.Y., tells the story of two kindergarten teachers she visited. Each presented the class with a large water pool that contained a toy boat.
One teacher asked, “What do you think would make this boat move?” Students suggested they could blow on it, squirt water on it or simply push it. Then the teacher said, “Show me.”
When the other teacher presented the same basic setup to her class, she simply said, “Here are some straws. Blow on the boat and see if it moves.”
The first approach, which invited children to think rather than just follow instructions, teaches critical thinking through the process of inquiry, Ridenour said. That’s one way she and others recommend to help kids learn more about science.
It has to start early. Around fourth or fifth grade, “you go into the valley of the shadow,” where pupils turn off to science and math unless they’ve experienced good classroom material, chances to explore the topic and “teachers who love the subject,” said Judith Ramaley, with the science foundation’s education and human resources section.
The foundation plans to spend about $1 billion over the next five years for its third generation of efforts over the last decade to improve science and math teaching, Ramaley said.
Among its priorities is better training in those subjects for teachers. “It’s very clear that teachers matter, and their knowledge of subject matter content is critical,” Ramaley said.
Currently, many who teach math or science don’t have backgrounds in those subjects, she said.
The science foundation reported in 2000 that 31% of math teachers and 20% of science teachers in grades 7-12 lack a major or minor in their subjects.
But better training before teaching doesn’t solve another problem. Within five years of starting a career, nearly half of urban math and science teachers leave the classroom, said Harold Pratt, immediate past president of the National Science Teachers Assn.
They’d stick around more if they had inducements such as more mentoring, better teaching assignments and chances to take classes and seminars, he said.
Ramaley emphasized that teachers also need to be paid more and “treated as professionals” with more say in what and how they teach.
Malcom and others say people certainly are capable of learning about science.
Her office develops science materials for people with poor general literacy. “Our experience has been if you help them understand the significance of the topic and provide the information at a level they can engage with it, that they are very engaged,” she said.
Miller, at Northwestern, says that people who get a good foundation in the classroom are poised to learn even more through the Internet.
And the same technology should let a growing class of scientifically literate citizens take more control of science-related government debates by bombarding legislators with e-mail, he said.
If science literacy rises to 25% of adults in the next decade, Miller said, that means about 50 million people even by today’s population.
And that, he says, will catch the attention of Capitol Hill.
*
On the Net:
National Science Foundation
report: www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/start.htm
National Science Teachers Assn: www.nsta.org
Technological literacy site:
www.nae.edu/nae/techlithome.nsf/
