Junk Science: Noun or Verb?

Okay, so people struggle with science. I can understand that. I’m majoring in it, and I struggle with it. It’s just a part of the subject, I suppose. But when textbooks are more concerned with pushing a political agenda than in educating students about scientific essentials, that’s just wrong.

We’ve heard a lot of complaints recently about the mingling of science and religion in schools. Articles on intelligent design, evolution, and other such issues are readily found in many reputable publications and on many reliable news sites. And while I believe in the concept of intelligent design, I don’t think it belongs in public schools. (Not under current laws, anyway.)

But there is another side to the issue. It would appear that those on the right are not the only ones trying to mold science in the image of their own gods.

In an article called A Textbook Case of Junk Science, I read that a 2001 study found “500 pages of scientific error in 12 middle-school textbooks used by 85 percent of the students in the country”. The author, Pamela Winnick, points out several specific errors, some mundane, some mind-boggling. How do such errors make it into textbooks? She quotes John Hubisz, a physics professor at North Carolina State University:

"Thousands of teachers are saddled with error-filled physical science textbooks. Political correctness is often more important than scientific accuracy. Middle-school text publishers now employ more people to censor books than they do to check facts." (Emphasis added.)

This leads to an interesting question: What are science teachers really supposed to teach?

Science teachers should teach science. They should teach scientific skills such as how to make calculations, experimental procedures, and the Scientific Method. They should teach what scientists know about the universe around us, and they should teach about how we have come to know these things. They should teach how scientific theories are formed, tested, and occasionally rejected. All of these things require that science teachers teach something of the history of science.

The fact is that much of what we know of science was, if not actually discovered, then at least recorded and preserved by white males. The history of science is full of white males simply because, due to the socioeconomic conditions of most of the last five centuries, those were the people most often in positions to make and record such discoveries.

It's a matter of emphasis. Much effort is made to promote the accomplishments of non-white-male scientists. (I can’t think of another description that won’t sound condescending or nonsensical.) That is good. But if Einstein is moved aside in favor of someone whose main scientific accomplishment is being a person of color, then I think we’re no longer really teaching science.

Are white males better at science than women, people of color, and so forth? Absolutely not. I know of many people of all ethnicities, backgrounds, and genders who are much better scientists than I am. I respect them for this. And my respect for them is not diminished by my respect for those who came before us, even though they were mostly white males.

The author concludes her article with this statement:

“Members of the scientific elite are occasionally heard blaming religion for the sorry state of science education. But it isn't priests, rabbis, or mullahs who write the textbooks that misrepresent evolution, condescend to disadvantaged groups, misstate key concepts of physics, show the equator running through the United States, and come close to excising white males from the history of science.”

Admittedly, the tone of the article reveals that Ms. Winnick has a political axe to grind with this article. But that’s precisely the problem. People with political agendas get so caught up in talking about the how science should be taught that those who actually teach science don’t seem to have much of a voice any more.

Enough.

Here’s a radical idea: How about if we teach students science – actual scientific facts and the most widely-accepted theories of the day – in Science classes, and let them learn politics in their Social Studies classes? Isn’t that what we pay Social Studies teachers for?

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This article was brought to my attention by the good people at Fark.com. Keep up the good work, folks!