Science Education in the U.S.

I was going to write something about this a few months ago when NPR’s Science Friday did a blurb about it, but they just revisited the same subject again this past Friday and, today, I see another comment from ArsTechnica that goes over the same issue: science education in the United States is sorely lacking and it really needs to get fixed (put simply…).

The basic premise is that there is a divide between those that know science and those that don’t, and that divide is very difficult to surmount. As the ArsTechnica blurb points out, you can look at a set of data (in their example, a graph of CO2 and global temperatures over the centuries) and come to two different, one-sentence conclusions. The correct interpretation, however, takes three paragraphs to explain, and even then, it uses quite a bit of jargon. The problem, therefore, lies in both parties: the scientists can’t explain things succinctly enough to hold the general population’s attention, and the general population doesn’t have enough understanding and background knowledge to “get it” in anything shorter than a few paragraphs. Then, the result is that scientists stop trying to explain themselves and the general population will listen to any interpretation that’s short enough for them to follow, and assume it’s “the whole story.” The vast majority will look for the “quick fix” informative blurb (read: Wikipedia) and won’t, instead, take an extra college-level course in basic biology, chemistry or physics.

You can see the effects of this not only in the climate change “debate” and in such things as the need for vaccinations for young children, or more recently, in the health care debate. Hitting each of those briefly: 1). there is effectively no climate change “debate,” so far as the science goes; 2). the evidence in favor of vaccinating your children is overwhelming, and the evidence against it is ridiculously lacking; and 3). the health care “public option” will not kill your grandmother. These are all examples of very complicated issues that cannot be covered in a 5 min. newscast window to any real degree, BUT if people were educated properly on the background information, it actually COULD, potentially, be explained in a succinct manner.

Obviously, that last example (health care) is only peripherally related to science education, but I think there are plenty of principles from science education that translate into higher learning, in general, and can help promote understanding across the broader population. Not to sound too elitist (which I am…sorry…it’s how I roll), but I’d like to think that my head tends to work in a logical, evidence-based manner: if I’m wrong on a point, for the most part, I’ll accept that I’m wrong when I’m presented with the evidence that proves it. This is also how science works, in general: you put forth an idea (read: hypothesis) and then you look for evidence that supports it, but also for evidence that refutes it. This is the bedrock principle that all of scientific thought is built upon: evidence is required to make a conclusion, otherwise a true conclusion cannot be made and more evidence must be obtained. Things like global warming, evolution and childhood vaccinations have a wealth of evidence in support of them and very little that refute them.

Here we come to the point: the more science-based classes, or education in general, that people experience, the more likely they will be to think in a logical, evidence-based manner and, therefore, should make better decisions about themselves and society. When they are told something on TV or in a magazine or on a blog, they will be more likely to investigate the matter themselves, searching for unbiased, peer-reviewed sources. They will be less likely to listen to the opinions of others without having those opinions backed up by concrete, verifiable, evidence. One would hope that you could simply be “educated” and do all of these things, but there are plenty of “educated” people out there that don’t think very logically and can’t make a reasonable argument for or against a point. More “science-educated” people, however, would potentially help the matter.

Case in point: if anyone had actually bothered to check into the U.S. House bill being shopped around, they would find that there is no such provision for a death panel, as being touted by many on the conservative Right. It just isn’t in there. There’s no evidence to back it up. Yet, because we (read: Americans) are lazy and want things distilled down to a few bullet points, that idea can be propagated and used for nefarious ends.

Anyway, these are just some things I’ve been thinking about recently in dealing with people that are against a public option; and others that believe what they’re told without reading about those things from third-party sources, or at least truly listening to the broad evidence against their view before summarily dismissing it. These are all the type of people that have probably been around since the beginning of time, but I really think that it’s the kind of issue that could be solved by increasing logic-based, science-oriented education not only at the high school level, but especially at the college level. I have no clue how to make that happen unless at the expense of other coursework that is also important, like english, social studies, etc…but maybe it’s the kind of thing where we just need to hire more teachers and start teaching kids 10-11 months out of the year instead of 9 months.

Good luck with that, Andy…

Yet another perspective

If you wanted a nice, succinct summary, here it is. This was posted on YouTube on August 20th, but Brian was kind enough to alert me to it via Facebook. This particular guy points out all of the other socialized aspects of life we have, including police, water treatment, the coast guard and, in his example toward the end of the video, firemen. He outlines what it would be like if we had private fire insurance, and how you’d have to find a preferred fire department by your insurance company to come put out your fire…and you’d better hope you don’t have a pre-existing condition.

He also briefly points out that Medicare has maybe 2-3% of overhead, as they are a non-profit organization. Private insurance companies, on average, have more like 30-35% that they’re skimming off each of our dollars to pay not only overhead, but also their investors. Because they are “for profit.”

Anyway, it’s an amusing little video. It would be nice if all the crazies out there understood that they use socialized things all the time in this country (read: roads, police, military, sewers, parks, fire departments, etc.) and they don’t have a problem with those. All of those things are apparently “rights,” paid for by our tax dollars…but for some reason, quality, affordable health care isn’t a “right.”

Today’s Two Videos…

This _should_ come out in time for Thanksgiving…which would be awesome, ’cause I can only imagine the Thanksgiving crowd at Brooke’s ‘rents house doing some four-player New Super Mario Bros. This is the perfect game (next to Mario Kart) for putting a controller in someone’s hands and letting them have some old-school Mario fun…and all at the same time, rather than taking turns.

This one is another healthcare-related video, this time featuring Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) telling off some chick that was asking why he supported Obama’s Nazi policies. She apparently didn’t realize what she was getting into, especially in that Frank is not only quite liberal and out-spoken, but also Jewish…and he doesn’t take these types of “Nazi” comments lightly (nor should he…or anyone…). Anyway, it’s only a little over a minute long, but at the very least, watch the last 15 seconds when he says, quite possibly, the funniest thing I’ve ever heard come out of a congressperson’s mouth.

So, so true…

To Put Things In Perspective

I really like Jon Stewart’s compilations off right-wing hypocrisy (you know, like when Bill O’Reilly says that it was the Nazis that went in and disrupted meetings…when, at the time, he was talking about Democrats… I doubt he still agrees…), which is why I post this. It’s a few minutes into the video, but the rest of it is very much worth the watch, anyway.

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It just puts things in perspective, better than I’d heard elsewhere thus far.

On a side-note, Rawstory.com had a blurb up about how Jon Stewart is actually loved (well, “respected,” at least…) by many Neoconservatives, including Bill Kristol.

From the article:

“‘There is genuine intellectual curiosity,’ [Cliff] May told New York [Magazine]. ‘He’s [Jon Stewart] a staunch liberal, but he’s a thoughtful liberal, and I respect that.’ May isn’t the only conservative gushing about Stewart. While the movement professes a disdain for the ‘liberal media elite,’ it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. ‘He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don’t do,’ says John Bolton, President Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. ‘He’s got his perspective, but he’s been fair.’ Says Bolton: ‘In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That’s what I want to do.'”

The author of the Rawstory article calls Jon Stewart “this generation’s Mark Twain,” and I think I’d have to agree.

A Digital Brave New World

I was listening to my NPR Science Friday podcast yesterday discussing the topic of who owns your digital data, broadcast on July 31st. The discussion covered a variety of different issues, including recent attempts by Facebook to retain rights to anything you post there, how Google plans on archiving all information digitally (it’ll take 300 years), and the ability of Apple to remove content from your iPhone any time it wants to.

One thing brought up in the discussion, however, was the idea of purchasing content. When you buy an album through iTunes, for example, you can burn that to a CD, putting it in a form that you can then access anywhere or anyhow you want. Music is one space where this kind of transaction has been pioneered and largely works well. In the software space, however, it isn’t really like that. If I buy a game through Steam, for example, I’m given a limited number of installs, otherwise I have to purchase it again [you can burn a backup, though, in that particular case]. More to the point, if I purchase a game on my PS3 or Wii digitally (i.e. PSN or WiiWare), I can only play it on that machine. What happens when the PS4 or Wii 2 comes out? Can I still play those games? Will they still work?

There are some forms of Digital Rights Management, used by the game company Electronic Arts (EA), that actually limit the number of times you can install the software. For the game, Spore, you would buy your DVD and then could install it 3 times. That’s it. So, if you reformatted your computer and needed to reinstall it, you’d lose one of your turns and have to do it again. EA had to intervene and remove that DRM because people got so pissed about it.

As another example, Brooke bought Bejeweled for her cell phone awhile back, then got a new one. So far as we can well, we can’t transfer that game to her new phone. So, did we ever really “own” the game? Because, if I “owned” it, I should be able to move it onto a new phone, just like if I bought a new stereo, I could put that same CD into it. Or a new TV, I could still watch the same DVD on it.

So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of this as more things go from physical media to digital media. Movies, likely, are going to go that way where you won’t buy a DVD anymore: you’ll have a digital copy of the movie. And while that digital copy will work for awhile, what happens when the new hot tech toy comes out that can’t play that old file anymore? I’ll have to buy it again.

I guess we’ve gotten used to physical media over the years, where I could take that movie on VHS and copy it over to DVD. Sure, it wouldn’t look as good, but at least I wouldn’t have to buy it again. It just seems like some of these efforts by corporations trying to “protect their property” are going so far as to turn what you think you own into something more like a rental. And, personally, if I think I’m “renting” something, I don’t think I should be paying so much to use it.

This isn’t something that worries me tremendously: it’s just something to think about.

More on Health Care

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Keith Olbermann did a nice job a few nights ago outlining another aspect of this argument, specifically how much money the insurance industry (and health industry as a whole) is pouring into buying votes in Congress. He points out some of the key individuals holding this up, Republican and Democrat alike, and how much money they’ve made in political support over the years. It’s a 13 min video, but pretty eye-opening.

One point he made in the first 3 minutes was one that I haven’t heard brought up often, however, was with regards to “bureaucrats getting in the way of the patient and the doctor.” Specifically:

“Wow, Senator [John Thune (R-SD)] — this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Sen. Thune, if you really think ‘bureaucrats and politicians’ need to get out of the way of ‘patients and their doctors,’ then you support a woman patient’s right to get an abortion, and you supported Michael Schiavo’s right to take his wife off life support, and you oppose ‘bureaucrats and politicians’ getting in the way, and we’ll just mark you down on the pro-choice list. That’s a rare misstep for you Sen. Thune.”

This is an excellent point and it really shows how hypocritical these guys are. Bureaucrats have been trying to get between “you and your doctor” for years in the form of Pro-Life conservatives, amongst other things, but that’s the one that’s the real sticking point for me. These are the same people that say you can’t have an abortion. Well, that’s a politician making a decision for you. But they say that these decisions should lie between you and your doctor. Waitaminute…[head spinning in confusion]

The whole thing drives me nuts…

Obama wants to kill old people!

Rachel Maddow has this 7 min segment discussing how the crazies are now coming out to say that health care reform is simply a backdoor to assisted suicide of the elderly. Seriously. That’s what’s being debated on the floor of the House. And on right-wing talk radio. The idea that Obama wants to kill old people.

The whole debate is getting rather annoying, honestly. There are all kinds of proposals being put forward from the Left, yet the Right is stopping at “tax cuts and stopping companies from denying you because of pre-existing conditions.” Sure, they’ll keep you and give you insurance, but jack up your premiums to high heaven to account for it. And if that’s all that they’re really proposing, then they have no comprehensive plan. Tax cuts and that simple regulation aren’t enough to fix the problem(s).

Reform needs to happen and we need to work together to get something useful passed. In my opinion, a Public Option should be included, but at the very least a LOT of regulations need to be imposed upon the private insurance industry if I plan on being able to afford health care in 10 years. Even if a Public Option isn’t included in the final bill, profits need to be reigned in at these health care companies, and I seriously doubt that any Republican-backed plan would suggest that.

Spreading fear and doubt about the existing ideas (i.e. “this plan will kill you!!”) is simply not helpful, and if anything, prevents anything from getting done. Much like back in 1993 when we tried getting something done, and it was stopped by similar tactics. And by “we,” I mean the Left. Because the Right is apparently just fine with where things stand.

The State of Network News

You know, it’s very telling about the state of news and news anchors as a whole when Jon Stewart is considered the most trusted, taking the mantle from Walter Cronkite (and that’s the way the question was phrased: “Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster?”). In a recent Time Magazine poll, Jon Stewart was ranked most trusted among the primary network news anchors.

Jon Stewart – 44%
Brian Williams – 29%
Charles Gibson – 19%
Katie Couric – 7%

Honestly, if I’ve got the news on at 5:30 (and I do many nights of the week), I’ve got it on CBS, for the most part because that’s the network my parents and grandparents always watched. Personally, I don’t think Couric is doing all that bad of a job, but that said, I get more news from Jon Stewart than many other sources. At the very least, especially compared with the cable news networks (read: MSNBC, Faux News, etc.), Stewart wears his bias on his sleeve. You know where he stands. And he’s probably the best interviewer on television, both with Republicans and Democrats. He isn’t out to get the big story. He just wants to ask you well-considered questions that you probably won’t be asked by the other networks.

Anyway, I found it pretty amusing…

Edit: Please note that there were a little over 9000 votes, when I posted this, total in that poll. If you click the “next” button, you are taken to the next poll on Time Magazine online…which tells us Bing is better than Google…mostly according to Iowa… Apparently, this (these?) poll(s) should be taken with a metric ton of salt…

CSPAN’s Entertainment Network

It’s funny to watch Gratzer squirm. 🙂

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Kucinich during the Primaries last year…he’s a little too left, even for me…but I like his stance in this CSPAN video (only 2.5 min long…). He’s calling out Dr. David Gratzer, the author of a book titled “The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Healthcare.” Apparently, Gratzer rails against the Canadian health care system, pointing out the typical, tired conservative arguments of “6 month wait times” to be seen by a physician. Kucinich isn’t having any of that, pointing out Canadian studies showing that the median wait time is 3-4 weeks for certain procedures (ones that aren’t life-threatening, otherwise they’d be done sooner), which is apparently similar to that of the United States. And, nearly all of Canadians have health care. And it’s affordable. I’m sure Gratzer has some good points in the book (which I haven’t read…because I don’t read…), and some of his statistics are probably sound, but there are a wealth of other statistics carried out by the Canadian government and other organizations that say otherwise. “Lies, damned lies, and Statistics…”

Although this particular video doesn’t bring it up, I’m sure you’ve heard various Republican congresspeople (specifically, John Boehner…) asking the question: “do you want a bureaucrat in Washington coming between you and your doctor?” Well no, I don’t. But neither do I want some profit-hungry businessperson doing it either, and that’s what we’ve got right now. Brooke and I are lucky to have some pretty good health care, as I’m attending a medical school-based graduate program and have it available to us. I can’t begin to imagine what other folks are going through, that have to pay and arm and a leg (sometimes literally) for coverage that is worse than ours with a substantially higher deductable. It just annoys me that they keep spouting off this “bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor” rhetoric like it’s any different than what I’ve got now.

At least, if I’ve got a bureaucrat between me and my doctor, I have the opportunity to vote them out of office. I can’t do that to a CEO.

Huckabee’s “Daily Show” Interview

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Mike Huckabee was on the Daily Show last week and I finally got to watch the episode this past Sunday (as we were in Kansas City for the rest of the weekend…had a great time!). The interview ran long, so the episode didn’t contain the whole thing. With the wonders of the interwebs, however, it has all been posted to their website!

Huckabee and Stewart had a lengthy discussion on the issue of abortion. While I disagree with Huckabee, I can at the very least appreciate this interview as a thought-provoking and well-mannered discussion on a complicated issue.

I will take issue with one specific part of Huckabee’s argument here, however. Around the 3:20 mark in the video above, Huckabee defines the point at which “life” begins. “I believe life begins at conception. 23 chromosomes from a male and 23 from a female female create a DNA schedule that’s never existed before…biologically and scientifically it’s irrefutable that that’s when life begins.” Now, one could make a philosophical argument about what exactly life means and what it looks like, but I will instead refute the whole “biologically and scientifically it’s irrefutable” part of his argument… Just because two halves of DNA have been put together to make chromosomes, you do not have “life.” Even if you have one cell, you do not have “life.” Even if you have a group of cells, you do not have “life.” [Note: Huckabee goes on to address whether we consider it “human life” or not, but doesn’t elaborate much on that] As Wikipedia states, in order to be considered “alive,” one must meet certain criteria, including homeostasis, organization, metabolism, adaptation, growth, response to stimuli and reproduction. You could say that a cell is capable of doing those things (and yes, indeed, a cell is capable of doing those things!), BUT it’s only capable of doing those things in the controlled environment of a uterus. That’s the ONLY place. Other single-celled organisms, like bacteria, are capable of doing it in all kinds of places (that’s the very important “adaptation” part of the definition of life).

As another example, I work with cell culture systems, which essentially means that I grow cells in a flask that I give specially-made growth factors and nutrients to keep them “alive,” before I allow them to “die” and see how that happened. So, yes, from a technical standpoint, they have “life” (otherwise, you can’t get “death”). However, these are just cells. If I took them out of that flask, they would not survive. They would never be productive. They would never grow into an organism. This is the problem with Huckabee’s (and the Pro-Life movement’s) argument, in my opinion. If you took sperm and egg and did not implant them into a uterus, you would never get a child. Even if you took a fetus out of the mother, it would not survive on its own. That’s, at least, where the difference lies for me. Obviously there are many that disagree with that interpretation, but that’s usually where I put “the beginning of life:” the point at which an individual can survive (perhaps with help from an incubator) outside of the mother. That point is somewhere around the end of the second trimester, or early third trimester, if I remember correctly. And this is why I generally go against late-term abortions (and so do many Pro-Choice individuals).

I do, however, agree with the future implications that Huckabee puts forward, especially talking about “value of life” as a whole. He sees it as a slippery slope. He uses the example of people in nursing homes, as your children would refer to you as an “inconvenience” or as an “interruption,” the same things that are frequently said of the possibility of having children when they aren’t desired. Jon Stewart eventually goes on to try and reframe the argument as a sovereignty issue for the Pro-Choice camp (i.e. you don’t have control over your body…the government does). Both of these two points are valid and discussed at length in the interview.

For those that care, here’s Part 2 and Part 3 of the extended interview. The whole thing is something like 15 minutes long across the three parts.

The whole thing is a complicated issue and neither side will ever fully agree on it, I’m afraid. But, interviews like this hopefully foster greater understanding between both sides, as the issue is discussed intelligently and reasonably (unlike many other discussions around the internet…).