We Must Halt the Dumbening of Our Society

The most accurate thing in this photo is the uniform

So we now live in a world where a high school freshman is arrested for making a clock.  Although it impressed the science teacher, it scared the English teacher (apparently not enough to evacuate the classroom, but let’s not let logic interfere).  According to the police, said clock looked like a “movie bomb,” because their training came from Die Hard.  And then, with no understanding themselves, the left starts throwing around a word like “genius” as if any bright, curious kid who likes to play with technology is automatically Einstein.  (Apologies to Ahmed Mohamed, who may be a genius, but who might just be a talented future engineer.)  This whole pile of stupid is what happens when lay-people have no functional understanding of science and technology.

How many times have you heard a supposedly educated and thinking person say to you “Oh, I can’t do algebra” or “chemistry is so boring” without a hint of embarrassment?  These same people would never proudly declare “Oh, I can’t read at a 7th grade level,” or “Shakespeare is so confusing” because people would assume they’re uneducated rubes.  But to my ear, these are one and the same.

When did this happen?  Was it when we divided the world into jocks and nerds?   When we decided all science-types had some form of autism spectrum disorder?  (For the record, I know many socially well-adjusted science-types.)  Five hundred years ago, the model of the educated man was someone like Rene Descartes, who was a philosopher (Cogito ergo sum) but also developed an entire branch of mathematics.  Ben Franklin is as famous for being an inventor as he is for political theory.  But now, top caliber universities offer humanities and social science degrees without any lab science requirements, instead granting credit for “Biology for Poets” and other nonsense.

I’m not on this hobby-horse just because it’s a personal pet peeve.  This is important because it informs our public debate. 

Part of the problem is that lay-people do not understand the process and language of science.    I’m sure we were all taught the scientific method as children.  First, you formulate a hypothesis.  Then, you design an experiment to attempt to DISPROVE this hypothesis.  Once that hypothesis survives enough reasoned attempts at disproving it, it becomes established science.  Sometimes, new data or research methods yield contradictions to established science, and we develop a new testable hypothesis and go from there.

The words “theory,” and “law” mean something different in science than in the vernacular.  A scientific theory is not just a harebrained idea that hasn’t become scientific law.  It’s not a science bill awaiting Stephen Hawking’s signature or something.  They’re distinct concepts.  Laws are models that describe HOW things work, whereas a theory is a broader explanation for a set of phenomena.  (For instance, Newton’s laws of motion describe an object’s behavior at sub-light speeds.  On the other hand, a workable theory of gravity must pull together all prior work on the subject, from Galileo to Hawking.)

Prudent scientists are never 100% certain about anything.  But a dishonest media uses that 0.001% uncertainty as a cudgel in public debate to claim that the scientific jury is still out.  Thus, because of prudence on the part of science, we “debate” whether or not man-made climate change is real.  (It is.)  We “teach the controversy” about whether or not the earth is only 6000 years old.  (It’s not.)  Dr. Trump warns that vaccines cause autism.  (They don’t).  And we talk about whether or not these are “differences of opinion.”  (They’re not.)  These are as “proven” as science ever gets.  There is most certainly a debate to be had about policy approaches, but not about the data itself. To paraphrase the late Pat Moynihan, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own science.

The other factor that allows liars, charlatans, and know-nothings to manipulate the public debate is lack of mathematical literacy.  I remember years ago watching Dennis Miller discuss climate change on Jon Stewart’s show.  He mentioned that the earth’s temperature had risen 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century, and then dismissed such a small change as insignificant to the future.  Miller made the mistake of assuming that all relationships are linear.  They are not.  A 1 degree change over the past century does not necessarily predict a 1 degree change over the next century.  More likely, this change is exponential:     

With only two data points, Miller has no reason to assume that the trend looks like the chart on top as opposed to the second chart (or some other relationship altogether).  But he doesn’t even seem to understand that he made that assumption to begin with!   It requires a functional understanding of analytic geometry to see that (thanks Descartes!).  I’m not suggesting that comedians are considered authorities on climate change.  But they and other lay people influence the debate, and as a society, we need tools to critically evaluate their claims.  And we don’t have them.

We don’t have them because we think that math and science are only done by geniuses, so “regular” people can’t possibly learn them.  Or we think that science is informed by “opinion” and that anyone’s opinion matters.  Neither is true.  For the future of our democracy (baseball, apple pie, the American way of life, etc.), we must teach our kids that science isn’t “scary” and “hard.”  Props to Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and a host of others for trying.   The next step might be expecting educators to not immediately be scared of an engineering project.  

Science is as easily accessible as history.  We used to teach history as a rote collection of names and dates, but we don’t anymore, because context lends the subject relevance.  Scientific context and relevance should be even easier since you see it around you every day.  But you need reading comprehension to learn history, and you need math comprehension to learn science.  All are essential for an engaged public and a vibrant civic debate.  We know that we can’t leave history in the past.  We must learn that we can’t leave science in the lab.

Fight the dumbening of society.  (Is that how you spell dumbening?)

Tina S

Tina hangs out around the virtual cube farm of SeedSing and throws out world changing ideas. We assume those are home made clocks she leaves around the office. Show off your smarts by writing for SeedSing.

Kirk comes to terms with a dwarf planet thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson's The Pluto Files

On this eve of the Pluto flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft I could not help but think of how much has changed for the planet since the probe’s launch over nine years ago in January of 2006. Indeed nothing actually changed for Pluto itself, but for the way we define and classify him (her?) and the presumed hundreds of other celestial bodies like it. See, when New Horizons launched, Pluto was still classified as a planet. In August of that same year the International Astronomical Union (IAU) declared Pluto to be a dwarf planet. This was a big letdown to the ninth planet  lovers everywhere.

As the only planet discovered by an American astronomer, Pluto had become an American icon. Even Mickey Mouse’s dog bears the name. And many Americans, as well as some other folks around our planet, were not comfortable with the designation change. One man stood to receive much of the heat for re characterization of the icy Pluto. That man was Neil deGrasse Tyson, and in 2009 he described from his own point of view the path out of planet-hood that Pluto took in his book, The Pluto Files.

Earlier this year Dr. Tyson was going to be doing a lecture here in St. Louis. In anticipation of my attendance, I decided to to pick the book up.

Long before we knew of nine planets in our solar system, we had already settled on eight. In fact, Tyson starts out by pointing to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago was out-of-date the day it opened its doors. Opening only two months after the discovery of Pluto by Clyde W. Tombaugh in February of 1930, Adler had already been designed to showcase eight planets. One can still go there today and see the plaques depicting the eight planets which after 76 years of being out-of-date are finally right with the times.

I think that Tyson was pointing this out to exemplify the cost of changing our view of the universe and our solar system in particular. In reclassifying Pluto, textbooks need to be revised, museums need to be reorganized, and entire generations of people will go on without accepting it because either they do not care enough, they are unwilling to see the nuance as to why, or perhaps because of the culture surrounding our old understanding.

Mickey’s dog was far from the only part of this culture. Upon the discovery of Pluto, this new planet was an budding rock star. In 1932 a laxative known as Pluto Water hit the market. In 1941 a new element who needed a name became known as Plutonium. And of course how can anyone raised in the 80s and 90s forget that My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas? If Pluto is no longer a planet, many Plutophiles have pointed out, we have to come up with a new mnemonic. Indeed the culture of Pluto was strong and so demotion was destined to bring about controversy.

Throughout describing the history and science surrounding Pluto, Tyson helps to distinguish it from what we now define as a planet. For example, Pluto is mostly made of ice. Pluto’s moon, Charon, is so large that center of motion is between Pluto and Charon. Every other planet in the solar system has moons whose center of motion lies within the boundaries of the planet. Pluto is so small that it is less than five percent the size of mercury. Pluto also exists in the Kuiper belt along with many smaller ice balls as well as some similarly sized icy objects. Should we start calling the larger of those planets as well? For a little while some people did.

Of course Tyson was not personally or otherwise responsible for Pluto’s fall from grace. The planet had long been on the radar in a large part due to the discovery of Kuiper belt objects that were increasingly closer to Pluto’s size. What put Tyson in the crosshairs of the Plutophiles was mostly exposure due to his involvement of the design of the New York Hayden Planetarium’s Rose Center for Earth and Space. Given the climate of disagreement of how to classify Pluto among relevant scientists at the time and the permanence of the Rose Center which was to be built and opened in 2000, some presentational creativity was going to be required. Instead of an “enumeration of orbs to be memorized” (Tyson, 2009), they presented the solar system as families of objects with similar characteristics. You have the Sun, the rocky terrestrial planets, the asteroid belt, the gas giants, and the Kuiper belt. Pluto lives in the Kuiper belt.

No one really noticed that Pluto was missing from the presentations of the Rose Center until a New York Times article came out almost a year after its opening. The article was titled, “Pluto’s Not A Planet? Only In New York”. This is when the firestorm started for Tyson. In the book several humorous letters are shared from various elementary classrooms begging Dr. Tyson to make Pluto a planet again. This was probably my favorite part of the book. I never cease to be amused by the visceral reaction to those who resist a change that is so obviously needed.

Part of the problem for the IAU was that there hadn’t really been a formal definition of the term planet. Therefore, the task ahead was to formulate that definition which then included them deciding what to do if or when certain celestial bodies did not make the cut. In any event there were no longer going to be nine planets in our solar system. If Pluto made the cut, Pluto’s moon, another Kuiper belt object named Eris, and an asteroid belt object named Ceres would also have become planets. As it turned out. All four of those objects became part of a new class called dwarf planets.

For Tyson, the emails came at a rate of hundreds per day. Articles were written blasting the decision. Even many astronomers were burned by the development. But no amount of passion from the Plutophiles could reverse it. Pluto was now a dwarf planet. When I saw Dr. Tyson’s lecture a couple of months ago, he could not have put his attitude toward it better. In three words he said, “Get over it.”

The Pluto Files is a fascinating read. I hope this week as you are enjoying the new data coming from our favorite little dwarf planet, you might give this book a look.

Kirk Aug

Kirk has conflicting feelings about losing the planet Pluto. He is excited to see whatever thing New Horizons takes pictures of. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug