Today, some thoughts about scientific literacy. The
University of Houston's College of Engineering
presents this series about the machines that make
our civilization run, and the people whose
ingenuity created them.
Writer William Hively
ponders scientific illiteracy in a recent issue of
American Scientist. Several questions
come up. How do we measure scientific illiteracy?
How serious a problem is it? And what can we, or
should we, do about it?
Hively tells about an accident near San Diego in
1987. A 50-pound bag of industrial pigment -- iron
oxide -- fell off a truck and spilled on the road.
The Hazardous Incident Response Team closed the
road for eight hours while men in protective suits
moved in to clean up the spill.
Scientists tried to tell them that iron oxide was
no more than plain old rust. Authorities asked why,
if scientists were so sure it was safe, they
weren't laying their lives on the line to clean it
up. It makes a frightening story. If only a few
people hadn't known that iron oxide is harmless
rust, that'd be one thing. But when no one in a
whole chain of command saw it for what it is, we
We have many measures of scientific literacy. You
might question any one, but together they show a
steady decline from about 12% literacy in 1957 to
only about 5% today.
The media reply by inventing ways to catch a
child's interest. But does a man dancing in a
DNA-molecule costume say enough about the beauty of
science to children? Is that a rich enough food for
their imaginations? Do we really let them know that
science will feed their natural hunger for
One teacher asks, "Who can tell the difference
between scientific literacy and any other
literacy?" We know reading has declined. We know
the humanities have suffered because Johnny doesn't
like to read. But has scientific literacy suffered
any less than the humanities have? Probably not.
Observer Watson Laetsch points out two kinds of
argument that favor scientific literacy. One is
utilitarian. We tell students to learn science so
they won't end up sweeping rust off the road. We
tell them that technical literacy will help them
compete with the Japanese.
The other argument is frankly hedonistic. Bright
eighth-graders don't care a fig about competing
with the Japanese. Nor do they fear difficulty. But
they are determined to find stimulation and
pleasure. And that's what science really stands to
give them. That's the reason you and I are drawn to
science. And I can see no reason to offer them
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds