Why America is flunking science | Hacker News Reader

Why America is flunking science

salon.com

23 pointsdrewr10 comments

Most western countries are "flunking" science because it's hard work, lacks prestige, pays poorly, and you're unlikely to discover anything new even if you put in the necessary hours.

As we discover more and more about the world the more dedication it will take to make progress in a field. So it makes sense that you want fewer and more dedicated people.

Does Hollywood caricature scientists? Of course. But Hollywood isn't exactly know for its nuance. Business men are always evil (unless the business is failing, in which case the owner is the sympathetic underdog). Politicians are corrupt or incompetent. Is Hollywood to blame for the general indifference to science, I doubt that.

To summarize:

1. fewer people devote their life to science. I don't think this is a bad thing.

2. (young) people are indifferent about politics, the world, science, and most "stuff that matters". This probably is bad, but it certainly does not have a simple identifiable cause.

> As we discover more and more about the world the more dedication it will take to make progress in a field.

Not necessarily. Remember the quote about shoulders and giants?

1. Few other topics (specifically, art, literature, dance) really contribute to the sum of humanity as well as science does. When we're young, we want to be firemen, ballerinas and astronauts. Only later do we get talked into fields with higher personal ROI.

2. Really, indifferent? I spent quite a few years at protests and rallys with quite a few other students the last few years. Hardly indifferent.

"Crichton had little patience for scientists' complaints about ridiculous sci-fi plots and wild scientist stereotyping. In a 1999 lecture before the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he countered such gripes with his own perspective on why scientists will probably never be very happy with the products of Hollywood. As Crichton advised, there are at least four important rules of movies that just don't mesh with the real process of research: '(i) Movie characters must be compelled to act. (ii) Movies need villains. (iii) Movie searches are dull. (iv) Movies must move.' Crichton argued that real science, with its long, drawn-out intellectual processes and frequent dead ends, simply can't be reconciled with such exigencies. 'The problems lie with the limitations of film as a visual storytelling medium,' he concluded. 'You aren't going to beat it.'"

The other important message of this article is that being smart doesn't prevent people from having mistaken ideas about science. Smart people can fall for plausible but scientifically incorrect statements about topics debated about in politics, because not all people, and not even all smart people, devote much time to examining evidence and making sure that conclusions are supported by evidence.

Pfft, Michael Chrichton was a hack that liked to write adventure books in a shiny techno jacket. Which is to say that it's more than possible to make a compelling film based on plausible science, but it's not going to be an adventure story.

...not all people, and not even all smart people, devote much time to examining evidence and making sure that conclusions are supported by evidence.

I'm extremely guilty of this, and it bothers me. But what bothers me more is knowing how much time and effort would be required from me to be capable of making evidence-backed claims about everything I'm interested in. You make time for what's important to you, and the truth is definitely important to me, but so is family, building my django skills, learning Scheme, reading GEB, considering ideas for a possible startups... The choice then is what/who to trust, the majority of scientists? The smartest ones (identified how?)? My own perceptions and ideas? The government-backed scientists?

Sceince suffers because people don't have time for it, and because they can't necessarily trust those who do.

Because science is boring. There are too little interesting opportunities out there. For every "dream" "fun" science job, there are millions of monotone, low paying, grinding positions that suck the life out of you.

And there's more scientific research than ever and more in the US than anywhere else in the world. Please use reddit for mass emotion articles.

> Why America is flunking science

Two words: Intelligent Design

Thanks for making me cry on the inside, dick.

:-)

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