Scientific Thinking

I was having coffee on campus with my friend Rachel this morning, and as it does every week, our conversation spiraled wildly out from our own research woes and successes (she's a biochemist) to the general state of the world.

One thing we share in common is an appreciation for science--we take pleasure in viewing the world through that lens. Perhaps it goes even deeper than that: we find it difficult to view the world any other way. But what glory there is to be found in knowing why, or if not knowing why, trying to find out (see: spiders can learn).

Today, we wandered into the topic of anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO-ers. She railed a bit on bubble-headed celebrities misleading the herd but I thought that there was more to it than that. It doesn't take much time on the internet to discern wide and relatively deep anti-science sentiments in the US and Europe. These views usually cross class, race, education, and even political boundaries. 

Vaccinations have been tested over and over using the most rigorous standards for clinical trials (randomized, double blind, etc.). They save lives. To argue any other position with respect to vaccinations is to engage in anti-scientific thinking. 

Same with GMOs. As Rachel aptly pointed out, there is no difference, none whatsoever, in the DNA of a tomato, an E. coli bacteria, or you, except in the particular sequence of the molecules in the DNA. The building-block molecules are all the same. We have been selecting horses, dogs, corn, thousands of organisms, for centuries, in some cases hundreds of thousands of years, to change those organisms to suit our fancies or our needs. Techniques to create a RoundUp-resistant wheat strain are based on the exact same theories that humans in the middle of the Eurasian continent used to select wild grasses that had heavier seed heads lo these many centuries ago. We've managed to speed the process up quite a bit, of course, and we use fancy machines and such. But the theory underlying the work is the same. And I would not for a moment defend some of the practices of the large agriconglomerates. But GMOs are not evil in and of themselves. 

No, the fundamental problem is that the average person does not understand science. She doesn't understand physics or chemistry. And she definitely has no solid grasp on genetics, the water cycle, or immunology. 

So we decided the solution was to stop teaching physics and inorganic chemistry. Oh, you want to learn about that? Then go to grad school. Instead, we think that kids in elementary school should be reproducing Mendel's pea experiments, that kids in middle school should be learning about global climate, that kids in high school should be learning about disease, epidemics, and epidemiological experimental design (Ebola, anyone?). You still think chemistry is important? Teach that through food science. Fermentation should cover most of what you need.

We need citizens who are prepared for the reality of our world. Who cares that a ball rolls faster down a steeper incline? Why in the world do you need to know about metal catalysts? Wouldn't it benefit our society now and in the future to have not just scientific specialists but all citizens thinking about how to address the problems we have now, not the problems science was dealing with 300 years ago?

We need citizens who can think rationally and critically. You read the headline "Breastfed kids perform better in school." You shouldn't view that as a refutation or acknowledgement of your particular social perspective. You should ask yourself, how were the participants in that study selected? Are they representative of a larger, general population? Were other factors taken into account? Could such a study be randomized and blinded, the gold standards for these kinds of experiments?

Too bad Rachel and I aren't in charge.