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Is media hindering federal incentives to promote science education?
A strong deficit in science education and scientific literacy has been identified. President Obama’s proposed budget aims to aggressively increase funding for science education.
The number of news publications with science sections is rapidly shrinking; very few Americans can name a living scientist. Is it possible that media portrayal of science (or lack there of) might explain the decreased interest in science among students? This is a question I have asked before.
“A Previous Death at the Hand of Alabama Suspect” published in the New York Times on Feb. 13th, reported on the tragic shootings at the University of Alabama. It included the statement “... others who knew Dr. Bishop described her as a normal person, perhaps a little quirky but no more so than most scientists.” Should the media promote the stereotype that all scientists are quirky? Would such sweeping statements based on race or gender be tolerated? Is it necessary to attack all members of the scientific community?
Could such statements partially explain why extra funding is required to interest our children in science education?
Perhaps we should be careful about the monsters we create.
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Have you noticed that the bad guy in many movies (especially science fiction) is a "mad-scientist". Can you think of a portrayal of a scientist as cool, amazing, sexy, or heroic?
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ReplyDeleteExcellent point which I hadn’t even considered. Jeff Goldblum was pretty cool in ‘The Fly’, but things didn’t turn out so well for him…. another common archetype is the 'good guy' scientist who becomes victim to his own technology.
ReplyDeleteIn science fiction, there used to be a tension between science and the military. There were movies like Forbidden Planet in which scientists were foolish egomaniacs who toyed with things man was not meant to tamper with, and the military ended up having to fix the scientists' problems through the application of force. Then there were movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still, in which the military are portrayed as a bunch of jarheads who wreck everything that science accomplishes.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, this reflected the tension between science as the bringer of technological advantages and science as the bringer of the nuclear bomb. As the nuclear threat grew during the 60s and 70s, and people began to realize that we weren't entering a scientific "golden age" of the type envisioned during the 1950s (there are still no flying cars...) the anti-scientist paradigm seems to have quietly won. Scientists stopped being the hero characters, and were relegated to--at best--supporting roles, playing second fiddle to various action heroes.