Why it is NOT OK to Choose Scientific Illiteracy

            I sometimes find myself in a conversation with a college educated adult who proclaims ignorance in science and mathematics and furthermore proclaims that it is OK because they don’t need to use it.  As the conversation progresses and it comes out that I am a physicist, an apparently genetically choreographed routine then begins when the person fakes a convulsion, rolls their eyes in the back of their head, and then comments about how smart I must be, all the while unaware of the fringe I'm being set to.  So at least for the moment, please open up to one argument for why a financial planner or a dance instructor, for example, should be scientifically literate as well as numerate. 
            The liberal arts covers a swath of learning from music to economics to physics.  All of the subject areas in a college education are arguably justified as the knowledge an educated person should have.  But in the 21st century it is easy to lose sight of why well educated people first are broadly educated and second are the foundation of a strong society.  Advertisements on television declare the superiority, rather than the complementarity, of job training certificates over college education, and attempt to supplant the latter with the former in the public mindset.
            But a well rounded society is constructed from many pillars including but not limited to arts, science, business, military, education, and government oversight.  The arguments for each person having some fundamental knowledge in every pillar share some common themes.  So to argue that scientific literacy is important, let me first argue the importance of artistic literacy, hoping that this will resonate outside of the scientific community.  That is, I’ll avoid preaching to the choir.
            Suppose our nation set the goal of being the most musically advanced nation on Earth.  Think about what would go into achieving this goal.  We would need the best music schools, the most rigorous music competitions, the most productive music festivals, the highest recording standards, the list goes on.  All of this will certainly produce the best professional musicians in the world.  But now suppose everyone else, who is not a professional musician, is by choice 100% ignorant of music.  Would this plan float?  Do you think this country could nevertheless be the most musically advanced when the only person in the auditorium who knows anything about music is the person on the stage?
            The same goes for everything else.  We boast of having the most advanced democracy in the world, yet poll turnout is often abysmal and late night talk shows parade scores of people who cannot name the Vice President.  Demagogues around the world point to this while boasting of having a more advanced democracy than the USA.  Political scientists, and politically literate people, debate the merits of these boasts, while others try to remember who the Vice President is and struggle to wonder why it matters to them.
            This country doesn’t need to set a goal of becoming the most scientifically advanced, but it does need the goal of maintaining that edge.  For now, our universities still have the best graduate science programs in the world, and our government still operates the best national laboratories.  But as with music, will it do if we have the best scientists while its consumers and benefactors are scientifically illiterate?  As our colleges and universities struggle more and more to recruit students into the growing sciences, it is worth asking where all the students have gone.  Young people might put their minds to becoming scientists if they have permission to do so.  But if college educated parents proclaim the ill-necessity of science and the glamour of innumeracy, then the off-spring will follow suit.  If children are discouraged from studying music, then they aren’t likely to study music unless their genius happens to allow them to break the barrier put in place by the adults in their lives.  Well, is science any different?
            The black-and-white fantasy that this country can remain the most scientifically advanced while relegating scientific knowledge and its appreciation to only those who “need” it misses the grey scale reality that scientific competitiveness is an entire society’s job and not merely that of specific people working behind some fence somewhere.  In the same manner that musical supremacy requires the participation of everyone, scientific supremacy needs broad participation to spread an infectious desire to achieve scientific advancement.  Scientific literacy and numeracy not only allow one to be a smarter consumer and a better newspaper reader, but it takes science out of the fringes so that all those whose genius drives them there are likely to make the trip.

copyright 2008 Stephen Remillard