Editorial
26 April 2001
Harry Robinson presents his formula for
awakening an enthusiasm for science.1
For a
quarter century Robin Williams has been devising and presenting The Science Show
on ABC Radio. It's been a labour of love, devotion, dedication and hope that the
program would make a difference to national life. His
sphere of influence has spread to Ockham's Razor, Quantum on TV and more.
The core of the Williams'
message has been: Science is
wonderful, We need more science,
Science creates wealth. His
style has been to use gee-whizz items,
gasp-wonderful revelations, pragmatic arguments and, occasionally, excursions
into the philosophy of science.
Has he made a difference? Of course. Has he made enough difference to change the nation, to lift popular perceptions of the scientific way? Or political considerations? Or industrial priorities? Hardly. Boards of directors rarely include a scientist, political parties pay lip service: they promise us we're about to become "a clever nation" or "the knowledge nation." Slogans are easy, action and funding are slow to arrive. How many safe seats will be offered to scientists next election? As to young people and the attractions of science as a career pathway---no doubt some have been recruited in the wake of the Williams crusade, but many prefer law, commerce or 'communications' because that's where the money is.
We
should not and cannot blame Robin Williams. He has fought a good fight.
We need to admit that science has all the fascination of a bony faced,
flat chested old maid. Loren Eiseley2 put it more elegantly in a
profile of Francis Bacon, published 40 years ago in the defunct
Horizon magazine. Relevant
lines include:
"Western society, down to the last three centuries or so, betrays but feeble traces of that type of thinking known today as 'scientific,' with its emphasis on experiment and dispassionate observation of the natural world.... There is only one great exception in Western thought--Greek philosophy and Greek science.....
"We are faced with the problem that this wise creature, man, has rarely shown any penchant for science and would much rather be left to his uninhibited dreams and fantasies...
"Science exists only within a tradition of constant experimental investigation of the natural world. It demands that every hypothesis we formulate be subject to proof, whether in nature or in the laboratory, before we can accept its validity. Men, even scientists, find this type of thinking extremely difficult to sustain. In this sense, science is not natural to man at all. It has to be learned, consciously practiced, stripped out of the sea of emotions, prejudices, and wishes in which our daily lives are steeped."
Uninhibited
dreams and fantasies, emotions, prejudices and wishes are far more fun than that
e=mc2 stuff.
And we are living in a world which offers torrents of food for dreaming.
Sport is superb dream-stuff, not only because we can identify with
champions but because it always offers the lure of conflict.
In conflict we think we see heroes revealed.
Warne vs Tendulka will strip both men naked. Or so we hope.
Drama is not drama without conflict
and of drama we have floods.
Bell Shakespeare is spilling itself on stage.
Yes Minister is repeated and repeated.
Blue Heelers shows cops in conflict with crims.
Home and Away presents silly young people learning the mating--and
betraying--game. We can't get enough of drama from our dream factories. Maybe
the ultimate wish-dream-fantasy product is Who Wants to be a Millionaire? which
adroitly mixes competition,
conflict, gamesmanship and the promise of easy wealth.
But we
pretty quickly sicken of that e=mc2 stuff.
Eiseley again: "...science does not come easily to men; they must be made to envision its possibilities...."
And there's the rub. With due respect to the professor, men cannot be made to envision anything. Especially in our era of freedom of thought. Men and women may be persuaded, tricked, inveigled, seduced into new fields. But they cannot be made to envision anything.
The need to make science desirable is obvious. Let's distinguish between technology and science. Technology is mechanical doing and can be easily learned. Science is ground-breaking thought backed by evidence. The penalties for low science and the rewards for high science are blindingly obvious. But human resistance is massive. How to get around it?
Jeff Kennett once told a story that may seem trivial but may also offer one tiny clue. He recounted the experience of a high school with a high proportion of Aboriginal boys. Few boys of any colour showed the slightest interest in computing. Compared to football, it was pretty dull. Until a teacher introduced them to computer games. Wow! The call of competition and game playing turned the kids on and in no time the school had a highly computer-literate class.
Trivial,
yes. But the principle is worth following. Infiltrate resistant minds through
their infatuation with sport. It
could be extended to grown-ups infatuated with irrational fantasy living by
infiltrating tv sit coms and tv game shows.
Tricky and difficult. But
the direct approach as typified by Robin Williams and The Science Show has shown
only limited dividends. A covert,
subliminal campaign of human engineering just might overcome the widespread
resistance to that bony faced, flat chested old
maid called science.
-----------------------------------
1Harry
Robinson
is a free lance feature writer who has contributed to many of Australia's major
publications over the past 35 years. "You could call me a tramp...I have
tramped across media and from place to place so wantonly that my reward is a
media swag." He can be reached at Harob@Internet.net.au.
2Dr
Loren Eiseley, author of Francis
Bacon and the Modern Dilemma, Darwin's
Century, The Mind as Nature, and
posthumously published, The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley.
He was Provost of the University of Pennsylvania and, later, its
University Professor of Anthropology and the History of Science.