Science Education

A basic knowledge of science is important for understanding the world around us and since science affects most aspect of life so some knowledge of it is needed to get along. It helps students with an interest in science to pursue a scientific career by helping them discover that interest.

The problem with science education for example many pre collage science classes are taught by teachers who did not major or minor in math or science so as a result classes are often of low quality a often uninteresting.  As a result children are often thought only facts and theory and are often not taught how to actually do science.

They often not thought how to critically evaluate scientific claims.

Even worst some times political agendas get in the way of teaching science, a good example is the teaching of man caused global warming without presenting the other side except in ridicule. Furthermore science and other topics are usually taught in a way that encourages conformity which can a actually discourage independent thinking. As a result many people can not think out side the box of what they were taught and it is the independent thinkers and that tend make the great discoveries.

This shows up big time in the way origin is taught in public school science class. Big bang to man Evolution is taught as fact. Efforts to change this to date have been blocked by the courts. Big bang to man Evolution is further pushed by TV programs and other media were in most cases if Creation Science or Intelligent Design are mention all it is in ridicule. As a result people are bombarded by Big bang to man Evolution giving them the impression that it is proven fact despite scientific reasons for questioning it. As a result some people develop a condescending attitude towards Creation Science while actually being ignorant of it, producing an arrogant ignorance that makes an intelligent discussion impossible

References

Parents Understand Importance of Science
But Student Achievement Lags Parental Expectations

The Problem of Government Grants

A government grant is money or other items of value given by a government to non-government individual or group to enable their activities.

While Government funding of science produces many good results it has the down side of politicizing science and the politicization of science is detrimental to science. The benefit is that it provides a source of funding for research making it easier for research to be funded. It obviously allows some research to be done that probably could not get funded other wise.

However science has become too dependent on government grants such that 90% of scientific research is funded by government. To get funding from any source requires you to appease that source of funding. So to get government funding you need to appease government officials. While grant requests do go through peer review, altimetry the money comes from politicians and this has a chilling affect on science because some areas of research are funded while others are not. Furthermore about 1 in 10 unsolicited grant applications are approved which means that some legitimate research is rejected. Also some paradigms are favored by government over competing ones.  For example research in to manned caused global warming gets funded while opposing research does not get funded.

The reason for this it that politics is about acquiring and holding on to power not knowledge and as a result politicians are often not really interested is the science but sending money to their districts and pushing a political agenda.

In conclusion science needs to reduce its dependence on Government funding. Priority needs to be given to private funding which can take several forms, foundations, universities, and other nonprofit organizations and for profit organizations while these are already used to some degree, private funding should be encouraged more. It is less corrupting because there is more than one source of funding. This does not mean that Government funding should be eliminated just reduced. Science should be as independent of government as possible to reduce these problems. 

References

Science corrupted

The Trouble With Government Grants

Science and Politics

When ever science and politics interact science is more often than not the looser. This does not mean that all interactions between science and government are negative but the overall affect on science is negative.

The Reason for this is that politics is about acquiring and holding on to power and not knowledge. In fact politics often is destructive to knowledge since ignorant people are easier to control. Further more politicians are often not really interested is the science but sending money to their districts. The biggest example of this is manned space flight which has stagnated for 30 years under government control.

Even worst government often favors some lines of research over others in funding, education, and recognition. Some times government favors one side in a scientific dispute over others. The best examples are in origins research and climate research.

Government can block lines of research from being perused. Now sometimes this legitimate such as preventing dangerous experimenting on humans, but other times it’s pandering to irrational fears such as those against nuclear power is a good example simply because some people can’t separate reactors from bombs. Giving in to this fear has hampered the development of nuclear power.

Government can hide lines of research which often happens with research conducted by the military. The reason given for this is national security and some time it  is legitimate but other times it’s just an excuse.

 The worst examples of these are climate research and origins research because politics has played a major anti-scientific role in both areas.

In climate research global warming has been favored by progressive politicians who see it an excuse for increased government control. They have backed and promoted pro global warming claims over data to the contrary despite emails showing the hiding of climate data contrary to Global warming. This issue has become so politicized that finding the truth is hard because it is almost impossible to find an objective source on the topic.

 In origins research only evolutionary research funded the government. Both Intelligent design and Creation Science gets no government funding, but they are forced to fund evolutionary research with their taxes. Intelligent design and Creation Science have been kept out of public schools on the claim that they are not science this has even been done by law suits. There is nothing more grossly anti-scientific than bringing law suits to settle scientific issues by having a judge (lawyer) decree the opposing views are not science. Regardless of your view on origins, this should disturb you.

 Science should NOT be determined by judicial decree such actions are fundamentally opposed to the entire idea of science as a pursuit of knowledge.