The Year of Science
Anniversaries and Progressive Policy, Hopefully Without the Culture War
SOURCE: Public Domain
Get ready for regular discussions of science all year long—in the policy arena and the broader culture. But what are we hoping to gain from this effort, and how will we know if we learn anything at all? This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.
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The 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. The 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. The 400th anniversary of Galileo’s development of the refracting telescope that jump-started Earth-bound exploration of the solar system.
You’re going to be hearing a lot about these milestones over the next twelve months, as the science community gears up for an annum of anniversaries that will—hopefully—help engage our broader culture in the scientific process. Or at least, that’s the stated goal of the COPUS network—it stands for “Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science”—which has organized the “Year of Science 2009” initiative to connect science-related events across the country and raise awareness about the nature of science and its importance to policy and our future.
Science, Cultured
Science Progress contributing editor Chris Mooney surveys the interactions between science, politics, and culture from Los Angeles, California. He is the author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.” (Photo: flickr.com/sarahfelicity)
And it’s not just big anniversaries: We can expect science-related issues to come up repeatedly in Washington and in the media as the new administration starts governing. How will president-elect Obama resolve the stem cell and climate issues—solely through administrative and executive action, or by championing new legislation? Expect an answer this year. Meanwhile, the administration has a science budget to propose in short order, and will be investing heavily in clean energy to fire the economy and create jobs. Such initiatives start this month with the push towards an economic stimulus bill.
When you combine a new science-friendly administration in Washington with all these historic milestones, there’s no doubt it adds up to a unique opportunity to get the broader American public better connected with the world of science that lies right under their noses, but which many citizens seldom perceive. Still, it’s worth asking a few questions about what we hope to achieve by capitalizing on these convergences.
Take, for example, the string of anniversaries: All celebrate momentous scientific achievements, but each also has, as a subtext, conflicts between science and religion. Galileo, we all know, was persecuted by the church; and Darwin’s theory is the reason Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins, the world’s leading anti-religionist, claims he can now be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Does science or the American public benefit if these anniversaries become a new cause for debating the alleged rift between faith and reason—or are we just inviting another round of culture war skirmishes?
While there are reasons to fear an uptick in divisiveness this year—as some of the science world’s more confrontational types try to use the Darwin anniversaries as a reason to assault the public’s religiosity—there’s zero chance the administration itself will get involved in such politically futile and damaging advocacy. Obama’s science team isn’t a bunch of culture warriors; they’re deadly serious about tackling what is arguably the biggest issue we face, our intertwined climate and energy problem. And you don’t waste time needling people of faith if you want to solve such an intricate and massive challenge. In fact, over the past two decades, faith communities have joined the green movement in force, working to protect the environment and avert the worst threats of climate change. This is a new opportunity for those groups to collaborate with other freshly energized efforts.
Still, we’re left with a potentially large gap between the role of science in policy and politics this year, and the level on which the coming science anniversaries could be discussed. One dialogue moves us forward toward solutions; the other holds us back. It’s totally Bush era to argue endlessly over how science clashes with religion; and it’s absolutely critical to use science to get us out of the energy and climate mess we’re in.
There’s no avoiding the fact that as we discuss the great achievements of Darwin and Galileo—and how far we have and haven’t come since their times—we’ll awaken some dragons that still slumber among us. I would hardly propose toning down our science celebrations for this reason, but I would suggest adding to them, leavening them by adding a new dimension.
You see, there’s another science anniversary coming this year that I believe deserves considerably more recognition. On May 7, 1959, a British scientist and novelist named C.P. Snow delivered a now-famous lecture entitled “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Snow wasn’t nearly as important a researcher as Darwin or Galileo—in fact, his early scientific career involved a publishing-related scandal that may have helped push him on to literature—but his delineation of the broad disconnect between the scientific and humanistic ways of thinking has resonated powerfully across the last half century, and describes a problem that’s very much still with us.
The COPUS “Year of Science” advocates want to communicate about science—they want to bring science to the rest of America, seizing upon this year’s auspicious timing to do it. It’s a noble goal, but Darwin and Galileo alone don’t necessarily get you there. You need a lot of Obama—and more than a little bit of Snow—as well.
Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Galileo as the original inventor of the telescope.
Comments on this article
There has been much progress in the past year in regards to scientific progress, however so much more could have been accomplished if we had an administration who was not against science in it’s purest form.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:38 pmImagine if stem cell research could have gotten real funding for research………we would be much further ahead in our quest for compassionate cures!
I would like to chime in here with a comment that scientist and technology policy include some attention to the manner of instruction of science in American schools. A great well planned science program “on a shoestring” includes lots of hands on type of instruction that allows for discussion of science and technology amongst the students to develop skill in speaking and thinking critically about topics in science as well as responsibilities to the rest of the planet. The children who were in school during the last administration have had very little science instruction especially minority children in poor schools. Not all occupations in science are in a lab or the field. Everyday people need science too. NCLB has been hugely damaging to progress of science education in our schools and we will need all the help we can get to turn the state of the nation around. Hundreds of teachers have been pressured to give up teaching science in order to teach to the teach. Science is not just a bunch of facts, it is a way of processing information gathered in a variety of ways and thinking about and communicating the resulting knowledge in a timely fashion. People don’t just show up at the university ready for that, they must be prepared just like a musician or an artist or an economist or any other field that we will need in the future.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pmPeople are losing jobs right now because the jobs they had are expendable. We have to do something about that.
After studying a very old Bible, copyright MCMXLVIII, the preface explains; ‘Careful investigation of the results of archaeological research and a more thorough examination of the Bible itself, have made it clear that some of what once seemed false is true while some of those things that once appeared true must be rejected.’ Now those that have studied and have ministered these interpretations over the years, and do not understand, are today’s innocent ones. It has been 150 years since the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’ and now we have an new study, An Analog from Adam to Nero.
Annec has the power to vision a new history, but how can this be? Do we not presently have one? We have any number of histories, recordings of various weights and virtue; biased scribbles of past events. Annec shapes the images that loom behind us by clearing away the fog of forgotten antiquity. Denial and refutation is not practical, the earth is not flat.
Adam was born in 2965 B.C. in an early bronze age Indus Valley Civilization. After twenty-five years, Adam begat Seth. And when Seth had turned fourteen, Cain began the construction of his city at 49 degrees N Lat. on the Volga River. It followed, in Scythia, that Enoch invented infinity and he recorded the history of the Generations of Seth. Much of what he recorded was factual and much of what was recorded was written for entertainment. In death, Enoch walked with the infinity Deity, and the time that had past was 180 years.
270 years after the birth of Adam, Noah came down from the Black Sea with forty ships and they captured all the lands before Arphaxad was born. This history correlates well with the Bible and the events preceding the historic flood may be verified with ice-core drilling in Greenland. In Egypt, this begins Dynasty III and in Babylonia, Dynasty I of Kish. We may continue calculating the generations of Seth until we have Abraham leaving the Euphrates area, just prior to the reign of Ush. (2466-2455 B.C.) and given lands by the god-king of Mari. How could the prophets of old be so demonical?
Looking over Revelations, it has so many footnotes, the allocated space almost out weigh the main text. And what is most cruel, it is 100% wrong. Revelation was written by an ‘Enoch believer’ and Enoch was much out of favor by the time of the Roman emperor Domitian (A.D. 81-96). We must consider Revelations being written earlier then, by John the Baptizer.
It is time to read along in Revelations: And I bring to those that may understand, the joyful appreciation of the Christmas story. A door was opened in heaven: and it showed things which must be hereafter. And Revelations describes Mary being with the angels of Enoch, and often described, also, as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth, for those that paid their tax to Herod. Those that paid the tax were marked on their foreheads, but many suffered by not paying their tax. Those that remained would be rewarded by Mary being with Child. And the Innocent One would reside in Egypt a thousand two hundred and threescore days. In Jerusalem, Zacharias said that he was a priest and did not contemplate where-about of children and Zacharias was murdered at the alter. But the children were protected by the seventh angel.
Revelations often repeats the same events: And Herod had a priest there, to take the Child as soon as it was born. But the people helped the virgin and she escaped that night into the wilderness; for the priest had falsely accused the woman with a flood of accusations. And here again, we are told that the priest departed and made war on the temple in Jerusalem and the father of the babies.
En. Lxi. 4-9 “The former heaven shall depart and pass away, a new heaven shall appear.
”Rev. 21. 1. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth
were passed away.”
I have chapter upon chapter in my book and what is here could fill a thimble. Truth is overcoming error. And the truth, if it is true, must be embedded in concrete fact and reality. When we awaken we are careful, for wise take every precaution, least we promise tyranny. The ethic of freedom is above the ethic of purity, for injustice works by taking gifts. Truth is stronger than the ancient power base and we establish the compassion needed to find a Communion in Western Culture and a Congress of His Christ.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:53 pm