Speaking of Science: Can We Talk? You Tell Me
Should a suspected terrorist be denied the right to take courses in biology and chemistry?
Are students’ attitudes about science critical to a country’s future economic health?
Who says girls can’t do science?
What is a “healthy worrier” and why should we care?
It has been a heady few months for the “state of knowing” we call science. From global heating to stem cell reprogramming, science news – some of it generated by UCSF discoveries – has jammed the airwaves and filled our computer screens.
But does quantity qualify as understanding? Should we feel that a new age of enlightenment is upon us? Can we declare reason victorious and retire from the field of battle in clean lab coats?
You tell me. Science Café
We begin in the United Kingdom, where an Iraqi national, under surveillance for presumed terrorist activities, is being denied the opportunity to take secondary school-level science courses. The reason: The human biology course contains basic information about disease transmission and includes “a detailed examination of neurotoxins.” The chemistry lab also contains compounds and teaches techniques that could assist a “terrorist act.”
Excuse me, but has anyone heard of web search engines? There is plenty of information in the public domain already. Consider what a two-minute search yielded about ricin.
“Castor beans are the fruits of the castor plant which grows in Asia, the Middle East and southern Europe. In northern countries, it serves as an ornamental plant. A few beans may contain a dose lethal for an adult. Manufacturing of a crude ricin preparation is easy and sufficient for terroristic purposes. Since it affects the mucous membranes of the mouth and the upper airways, the eyes and even the unprotected skin, an aerosol of any size of particle would harm people. Employing affinity chromatography, it is possible to isolate in a single step 180 mg of pure ricin from 100 g of castor beans.”
Isn’t preventing knowledge a rather curious principle upon which to base policy?
Most readers of the Nature News story seem to agree. “Absurd” and “paranoid” were just two of the more printable reactions.
What do you think? Science Café
While we’re on the subject of thinking, what do you think is on the minds of American 15-year-olds? Apparently, it’s not science. The results from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) put American students in 17th place (just ahead of the Slovak Republic) among the 30 countries represented. Students in Finland topped the list. Students in Mexico were at the bottom.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings called the results “disappointing.” Of equal concern was a poll of the 400,000 students around the world who took the test. A mere 37 percent said that they would be interested in a career involving science (Does that include science writing, I wonder?), and only 21 percent expressed interest in a life dedicated to advanced science.
The math results for US students were even worse: 23rd place. If 17th place is disappointing, does that make 23rd place “dismal”?
You tell me. Science Café
While we’re on the topic of American teenagers, let’s cheer the young women scientists who recently won the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. First place in the team category went to two Long Island teens, who created a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria. Another young woman won the individual category for her studies of bone growth in zebrafish.
Guess they weren’t all watching High School Musical.
It’s also interesting to note how other countries, sometimes slow to recognize the economic power of basic science, are now spending a lot of money to catch up. To wit, two oncology institutes in Milan have signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Saudi Arabia to create a hospital and cancer research center at a new, 168-acre site known as King Abdullah City.
Breast cancer is topic one on the research agenda. As Nature News reports, breast cancer has “a high priority in Saudi Arabia, where intermarriage within families has led to an above-average rate of breast cancers with unusual genetic mutations.”
That leads to today’s final entry, culled from “Forethought Grist” in the Harvard Business Review. The essay is titled “What Health Consumers Want” and it offers an insider’s glimpse into how health care marketers can “uncover areas of untapped value by analyzing demand.”
We are all health consumers, of course, and since science underlies most of the health we consume, it’s interesting to note how science products are served up and, to use the marketing term, “segmented.”
“Healthy worriers” are first on the Harvard list that also includes the “unfit and happy” and “hapless heavyweights.” Now, I completely understand the need to know your audience, but I find the underlying assumptions embodied in these categories, well, curious.
Here’s what they have to say about the hapless heavyweights: “They resist yet feel incapable of improving their situations on their own. Of all the segments, this group needs the most external motivation, including support groups and financial penalties.”
Financial penalties? A good idea?
You tell me. Science Café
Alternative content