[green_achers]

All this being said, I would also like to point out that, as desirable as "scientific literacy" is, it is not the full guage of how a person should be judged. Certainly not to the extent of his/her ability to participate in civic life.

I'm glad there are people who decide to concentrate on the arts, letters, even the social "sciences." I'd rather have someone who understands the philosophical bases of our government in high offece rather than someone who knows how far it is to Alpha Centauri. The problem comes when people ignorant in science begin to make decisions for the rest of us that require such an understanding, e.g., in the fields of resource depletion, environmental regulation, etc.

[basil_hayden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('green_achers', 'A')ll this being said, I would also like to point out that, as desirable as "scientific literacy" is, it is not the full guage of how a person should be judged. Certainly not to the extent of his/her ability to participate in civic life.

I'm glad there are people who decide to concentrate on the arts, letters, even the social "sciences." I'd rather have someone who understands the philosophical bases of our government in high offece rather than someone who knows how far it is to Alpha Centauri. The problem comes when people ignorant in science begin to make decisions for the rest of us that require such an understanding, e.g., in the fields of resource depletion, environmental regulation, etc.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lighthouse', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bshirt', 'N')ot to mention Darwin's evolution theory is just that, a theory. For these pollsters to claim ignorance of the population for not 100% buying mankind evolved from apes is total bullshit.

[green_achers]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('basil_hayden', 'S')o basically you're saying that not much has to be scientifically understood, you just have to know people and their reactions, and how to deal with them. Sounds like advertising and marketing. Isn't that how we got into this resource mess in the first place?
With no scientific understanding of the world around us, decades of stupid decisions lead to no way out (i.e., the Green Revolution, obviously a lot of thought was put into that one - not.) when the laws of man=the laws of nature, we'll be better off

[gampy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', 'Y')ou think you're not "scientifically ignorant"? Try taking Gideon's Science Quiz . . .
1. What's bigger - Red Blood Cell or a Protein?
2. Does it take more force, less force, or equal force to overcome the friction of an object at rest compared to that same object in motion?
3. What are the four bases of DNA?
4. In light years, about how far away is the nearest star, other than the sun, to Earth?
5. What is the acceleration due to Earth's gravity at sea level on Earth?
6. How many times greater in magnitude is a 7.0 earthquake relative to a 6.0 earthquake, on the Richter scale?
7. What is the most abundant element in the atmosphere?
8. Bats have wings and birds have wings. This is an example of - resplendent evolution, congruous evolution, convergent evolution, or functionally equivalent evolution?
9. How did Avogadro arrive at his number?
10. A benzene ring has how many hydrogens attached?
11. When you see a skater spinning on ice with her hands out, she spins at speed X. If she tucks her hands in, she spins more quickly than X. If she puts her hands back out, her speed returns to X. This is an example of conservation of angular_____.
12. PV=nR__ Fill in the blank.
13. What's bigger, an Antibody or a T-Cell?
14. About how many genes are coded in the human genome? 2,500, 25,000, 250,000, or 2.5 million?
15. If you put two 12-volt car batteries in parallel, then the total voltage will be ____ volts.
16. Organic chemistry is the branch of chemistry that is involved chiefly with the study of molecules incorporating the element ____.
17. "Simple Carbohydrates" refer to what most people know as ______.
18. The boiling point of water on the Celsius scale is _______.
19. The age of the planet is estimated to be, by some sources, about 400 million years, 4 billion years, 40 billion years, 400 billion years, or 4 trillion years.
20. Which one of the following was a member of homo sapiens - java man, neanderthal, cro-magnon, Lucy, homo erectus.
21. The dinosaurs died out about how long ago? 600,000 years, 6 million years, 60 million years, 600 million years, 6 billion years.

[gampy]

BTW: no geography questons. What's up with that?

I always did well on Jeopardy with geography.

[Heineken]

Geography is only marginally a science. It's in a gray zone. "Jeopardy" would be great if only they'd get rid of all those silly questions about stars and rock groups and other society fluff. I guess that's a concession to the Lowbrow Majority.

[green_achers]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')eography is only marginally a science. It's in a gray zone.

[Kingcoal]

A productive population in a postindustrial society needs a minimum set of mental tools. Those tools include reading, writing and mathematics. A person well versed in those can continue to learn the rest of their life and develop a career in which they become a specialist, often called a “guru” these days. As a result, most professionals in technology fields can be described as “a foot wide and a mile deep.” For example, an electrical engineer who designs microprocessor circuitry might not be able to quote the “four bases of DNA,” but he or she would know where to look for that information should they need to change careers and become a molecular biologist. While you might argue that the common person needs to have a rudimentary knowledge of such things, I do not. A jack of all trades approach to modern science is generally worthless for anything other than making yourself look like a smarty pants in forums like this.

Such was not the case in the late 1800’s though, and it was common for scientists and technologists to be self taught in their fields, for example, Faraday or Edison. Today, Edison or Faraday would be regarded as hobbyists. It’s not that they were stupid, on the contrary, they were great discoverers and contributors, it’s just that most fields of study have progressed to the point where you either make it your specialty or you leave it to the specialists.

The problem in postindustrial societies is that a significant proportion of the population has no specialized skills. In postindustrial societies you need training beyond high school, period. The writing is on the wall if you are unskilled.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('green_achers', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')eography is only marginally a science. It's in a gray zone.

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lthough I worked as an editor for Science magazine

[Heineken]

When I was at Science (1979-1986), it didn't have quite the star appeal it does today, KJ. But it was a lively place to work. The building was located on what was then the edge of the ghetto. Across the street was an enormous apartment building in the windows of which various tenants occasionally paraded in the nude for our entertainment. Even more eccentric were many of the Science and AAAS employees (including yours truly).

The building (today the Tunisian Embassy) was hemmed in by strange, vertical aluminum louvers that moved in synchrony with the sun (sometimes to block it, sometimes to allow more of it in, according to arcane laws).

My best friend was the letters editor, a brilliant, manic-depressive, obese Greek-American woman whose office was the most stupendous mess I ever saw before or since. And whose home in Arlington was in exactly the same state.

On my long, long lunch hours, I sometimes went to the Brass Rail, a dangerous neighborhood gay bar, and drank a few Miller Highlifes to fortify myself for the afternoon.

Occasionally, when feeling my oats to distraction, I went into a dirty bookstore down on 14th Street and unwound in one of those filthy little movie booths that no longer exist.

Or I went jogging in Rock Creek Park, or showed off with handstands and hundreds of pushups in the crisp August grass.

Nobody cared when I came or when I left, as long as I got the work done. I barely had a boss---rather, I had a mentor, a woman of stellar intelligence and gentle wisdom and astonishingly lewd humor.

We had no computers for most of the time I was there. We had typewriters and mimeograph machines and green pencils and musty books and huge offices with solid doors.

I once saved the chief editor, Philip Abelson (the co-discoverer of neptunium), from an attack by an intruder (an irate would-be author).

I'll never forget the last time I saw the Managing Editor, a frail, sweet-yet-crusty soul named Robert Ormes (and a Who's Who in America). We were both going home for the weekend, and he was standing on the same subway station platform. He was wearing one of those white raincoats and an adorable beret that on him seemed not in the least pretentious. On Monday he did not come in for work, and he never came in for work again---after 25 or so highly competent years of building that journal's reputation. He died some weeks later of a systemic fungal infection.

Not just Ormes is gone, but all of that is gone. The young man who was me, the city that was still old Washington, the shape and texture of office work, life's charm and naivete, the Brass Rail and most of the oddballs who went there, the way you had the time to watch the dust motes dancing in the sun, the open-endedness of the future, and so much more.

Sorry for the OT ramble. But from what little I know of your life, KJ, it sounds like a success, not a failure. You've got an enviable setup!

[killJOY]

Thanks for that great tale. Nice way to end my day.

[Heineken]

Gideon, IMO Science mag began its descent when Ormes died and Abelson retired and was replaced by Daniel Koshland. The new management brought in modern-management-type ideas antithetical to the steady, rational, noncommercial candle that had for so long lit the way.

In the shakeup that followed, I was demoted because I didn't have a Ph.D. (even though I'd been there seven years and had been steadily promoted from copy editor to assistant editor to associate editor). My abilities and track record and loyalty and productivity and unusual verbal talents were irrelevant. There's no doubt that I was academically underqualified for the job, but I had been attending night school in the sciences for years, and my job was quite an education in itself.

I resigned soon after AAAS moved to its glossy new headquarters on New York Avenue (it has since moved again).

I remember being so angry that for months I fantasized packing a gun to work one day and wiping out the key offensive characters.

I haven't really followed (or read) Science since the late 1980s, so I have only hazy ideas of the subsequent evolution (although I know it was downhill). Your comments are interesting.

[Heineken]

Ha! Pretty funny. Too many of us are ludicrously blind when it comes to our deficiencies.

You wield a wicked pen too.

Writers instantly know one another in this medium.