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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Critical & topical issue guaranteed to get you thinking, but lacking in content, July 25, 2009
Chris Mooney, co-authoring with Sheril Kirshenbaum, has impeccable timing for publishing topical books. By the time Mooney's The Republican War on Science : Revised and Updated came out, those who stay up on current events had probably reviewed enough anecdotal news stories regarding the GOP's relationship with Science and its findings to seriously consider Mooney's thesis that the GOP was truly in a policy war with science with damaging consequences both observed and predicted. Mooney's masterpiece of straight news reporting and analysis still resonates and I continue to recommend this wonderful book, both for the breadth and depth of its reporting, and its continued relevance in spite of a new Administration committed to science due to a Congress that continues to be swayed by special interests as we've recently experienced in both energy and health care legislative efforts.
Mooney's reportage in "War on Science" is also helpful to readers of "Unscientific America" given the authors spend little time in the new book arguing for the key and growing role science plays in American society, it's mostly assumed where the authors instead focus the first portion of the book on the pervasiveness of America's illiteracy towards science coupled to their argument the scientific community is failing at communicating with both the power brokers and the general public in a way that adequately promotes science. While I enjoyed learning about areas where we're scientifically illiterate, I believe the authors spend too little time speaking to the criticality of science. This results in a book I find serves as an echo chamber for current science supporters, who already know the general public is illiterate regarding Science. According to a recent Pew poll, 84% of the public claims a high regard for science while 85% of scientists believe the public doesn't understand science and far too many people oppose both the scientific method and use of its findings in education and policy. Some illumination that claiming support for science in no way equates to actually supporting science is a necessity; however few examples are offered here. I would have liked to have distributed this book to people in positions of power who have influence on our culture, but the sales job by the authors is inadequate for that task given many of my target audience ignorantly believe they already support science. More examples of how ignorance in science equates to less than optimal results would have been welcomed.
Unscientific America couldn't have been timed better. The aforementioned Pew poll published soon after this book went to market raises the appropriate alarms regarding a public who is scientifically illiterate and where a massive disconnect in understanding between science and the public exists on many topics. The poll's attention in the media should help serve as a motivating argument to consider Unscientific America's thesis. More than 2/3 of all Americans with an opinion think that government funded research is "essential" and that private industry investment in research without government funded research is not adequate. On the flip side this same Pew poll finds that 87% of scientists believe we are inadequately funding research. A seeming paradox emerges from this poll result given the authors reporting that we have an over-supply of scientists relative to job openings - one of several rewarding eye-openers the authors report that changed the paradigm of how I view science policy.
Americans understand that we face increased competition for desired jobs given an increase in global competitiveness and global trade that challenges American economic growth and security. I would therefore speculate that the vast majority of well-informed Americans would agree that for America to maintain and improve our economic situation, we need to increase the rate of scientific findings, maintain or enhance our standing in the world regarding science, and significantly improve our ability to translate research into marketable ventures, especially in energy and less costly health care. Yet here we are swimming in unemployed or under-employed scientists.
A more substantial analysis and set of arguments regarding this seeming paradox is an opportunity squandered and the major failing of the book. What are the authors' recommendations? They provide one general recommendation that I agree is imperative. But I also find it falls far short of providing confidence we've done everything we can or need to do (I leave out their recommendation given I think it's a spoiler). I think the book leaves many questions left begging regarding this paradox while also falling short in reporting other possible solutions that may have a far more fundamental improvement.
For example, one of my observations on a possible root cause and corrective action regards our inability to get more American students interested in science, or at least more immigrant students who've come from developed capitalistic societies. Could the cultural differences of immigrant students who secure science jobs in the States be a cause for why we don't see greater activity in bringing research to market given that requires more interaction with both investors and the business community? I don't know; it or other obvious considerations are never covered. [I'm a huge supporter of increasing recruitment efforts to attract foreign students to immigrate here, along with other countries' scientists. Therefore, I'm not advocating shutting them out by increasing how many American citizens go into science, I'm instead arguing that not having more scientists with soft-cultural skills may be a reason we don't see a faster rate from research to market while we simultaneously suffer an oversupply of scientists relative to jobs. I'm looking at growing the pie of jobs in the science sector, not increasing Americans' share of who staffs current American-based science jobs at our immigrants' expense.]
A third weakness, which I found far more trivial to the scarcity of analysis and prescriptive arguments, is their attack on so-called new atheists. The authors are convinced that the new atheists are buttressing the wedge between the scientific community and social conservatives. In fact the authors spend far more time on this supposed issue than they do addressing why America is swimming with scientists at a time our energy and health care costs require an increase in bringing scientific findings to the marketplace. Couple a disproportionate attention on the growth and exposure of science-literate atheists to the absence of any data supporting their argument and one wonders what this subject is even doing in the book, especially given it's such a short read.
My experience is that these so-called new atheists have instead attracted many young people to the side of enlightened thinking while offending social conservatives who were previously and will remain incapable of adapting their beliefs to knowledge derived from science. Religious people who are intellectually mature enough to support science are not going to be repelled given part of the big tent is particularly nasty to fundamentalists, who they mostly dismiss as well. Therefore I'd speculate the new atheists have opened up a new channel to develop more science-friendly people, rather than harming this cause given the people attacking them aren't going to change anyways. (I too have no data but I'm not publishing a book claiming so. I've also seen a lot of observational evidence that people like Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris have helped young people who were indoctrinated into fundamentalism become enlightened while the people who are offended by these types, e.g., Rick Warren and his older adherents, display zero capability or history of adapting when their beliefs are convincingly discredited - so why should we care if they add one more reason for them to hate scientific methodology and its resulting findings if there's a marginal benefit to what these new atheists do? Social conservatives will just use other rhetorical opportunities to attack science and its supporters if the new atheists went back into the closet as Mooney argues they should.]
Given the book is any easy interesting read that does promote the reader thinking more deeply about this critical topic, I do recommend reading this book. I have a far better context in which to consider how we make America more literate because I read this book, but I also feel this book was a rush job lacking the effort we saw in "War on Science" where the authors didn't go nearly far enough in both their analyses or prescriptive considerations. So whatever positions I eventually develop to argue for how America can become scientifically literate, such findings will be based on content not contained in this book.
P.S. - I think Mr. Mooney is a great talent who is worthy of our consideration. Given how young he is, he's in a post-grad program now, I hope in the future he is more respectful of his audience by putting more effort into future books by providing more substantial content. I also hope he takes his critics' advice regarding there being a place at the table for the new atheists; especially given Science's emerging efforts into better understanding the brain and behavioral memes within populations originating in ancestors beyond hominids. These relatively new fields will greatly increase science's treading into areas recently reserved only for religion, so we need to have the dialogue that people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have put on the table, not hide them from view, otherwise the distance between science and the public will only increase.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well-meaning but superficial, August 9, 2009
Chris Mooney, journalist and author of the eye-opening The Republican War on Science, teamed up with Sheril Kirshenbaum, a scientist involved in science policy, to write Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future.
It has its good parts. But possibly because I expected more from Mooney, my overall impression is one of faint disappointment. There is too much in the book that is unimaginative and superficial. Mooney and Kirshenbaum too often approach the cultural problems of science in our present environment as difficulties calling for better public relations efforts on the part of scientists.
Their main recommendation is that scientists should pay more attention to popularizing their work, getting involved with policy debates, and otherwise coming down from their ivory tower and communicating more effectively. That is, indeed, a good idea. Few scientists of my acquaintance would disagree, though all too many might prefer that somebody else should do the job.
But making that the centerpiece and almost the only theme of a book on the unfortunate cultural position of science in the US today is perverse. Mooney and Kirshenbaum want scientists to be better attuned to our corporate, entertainment-driven media environment. We have to sell ourselves and our work, and an important component of that selling job is to avoid giving offense to those political and religious constituencies that might be less opposed to science if they felt less threatened.
This better-PR prescription seems naive at best. How much would it help for scientists to be more eager to communicate science to the general public, when our pop culture, political institutions, and economic system all work together to severely shorten attention spans and time horizons? How do scientists, even if we got our act together, penetrate the dominance of depth-free entertainment, personality contests as politics, and a plunder mentality in commercial enterprises? Our becoming more media-savvy would, I suspect, only have a marginal effect. And the book presents nothing like the substantial argument and evidence that would change my initial suspicion. It takes for granted a work-within-the-system reformism that lacks the imagination even to consider that there may be more fundamental difficulties, let alone explore if there are any more radical options.
A perhaps deeper problem with Mooney and Kirshenbaum's approach is that in constantly recommending better PR and not stepping on powerful toes, they lose sight of what not just science but any intellectual enterprise is about. For example, early on, they castigate scientists for getting involved with the postmodern Science Wars while ignoring politically more potent right-wing opposition. That may well be true from a political standpoint. But the Science Wars was not just a battle over academic politics--there were, and continue to be, important intellectual questions raised during the debates. And if science is to remain one of the few institutions around that can entertain long time horizons, we should be able to devote some attention to engaging such questions.
Indeed, such observations suggest that Mooney and Kirshenbaum are somewhat lacking in their understanding of the nature of science, which makes it especially annoying when they try to make pronouncements about the philosophy of science. One of their targets in the book are scientists who argue that science provides reasons for skepticism about those supernatural realities claimed by socially respectable religions. The authors do some expertise-shopping to selectively cite views of science that can be read a friendly to a better-PR prescription, presenting the most superficial form of compatibilist conventional wisdom about science and religion as if it was settled truth. They ought to have known better.
It may well be true that especially "new atheist" rhetoric hurts the public standing of science in a strongly religious country such as the US. It's hard to say with any certainty, but that has some plausibility. Still, Mooney and Kirshenbaum need to do more. After all, criticism--including criticism of faith-based positions--is one of those things that cannot be suppressed in any genuinely intellectual enterprise. In the sort term, being more deferential to faith may well help. It might protect the funding levels of science. But in the long term, is that the sort of intellectual climate we want? Eventually, the scientific community as a whole might decide that bashing religion in the name of science is unacceptable. But if so, for the integrity of the enterprise, compatibilism should enjoy an intellectual victory, not just the advantages of political convenience.
This is a well-meaning book. But it does not seem thought-through well enough. It comes across as rushed; worse, it seems like a preconceived better-PR thesis is driving everything. As a result, Unscientific America elevates a useful recommendation, that scientists should be more publicly engaged, to an overly central position. Examining the ambiguous cultural position of science in the US calls for a far more complex analysis. This is an oversimplification with the wrong emphasis.
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53 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An in-depth analysis of the state of scientific awareness, June 30, 2009
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum
I recommend this book for its analysis of where we are. It is essential to understand a problem before trying to devise a solution.
We take it for granted that the American populace is not terribly scientifically literate. For some reason, we imagine that the populace of other nations tends to have a better grasp of basic scientific principles. I have no reason to believe that it is necessarily the case, and apparently neither do the authors. They point out that citizens of other nations do not do much better on scientific literacy surveys than we do (305-309)*. Going to the conclusion, where the authors state the problem best, they explain, "The fact is, we don't merely need a smarter population that can regurgitate what's in the textbooks. We need one that cares about science, has it on the radar, sees it as salient and relevant. And we don't simply need a bigger scientific workforce: We need a more cultured one, capable of bridging the divides that have led to science's declining influence." (2007)
A strong case can be made--and indeed was made by one of the authors of this book--that the previous administration did not give science its due. I recommend Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science The Republican War on Science : Revised and Updatedif you are interested in that topic. One of the recurring themes in this book is that we should not allow the election of Barack Obama to lead us to believe that all is once again right with the world. Many of the problems brought on by the Bush administration's disregard of science are still with us.
The authors are at their best when they explore and explain the nature of America's scientific illiteracy. It is not simply that we do poorly on pop quizzes. It is far more complicated than that. The authors begin with World War II. After Sputnik, Americans were alarmed and turned to science. Ever since then, there has been a widening rift between the scientific community and other sectors of society. The press has less money to spend on covering science, and consumers of the media's product are less interested in it. Politicians and scientists have different interests and far different ways of doing things. There has been a rift between religion and science--which the authors believe is largely unnecessary--which has done harm to the goal of having a scientifically engaged and literate populace. Hollywood has consistently relied on negative stereotypes of scientists, with notable exceptions to be sure, as either nerds or villains or occasionally both.
The authors also note that the material rewards for young men and women entering the scientific field are scarce. From an employment standpoint, it is more lucrative for a gifted student to concentrate on business or any number of other fields.
The problem is that not only is the general public scientifically illiterate, other influential segments of society either do not know or do not care enough about science. There are a number of reasons for this, which the authors explore in depth. The authors suggest a number of solutions. They recommend creating a range of jobs for young scientists for the express purpose to connect science with other fields of society. They suggest that scientists could be taught the communication skills to relay their knowledge and convey their experience to help specialists in other fields understand and apply the scientific perspective to what they are doing. (1970-90).
As I see it, the problem with this solution is finding someone to pay for this. Private industry is not going to do it. If private industry thought such an investment would improve the bottom line, they would have already started making the investment. Should the government spend money promoting scientific understanding and literacy? I think it probably should, but just as there is a tradition of distrusting intellectuals in American society, there is also a tradition of distrusting government. It may be--and in my experience often is--completely unfair. But it is there and it is real. For reasons the authors explain well, the media as currently constituted is not going to do it. With media consolidation, the emphasis is on the bottom line, and science reporting is not a sufficiently profitable investment. Certainly wealthy benefactors could fund foundations to do this good work, but there is a great demand for charity, particularly now with the economy in shambles. So who is going to make this investment?
The important message to take from this book is that there is a huge disconnect between the scientific community and other influential communities in American society. It is not so much the "man in the street" who should concern us. It is the lack of scientific literacy among the leaders in government, politics, journalism, business, and even large parts of academia. To a large extent, scientists speak a different language. Science is by its very nature complicated, nuanced, and seldom subject to simple yes or no answers. It seldom fits into a storyline for a newspaper article. It seldom conveniently lends itself to an up or down vote. American society ignores the contributions of the scientific community at our peril. Must we wait for the next Sputnik to wake us from our complacency?
JG "Gerry" Schulze
*Note: These references are to Kindle "locations," not to pages. I read this book on the Kindle. I recommend the Kindle for many reasons. I have filled my bookshelves and at this moment have stacks of books on the floor with no place to go. Books are less expensive on the Kindle. I can "sample" books on the Kindle. I can annotate books easily with the Kindle. I can carry my library with me on the Kindle. And here, I got the book before it was available in print. There are two disadvantages for this type of book, though. First, it does not give page numbers, so my references are to Kindle "locations." Second, there is the problem with footnotes. Some Kindle books link to footnotes or other references. Others do not. This one did not. The reason may have been that half of the text of this book, judging by the Kindle locations, consists of references. The sheer number would have been distracting.
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