CHARLES ARTHUR COMPTON' Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire
DURING the past year the Russians did a favor for a11 high school teachers of science; they launched a satellite. As a result of this action, the attention of the American people has been focused on the status of education in this country and on science education in particular. Americans seem to be faced with a dilemma. Our educational system evidently is not efficient in the production of scientists and engineers, and science may well hold the key to our national survival. On the other hand, we do not wish t o copy the Soviet system of scientific education, for we hold that the purpose of education is not to safeguard the State by forcing science into the curriculum, but to set men free. Not all men find freedom in a scientific education. There is, however, a middle path. It does not propose a "crash program" or teaching everyone t o become a scientist, nor does it propose continuing unchanged an educational system which fails to prepare young people to understand and to contribute to the scientific enterprise. This road is based upon the writer's conviction that most high school textbooks, courses, and teachers do not teach science. Since few people are taught science, it is not surprising that many Americans look upon science and scientists with misgivings or even suspicion, and that people misunderstand the role of the "brain" or "egghead" in our society. A very wise man once said that science is no more a collection of facts than a house is a pile of stones. An even wiser person wrote a nursery rhyme, part of which went something like this: "I went into a house, at least I thought it was a house, I could hear from the may-tree the blackbird's call. But nobody listened to it. Nobody liked it, (A. A. Milne) Nobody wanted it at all."
A house may, of course, be made of stones. But it must be much more. It is also the architect's dream; it reflects the lives of those who love it and who live within it. So it is with science, for science must contain more than facts. They are merely the framework out of which science is built, while science is the process, a very human process, in which the scientist and engineer use facts to build a description of what Nature already knows. I n this country we have placed a premium on factual knowledge. Thousands upon thousands of people watch television every night and look with envy upon those few who amass vast fortunes on quiz programs. These few have committed to memory the millions of useless facts which any educated person mould look up in a reference hook if he ever needed them. There is no 'Assistant Director, Academic Year Institute, Harvard University.
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indication that these memory machines can put their facts t o any good use. There is, however, proof that they can do fairly quickly but imperfectly what any good IBM machine could do were anyone interested in asking a machine to do it. Oddly, these quiz contestants are never asked a question that has a debatable answer. They are never asked to show, in fact, that they are educated. So it is in our high school science courses. We teach facts, many thousands of facts, and thenask trivialquestions. Students can factor the difference of squares or define velocity. They can list the difference between animal and plant cells or they can describe the workings of one of the world's most inefficient devices, the automobile engine. These facts are easily forgotten; they are even more easily distorted. They are largely useless except t o one who plans to make large scale use of them. But, what is far more important, they are not the essence of science. Indeed, such courses completely overlook the fact that science is a human enterprise. Is it any wonder that our young people, even those who took a course in science, grow up in total ignorance of what science is all about, and what scientists are like and trying t o do? It is as if all students were taught spelling and grammar and never told or shown how words can be put together t o form poetry or literature. Since science involves people at work, and involves a continuously growing and changing understanding of Nature's secrets, is it surprising that science courses should consider these aspects of science? And yet most high school courses do not. To prove, or a t least demonstrate this claim, look a t the following list and ask whether the high school students that you know have ever considered the items suggested. The list is made up of a few more important aspects of science, those human aspects that distinguish science from stamp collecting in much the way that a house can be distinguished from a pile of rubble. 1. What is the role of Chance, or Luck, in science? There are those, the giants in science, who make Lady Luck shine with favor upon them, who seem ever ready to grab the ball and run for the touchdown. Science is full of results made possible only through some wise acceptance of a lucky break. What about Roentgen and Crookes? Was it chance that one of them could see the possible importance of a foggy film plate that was, by chance, in the wrong place a t the right time? How about Priestley's use of an oxide of mercury? Was it his excellence as an experimentalist that prompted his use of an easily decomposable oxide? And those who would apply "scientific methods" outside the area of science, will they rely on luck when man has the awesome potential which he now is stockpiling just in case something goes wrong?
2. What is the role of authority i n science? We often accuse those who accepted Aristotle's authority. It was not that they accepted authority, but that they accepted it blindly that we hold them in some disrespect. In our modern world it is increasingly true that no man can know all that he needs to know; he must lean ever more heavily on authority. But who is an authority? Part of education in a free world must be in the training of young people in the ways of choosing authority wisely. Seldom in education is this being done effectively, and no where can it be done more easily than in science. The scientist is always accepting authority, but he does so with care, and with the recognition that his results must of necessity rest upon the validity of what he has accepted on authority. Zeeman once stated that he might have given up in his search for the effect of magnetism on light had he not read (by chance?) that Faraday had also sought this effect. If the great Faraday had tried, there must he something t o it, so Zeeman tried again, and again. Do our young people, or our old ones, ever learn the importance of authority choosing? Look a t the record wherever fluoridation has been a political issue. Look at the television commercials of the white-coated "doctors," of the schematic diagram that "proves," of the "grease spot" that is wiped away like magic by a solution that cannot hurt your hands. 3. What i s the role of error in science? We all poke fun a t the poor weatherman who predicts sun and gets rain. But we seldom remember that his is a difficult position, for it either rains or it does not rain. The errors in his work may be infinitely small compared to those which a missile expert willaccept, yet we blame the weatherman if our garden party is spoiled. Errors are important in science, and not only because they tell us how well or how poorly we have done something. Indeed, it is often more important to have differences between the prediction and the result than it is to have exact predictions. All bodies fall with equal acceleration, which is a statement that is obviously false. But, Galileo's genius lay in the fact that he could picture in his mind that all bodies, if released together, should fall with equal accelerations. The fact that such a prediction does not fit experimental fact makes possible the whole new sciences of aerodynamics and fluid flow. More recently, look a t the Sputniks. If they follow the predicted paths, wonderful. If they do not, even more wonderful, for then this error will have shown man a new problem, a new challenge, to be studied and solved. 4. What i s the nature oftruth in science? What is truth? Philosophers have asked this question for countless generations. Perhaps there can be no simple or single answer, but in science there is something that approximates an answer t o the question; a theory that works is true. We no longer think of a caloric fluid. We would state that the concept was false. Yet it worked, within limits, and proved useful in science. In fact, we still talk of heat flowing as if it were a fluid. We know that Newton's laws do not apply under certain conditions, such as those of high velocities. In a sense, the laws of Newton are not true, yet no sensible man would deny their applicability the restricted area for which Newton developed them. Is it possible that laws in science can be true in one situation and not true in another? And if so, what is truth in science? How
many students in high schools question the unsuspecting teacher who states that the general gas laws indicate that the pressure of a gas a t absolute zero is zero? Or, can a gas law be true when applied outside the area for which a gas exists? There is an advertisement that says, "From science comes truth. . .the search that took 1200 days. Yes, after four years of research. . . ." What is truth when 1200 days is equal to four yean? Yet Americans swallow this sort of statement day after day. 5. What i s the role of prejudice in science? We all know the stereotype of the scientist. He is a cold, impassive, white-coated man who is totally ohjective in all he does in science. No wonder that Americans look with suspicion upon him. Unfortunately, many of our science courses tend to perpetuate this picture. I n his own way, the scientist is a very prejudiced person, and always in his own favor. It is a special form of prejudice, however, for it persists just long enough, but not so long as t o continue beyond its usefulness. Look, for example, a t Faraday's work. The induced current must exist, but it was never found. In the face of this evidence Faraday had two choices: give up the idea or try again. He tried again and again. The question is simply this: How long does the scientist cling to his hypothesis in the face of contrary evidence? If he keeps on in spite of the evidence, he does so because of his form of prejudice, a firm belief that he is just too good a scientist to be wrong. If one looks a t modern science, one can see that this situation is not surprising in the least. Much of modern science depends upon experimentation in which the result can have but two forms: yes, or don't know. If the bulh flashes, for example, the particle was there; if the bulh does not flash, it can mean only that either the particle was not there or that it was there but the equipment used could not detect it. Man asks questions of Nature and devises instruments t o probe for the answers. But the instrument can only indicate answers to the particular questions it was built t o ask; it can give no answer if it was not built carefully, or if the scientist asked the wrong question of Nature. All humans are prejudiced, and scientists are no exceptions. But, their prejudice in the field of science must be tempered for it should exist only so long as it is useful. Perhaps this ability to hold one's prejudice long enough is one of the major features that can distinguish the real giants from the near greats. We may be amused a t Priestley for clinging t o his phlogiston theory, yet praise Faraday for clinging to the belief that currents can be induced and light affected by magnetic fields. Both were prejudiced, and it may he that only in retrospect can we tell which was justified in clinging to his belief in the face of contrary evidence. These, then, are some of the characteristics of that particular human enterprise called science. If the general public has a vague feeling of distrust, that science is a monster that can bring destruction, it is in part the fault of the teachers of science who have never bothered to point out what science is. If the discoveries of science are evil, it must mean that Nature herself is evil, for science is largely discovering what Nature is. Few people would claim that Nature is inherently evil. If any of the above aspects of science are to be incorporated in the school science courses (or any science JOURNAL O F CHEMICAL EDUCATION
course), it is obvious that something must he omitted from the already too crowded syllabus. No one should question the importance of including in any program the basic concepts out of which the fabric of science is woven. The fact that there will he some disagreement as to which concepts are basic is of only mild consequence: There are more than enough concepts to go around. Some states have already made drastic cuts in their traditional syllabi, and many study committees, such as the Physical Sciences Study Committee at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have advocated such cuts. In some of these cases the weeding out of old material was merely to make room for more science facts about an atomic age, an age of wave motions, basic particles, and nuclear terminology. It seems difficult to justify the inclusion of all the semimodern technology, whether atomic or classical in nature, that takes so much time in all school science courses. Perhaps the practice of studying all the gadgetry of modern life stems from educational philosophy that subject matter must he drawn from the student's experience. This philosophy may well have merit, but it does not require or even suggest that the student shall not be introduced to new ideas as yet outside his experience. To a certain extent, all education should strive to open new vistas, to
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show each individual that his experiences form hut a very small part of reality. The student is, in fact, enclosed in a room, the walls of which represent the limits of his experience. Education must not merely examine that room in trivial detail; such investigation leads nowhere. Education must open doors to show what lies beyond, thus broadening the student's world of experience. The student may see the exciting world beyond the limits of his previous knowledge. It is neither possible nor necessary to take h i by the hand through each door; it is enough t o show him several doors, and then let him go where his own imagination and inclination direct. Since science is a human enterprise, then it must be much more than the mere collecting of facts which concerns most of our science courses. Were we t o teach something about science, about the people and the problems that make science worth while and exciting, we might not find any need for forcing more science into the educational mixmaster. We could still operate in the conviction that education's foremost goal in a free society is to set men free from the haphazard bonds of pure circumstance, and not all men will find their freedom in the forced study of more and more science.
