Harold G. Cassidy
Honover College Hanover, lndiona 47243
I
I
On the Hed+h 01 iciente
The extent and diversity of wisdom to be displayed at this meetine cannot nossiblv be Kevnoted in a short talk. What I canoffer is fkst to Bay what I mean by the metaphor "health of Science." Then I would like to explore some aspects of the context of Science today, and in this way to bring out and describe some of the factors that influence the health of Science. Finally, I would like, in response to the theme of this conference to apply some of the findings specifically to chemical education, and to suggest some possible useful conclusions. By the state of health of Science I mean the degree to which the actual practice of sciences approximate to some reasonable standard. To judge the state of health one needs a frame of reference. This turns out to be a flexible frame. For example, in the last 5-year cumulative index put out by our Society there are in its 24 volumes nearly ten million entries indexing some 930,000-odd research articles, reports, reviews, books, patents, and so on. By the criterion of quantlty of work being done, this implies vibrant, exuberant health. We might call this an "in house" criterion. You and I know, as contributors to this output, that by far the majority of these papers will not be referred to again except occasionally by their own authors. By now they are scientifically irrelevant: not wrong, or in error-for they have contributed data-but irrelevant. It may even be easier to repeat the work than to locate it again. Questions are being raised about this output: but that is another subject. We might think however, that by this in-house criterion Science is in good shape. If we did, we should be fooling ourselves. The fact is that we are in the midst of a transition from what mieht be called in Tovnbeean nhrases an "urban-li" terate" to an industrial-affluent society. This transition is analyzed in a brilliant book "Thought and Change," by Ernest Gellner (1)to which I shall turn from time to time for insieht. A traeedv of this transition is that the urbanliterateculture isno&ientific, if not anti-scientific, while the new industrialized-affluent culture rests upon a public woefully lacking in scientific background. Gellner put the matter in this way. He uses the term "intelligentsia" for an intellectual class (students, teachers, and others) that is alienated from their society because it is not fulfilling the (scientific-technological) promise of a grand new order. Alongside these is an intellectual class of "schoolmen" who are alienated from the prevalent change because their education leaves them with skills once of great esteem that are questionably adapted to present needs. You have only to listen to nonscience, or anti-science students to confirm the existence of these groups among both students and faculty. Or, read the scholarly book by Theodore Roszak (2). The sub-title of this work is "Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition." It is a compelling book. Unfortunately, the impact is limited by the scientific illiteracy of the author: his "science" is of the nineteenth century, and his analysis of industrialization suffers accordingly. However, I find no fault with his sensitive descriptiue passages. Further confirmation may be found in the brilliant "Future Condensed from the Keynote address of the Summer 1972
NEACT Meeting, August 14. 818 / Journal of Chemical Education
Shock" by Alvin Toffler (3) and in the poetic but scientifically illiterate "The Greening of America," by Charles A. Reich (4). What I wish to indicate, as crucial to the state of scientific health, is that scientists and Science do not exist in a vacuum. As science becomes industrialized, scientists become more and more dependent for support from the society in which they are embedded-upon their "ecology." If this society comprises vast numbers of scientifically illiterate persons with votes, then the health of Science becomes precarious. I have only touched on this aspect of the subject. But I wish to leave it with some conviction that the health of Science today is indeed precarious. Two out of many consequences of the development of Science may be singled out for their particular interest to us. (1) The progress of Science has made i t more and more evident that many of the traditional ways of looking at the World are of doubtful validity. While in its early development Science could have been fairly well-defined as organized common sense, it has rapidly drawn away from common sense during this century until by now what scientists tell us about the World is far from commonsensical. This has shaken up many intellectuals, and what has sifted into public ken has often made scientists seem mad, or a t least bizarre, to the people who know by common sense what's what. Ironically, a t the same time the power of sciences and scientific technologies to explain and control natural phenomena, a power that from a pragmatic point of view might be thought to validate their non-commonsensical view, has never been greater (2). As I indicated, using the example of the ACS 5-yr Index, the quantity of scientific publication has gone up astromonically. The point I am making here is made by Gellner: that science is becoming industrialized; "Capital-intensive" in the phrase of Ravetz (5). He sums this up: "Roughly; science is the mode of cognition of industrial society, and industry is the ecology of science." What I have tried to do here in this brief, simplified, insufficiently qualified, and therefore somewhat shaky analysis is to get you to convince yourselves, out of your own experiences, that we are faced with complex and real problems, that they have roots and can even be understood in a general way, that they are exigent, and so we had better get with it and quit thinking we have accomplished great things by rearranging the minutae of conventional and archaic curricula. In the hope that I have made these points, let me turn to my third aim, and see if we can draw viable conclusions and apply them to chemical education. First, to dispose of the criticism that this is not chemistni and so does not have any contribution to make to a course on Atomic structure,. the Periodic Classification, and the Laws of Thermodynamics: this kind of criticism (which I am sensitive tobecause I have sustained my share in connection with earlier writing) is simply obtuse. Why are we educating young people? Surely not to produce well-programmed, disciplined automatons who can reproduce the entire Periodic Classification on demand! Naturally the student must learn the language of science, a matter no more difficult than learning that of any for-
eign country, since the gammer and syntax are regular, on the whole. But he is not learning it just to echo formulas, surely. The purpose of chemical education would seem to be to make the student a better person through gaining competence in a science (chemistry). How does such competence bring about the miracle of making him a better person? Inherently, as well as through interaction with all the other subjects the student is studying, but chiefly through his teacher. The teacher mediates the process. Let me invoke specific examples. The student has perhaps had his beliefs taken away or severely shaken at an inherently unstable period of his life. He has come to realize the difficulties in gaining knowledge, and perhaps to sense the ambiguities of life. His science teacher can sympathize and at the same time heal by suggesting what Ravetz calls a paradox about Science, "that out of a personal endeavor which is fallible, subjective, and strictly limited by its context, there emerges knowledge which is certain, objective, and universal." Both Gellner and Ravetz emphasize the central point that I want to make, namely that not only is scientific knowledge of a different kind from humanistic knowledge, but that we are seeine extraordinarv changes in the wav knowledge is used. ~ I h edevelopments I gave so hriefl; touched on present wonderful challenges . to us teachers of chemistry. Let me re-emphasize: chemistry is exciting and beautiful in its own right in its proper context. This context, its ecology so to speak, includes the chemist without whom it would not exist. The teacher can use the suhject Chemistry as part of an intellectual and experiential scaffolding within which the student constructs his own life and world view. I have discussed this in more detail elsewhere (6). Let me get a t this from another angle. What should the student get out of college? Aside from the social and athletic sides of their education, which are important indeed, there is what may he designated the academic side. This consists ideallv of a meldine of knowledee. and - . exnerience . action: the cognitive, the experiential, and the application aspects of life. Each is meaninaless without the others but we give them separate names so we can carry on rational discussion about them. The purpose of this academic side, as I see it, is many-fold, and every aspect is inherent in the course in Chemistry. Let me list some of these: 1) There is the need for the student to learn the best wisdom that has survived from the past. This is so that he does not have to reinvent the wheel. 2) There is the need for the student to become competent in some subject so that he has a sense of mastery over some aspects of the forces that shape his life. This competence includes practice in the art of solving problems, and the confidence in his ability that this can bring. 3) Bringing old wisdom and new insight together yields useful products which must be applied. Knowledge is for use: the student should he told so. So we have here a marvellous metauhor. a pattern of surpassing importance. There is the world out there. Intimately and indissolubly connected, and part of it, in part,
is ourselves. In Science the connection leads to a vast network of concepts linked to each other directly, or through other concepts, by invariant relations. One may trace his chemistry aiong astrand of this network. But look a t the implications. You and the students have surely had the experience that some thought, or insight, or act has been right, in the sense of "meaningful." It fitted. I think that all meanine has that character of fittineness to a pattern. In science we have this vast network of concepts and laws all connected, and validated bv and indissokhly connected to the world. This is a structure with correspondingly great meaningfulness. When in the chemistry course some new concept is developed and found to fit seamlessly into this network it acquires meaning, the student can have a sense of joy in it. I have never forgotten how a master teacher, Professor Hezzleton Simmons of Akron University, after careful preparation disclosed to us Arrhenius' theory of ionization. Suddenly all that confusing mess of equations and other data was clarified. I walked out of that class a foot off the ground. Not only this, but the student who connects himself to Science, this hearer of meaning, himself acquires meaning. If he does research and contributes to the pattern then even more-so does he achieve meaning. He cannot he alienated, a t least in this respect, and perhaps this is why you find so few real scientists in the ranks of the alienated ones. They are too busy constructing their own identity through meaningful activity to be taken in by nihilism. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not derogatingonly neglecting for reasons of time-the area of non-rational meaning with which many people concern themselves. Further when I define meaning in relation to pattern, and organized connectedness I must assert that there is good and bad meaning, and leave the issue there. The essential point I wish to make and leave with you is that Science is our most powerful hearer of rational meaning. We scientists must gird up our faith in Science, and actively counter through teaching, talk and behavior (e.g., strict accountability even in small things) the forces of anti-science and nihilism that are gathering among our scientifically illiterate brethren. If we do not have this faith, which is given authenticity by its companion, humility, if we will not work together in conferences such as this one, as well as by ourselves in our classrooms, to teach scientific knowledge, understanding and wisdom, then the dark powers of ignorance (educated, automated ignorance) will surely take over, and Science will return to the depths from whence it sprung, wept-for, but unhonored and unsung. Literature Cited 11) Gellner. Ernest, "Thought and Change,"Wcidenfeld and Nieolson, London, 1964. I21 Roszak. Theodore. "The MsRine of a Counter Culture." ~ n e h o rBooks. uoubledav.. Garden City, K& York. 1969.' 131 Toffler, Alvin, "Future Shock,"Bsntsm Books, New York, 1970. I41 Rcieh, Charles A . "The Gseeningaf America," Random H o u r , New Yolk. 1970. I51 Rauetz, J . R., "Scientific Knowledge and its Social Pmblcms," Oxford University Rs.NewYork. 1971. 161 Cassidy, H. G.."Knowledge. Experience and Action." Teachers Calioge Rene, CoIumbiaUniveaiW, NeuYork. 1969. 171 Carridy. H. G., "Science Restated. Physics and Chemistry far the Nan-Seicntist." Freeman, Cooper and Co.. San Frsncisco. 1970.
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Volume 50. Number 12, December 1973 / 819
