Wanted: Communicators for Chemistry The quest for a scientificallyliterate populace has taken manv forms. Formal courses, as discussed last month in this column, are the most direct way to affect the thinking of posesecondary nonscience students. Less formal events such as those associated with the most recent National Chemistry Week represent less traditional approaches to the Droblem. Science . ~o~ularization-writine books or ar. titles for the general public-has been suggested as one means bv which the science literacy of the eeneral oublic can be ;danced. Attempts to popularize szence seem to be more successful for certain of the sciences than for others. Recent examples include Innumeracy by Paulos for mathematics, A Brief History of Erne by Hawking for physics, and Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Gould for biology But what of chemistry, which some like to think of as the central science? The March 1991 issue of the Library Journal contained a n article entitled The Best Sci-Tech Books for Geneml readers, 1990: Sixty Etles Libraries Should Acquire in Order to Insure Public Understanding of Basic Scientific and Technical Concepts. The recommended titles include books on astronomy, spacelaviation, biology, computer science, earth science, ecology, mathematics, medicine, physics, psychology, and technology-but no chemistry. Knowledgeable persons could argue that chemistry underpins many of the disciplines mentioned above. Unfortunately, however, the average citizen is not aware of this. Indeed, that would be one point that could be made in a book popularizing chemistry. Some mieht sueeest that the best wav to communicate " chemistry to the general public is through tours, demonstrations. etc. (i.e.. the methods emoloved durine National chemistry ~ e e k ) h e c a u s chemistry e heals witK phenomena. and ~henomenacan be difficult to aooreciate from written de'scriptions. Still, there is an intell&al aspect of chemistw that should be made available to the general reader. &rely there is more that we want the p;blic to know about our discipline than is communicated by the usual "magic show". Why have there been so few successful popularizations of chemical subjects? To convey chemical information to a lay audience. the author of a successful oopularization must strike a carefully crafted balance between retaining the technical accuracy of the material and rendering it intelligible to the reader. Successful popularizations portray science honestly as a process involving human endeavor and all the associated pitfalls, contentions, and triumphs expected therein. Striking the wrong balance can produce a work that is either incomprehensible or trivial. Is it not possible to produce a popularization of a chemical subject
-
"-
that is comprehensible and not trivial? Is chemistly too much of a "mind game", too dependent on mental imagery, or too involuted to hold the attention of a popular audience? If such is indeed the state of chemistry, then it is not surprisingthat the marketplace, as understood and defined by publishers, might not support a work attempting to oo~ularizechemistw. After all is said and done. there is a pekistent nagging suspicion that the "fault" lies not in the innate dullness of the subiect. but rather with colleee " and university practitioners Gho keem to have become overly Dolarized toward the doine of chemistw a t a detailed level of sophistication and away from trying to communicate these subiects to novices. Few ~ost-sewndarvfacultv chemists are interested in, or rewarded for, teaching" in the classical sense. Perhaps the era of unbridled interest in research in the nation'smajor (research) colleges and universities is coming to an end. Data released by the National Science Foundation sueeest that the eroGh in research and develooment in the nation's top 100 universities, which was fueled by Federal and State funds during the 1980's, is leveling off. The interdependence between the research institutions and the funding agencies appears tohave created an appetite for research ventures in the former that has outpaced the availability of the latter's resources. Critics of this system, which drives college and university chemistry faculty to devote a maior portion of their time and enerev to research, point o u t t h i t educational institutions, ingeneral, are for~ettingthe one important historical reason for their existent-ducation. ~kfendersof the current emphasis on research argue that modern research is a form of teaching. But that's begging the issue. From one point of view it is relatively simple to teach one student a complex task compared with attempting to teach hundreds of students the important ideas associated with chemical thought. The crux of the matter is the balance of resources assigned to the various educational functions expected of universities. Those functions involve teaching a small number of individuals the details of highly esoteric subdisciplines (graduate and post-doctoral instruction), teaching novices (undergraduate teaching), and teaching the public. It amears that in the 1990's colleees and universities will have to accommodate to the levelin; off of research funding by developing stricter priorities, putting less emphasis on perquisites for researchers and more on teaching. Perhaps then. individuals who could write successful ~ o ~ u l a r i z a tionsof chemical subjects will be tempted to try'thkir hand.
-
--
JJL
Volume 68
Number 7
July 1991
537
