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Return to E-mail Discussion page (Thanks to Jack for pointing out this reference.):There is a very nice article from the Christian Science Monitor on the web. It's called "Tracing the millennium in the stars " and it's about astronomy and the history of science. It can be found at: http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/0,1080,500050568-500082857-500263058-0,00.html* * * In the article, there were four paragraphs that caught my eye because they're relevant to our discussion about the place of science in our culture. << The dominance of Europe and, later, the United States in scientific discovery carried through the millennium. Nearly 75 percent of Nobel laureates in science have been scientists based in the United States, Britain, or Germany. Experts say this is due, at least in part, to the investments needed to sustain big science. "Science has become quite expensive in the modern age. You need strong economies to put the resources together to keep launching satellites and more powerful telescopes," says Mario Livio, senior astrophysicist at the space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. But this brilliance in science at the top of a handful of American universities does not extend deep into American public schools or popular culture. American high school students ranked poorly compared with the rest of the world on a recent international survey of math and science. "It's clear that science is at the center of our culture. But we're having difficulty educating our students to become participants," says Timothy Ferris, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a science writer. >> |
