Australia

Science Outreach: Plucking the Low Hanging Fruit

To its credit, the Australian Government is making a concerted push into science outreach through the tritely-named Inspiring Australia programme, including $5 million in funding through the equally tritely-named Unlocking Australia’s Potential grant scheme.

Now, I’m all about science outreach. (In fact, I’m also all about philosophy outreach too. You might call it reason outreach, all up. But let’s stick to science for now.)

I firmly believe the greatest existential challenge faced by humanity is the spread of unreason, for unreason makes every other problem harder to solve. And a crucial foil in the fight against unreason is the genius of the scientific method. After all, anyone who doesn’t recognise the scientific method as the best tool we have in our epistemological arsenal for understanding the natural world around us doesn’t understand the scientific method.

I’ve said before that I don’t believe anyone should leave school without proficiency in literacy, numeracy, history etc – but also not without being fully versed in the spirit of the scientific method. In fact, I’m an advocate of two broad streams of science education, depending on each individual’s skill and interest, with the former an elective and the latter compulsory for all students:

1) Science for aspiring scientists – including in-depth knowledge of the scientific method, the details of state-of-the-art results of science, and science practice, including maths, experimental design etc. This is how science is taught currently from high school onwards. It’s hard, and it’s focused on doing science, hence a lot of disinterest and drop outs from those not intending to be scientists.

2) Science for aspiring citizens – including understanding of the scientific method in comparison with other approaches (intuition, revelation, authority, emotion, etc) for understanding the natural world, the limits of science, the problem with pseudo-science, the history of science and the process involved in solving long standing problems, and knowledge of the state-of-the-art results of science. This is a course intended to equip everyone to live in a scientifically-informed society, even those who don’t intend to pursue a career in science.

However, even if the education system were to enjoy a radical overhaul today (sadly unlikely…), there are still a great many people who already lack an appreciation of science, and of reason in general. How to bring them into the fold? Science outreach! This is one of my primary motivations in becoming a science journalist (and philosopher) myself: my belief in the importance of getting science and reason out to the masses.

So, you’d think I’d be excited about the government’s grants. To a degree I am. But I’m a little wary about the approach the grant scheme is taking, as I’ve mentioned to Dr Bronwyn Hemsley and Dr Krystal on Twitter.

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By timdean, ago

Ends and Means

I call it “pulling a Cameron,” in reference not to the present British Prime Minister, but to the broadcaster Deborah Cameron who handles the morning slot on Sydney’s ABC Radio 702.

A common refrain a few minutes in to her maddeningly predictable morning routine of following the happenings of the first several pages of the Sydney Morning Herald is to enquire of some expert or other: “what are we doing to prevent X from ever happening again?”

And by “X” I mean whatever undesirable event has appeared on the front pages, whether that’s a case of callous bullying in our schools, a death by accident or some other unsavoury turn of events.

One recent example was the tragic death of a young university student at a rural college after being thrown from an ex-racing horse that was being used to train horse riding skills. The horse was deemed safe for students yet it possessed a fierce distemper that flared on that day, throwing the student

The question posed by Cameron, seemingly predictable and justifiable in the circumstances, was along the lines of: “what are we doing to prevent more deaths of students during riding training?”

The presumption is that the outcome is unacceptable so, clearly, our current process that led to this outcome must be deficient.

Yet that’s a presumption that is unfortunately as fallacious as it is common.

For we chase outcomes on an ad hoc basis at the risk of employing processes that undermine our very intentions to produce better outcomes. In short: we focus myopically on each good or bad outcome at the danger of forgetting that it’s good processes that are of primary importance.

And even a good process – nay, the optimal process – can result in bad outcomes from time to time.

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By timdean, ago

Save Cows, Not People

Animal welfare is a pickle. It’s one of those issues that continues to vex me, largely because consideration for the well-being of animals doesn’t slot trivially into the normative moral framework that I’m developing as a part of my thesis. A social contract-based moral system that sees everyone buy in Read more…

By timdean, ago

Where’s Tim?

I’m back, that’s where I am. Back in Sydney, that is, after a month abroad jaunting across Europe. My first such jaunt to said continent. So you can expect a greater volume of posts on Ockham’s Beard once again. Cheer! As for the trip, it kicked off in Riga, Latvia, Read more…

By timdean, ago

The Revolution is Dead (For Now)

There aren’t any revolutionaries any more. The closest contemporary figure I can muster from the cloudy reaches of my imagination who might qualify as a revolutionary is Julian Assange. Certainly he’s an original thinker, far more so than most people these days.

But even Assange’s revolution is incremental, if profound. He a seeks to change the landscape of democracy without necessarily wiping the slate clean entirely. His is not a prescriptive vision of a better world, but a solution to the ills of this one, underpinned by a conviction about the particular nature of corruption – or, as he calls it, ‘conspiracy.’

So where are the true revolutionaries? Where are the visionaries with a compelling view of a better world, one for which we ought to fight to bring into reality? Who’s thinking beyond the contingencies of this world to the possibilities of the next?

There was a time, not so long ago, when revolution was in common parlance and bold visions of a new world were talked about openly, debated, fought over and striven for. Only 40 years ago there was talk of building nothing less than a new civilisation.

What happened?

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By timdean, ago

When Science and Religion Collide

ABC Religion has been kind enough to post response of mine to a very interesting piece by theologian Sarah Coakley on finding a reconciliation between evolution and God. My response: when science and religion (or any other belief system) make claims that contradict each other, we have very good pragmatic Read more…

By timdean, ago

Secular Liberalism Misunderstood

The ABC site, The Drum Unleashed, posted another of my missives, this time on the merits of secular liberalism, regardless of one’s spiritual (or otherwise) persuasion. And already the comments are flowing. I’ll attempt to respond to them in this post as they roll on.

First up, to those who have criticised my term “believe in atheism”, you’re right. That was a poor turn of phrase on my behalf. Should properly be “whether you believe in God or are an atheist”. Doesn’t affect my argument though. Okay, moving on.

To those who suggest that Richard Dawkins isn’t seeking to abolish the teaching of religion, rather he seeks to abolish the indoctrination of children into a particular religion – I agree that he is in favour of the teaching of comparative religion, as well as the teaching of the Bible as an historical text. However, he has made strident claims against religious teaching of the, well, religious flavour. While I oppose supernaturalism, I would suggest that any attempt to banish religious education would be problematic, as I’ll elaborate below.

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By timdean, ago

The New New Left

The ABC’s Drum site has picked up my riffs on the sorry state of federal politics in Australia and the need for a new 21st century political party that isn’t shackled to unions or religion. It’s an issue I’ve been thinking about for quite some time – well before this Read more…

By timdean, ago