Scientists Are Born, Not Made

(page 2 of 2)

Change starts with the recognition that, while all of us need to be scientifically literate both for our own welfare and the nation's technological progress, we can't all be scientists. That requires teaching scientific literacy generally, while reserving the tools of the trade for those pursuing scientific careers—the exact opposite of the approach academics now take.

I love chemistry as much as the next guy, but asking general students to solve redox equations represents the same pedagogical fallacy as teaching set theory did for "the new math" or diagramming sentences does for the teaching of English. Leave the advanced topics for people who are going to use them later in their careers. We're prone to confusing the teaching of a subject with the teaching of a skill.

TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY.

So stop teaching chemistry, physics, or biology classes as separate subjects where memorizing nomenclature is the first order of business. Instead, invest a year of classes in experimenting with the world—making batteries, growing algae, for example. Then spend another year learning how to build scientific intuition through estimation, asking such questions as how long the air will last for a person in a sealed room or whether there's enough solar energy for mankind's needs.

Then devote another year to "case studies," comparing, say, risks to costs of building a bridge with ever-decreasing safety margins. Students could even learn how to distinguish between a successful scientific law (such as Darwinism), a failed scientific hypothesis (such as astrology), and a pseudo-scientific fairy tale (such as Intelligent Design).

Such an approach would not only engage most students but create a technologically literate population. Imagine the progress our country could make with citizens undistracted by the impractical or irrational—no longer wasting society's time and money denying AIDS is caused by a virus, or pretending a "50-year storm" will never happen. It's about squandering less, and achieving more. It's the foundation for a society that's more empathetic to—and more willing to fund—scientific research.

NEW PARADIGM.

Those students destined to become technologists could either stay on the general track until college or segue to courses with more rigor and specialization in high school. With science beginning in first grade, and now as mainstream as basketball or business school, fewer "born scientists" would drop out due to peer pressure driving them toward other more socially acceptable pursuits.

With courses separated into the general and the professional, fewer expert teachers and labs would be needed, freeing funds for the nascent technologists. Yet we would all share a common language and appreciation for the vast promise, and limits, of technology. Such a reorientation of scientific education would constitute a major step toward increasing our supply of homegrown scientists. And you would no longer have to try to COAX someone to be what they're not.

Blonder is a partner at venture capital firm Morgenthaler Ventures and is based in Princeton, N.J. He writes about technology investing in an occasional column at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/.