“Why We Need to Understand Science”

Carl Sagan was a renowned astrophysicist, astronomer, and the host for the former television show “Cosmos.” He also was the author of many articles and even a novel. He believed that it is critical for everyone to understand science for the betterment of oneself and for a country that relies heavily on science and technological advancements. He insists that if science is brought to popular culture not only will people understand it, but also they would take interest in it and want to learn it. (Read more on Carl Sagan here: http://www.planetary.org/about/our-founders/carl-sagan.html)

Sagan begins his argument by sharing a personal experience he encountered with a man named William Buckley who’s enthusiasm for pseudoscience was discouraged by Sagan’s simple and mundane explanations. He uses this experience to show that people lack the knowledge of “real” science and since 94% of Americans are scientifically illiterate, they may never know how fascinating and exciting real science can be. Students in the United States are lacking significantly when it comes to science and mathematics on a national scale.

Sagan devotes an entire paragraph in his article to statistics giving evidence of how behind the United States is compared to countries such as Japan, Korea, and British Columbia. Even the United States’ top students did not come close to level of these other countries. The most interesting statistic was that two-thirds of American students believed they were good at math, while only 8% of Korean students believed they were good at math. This shows the difference in attitude between the two nations.

In order to fix this Carl Sagan gives numerous proposals to help the United States and their understanding of science. He believes teachers should be better trained and paid more and for teaching to become a more respected profession. More funding should be given to schools to enhance their science programs with more laboratory courses. Financial and moral encouragement should be given to scientists to make their work understandable and fun to listen to; as well as bring their work to popular culture. Television networks should develop science-related shows without the fear of low ratings. Lastly, Adults should be more accepting to a young child’s curiosity of how the world works. Adults should answer not with frustration but with encouragement regardless if they know the answer or not.

The audience I believe Sagan was targeting was not only readers of Parade Magazine, but teachers, principles, professors, scientists, government officials in charge of education, and any person that has any interest in science. Sagan opened my eyes to the importance of understanding science and how critical it is for the future of the United States and myself. The jump from an average American high school to a university like Stony Brook is a big one and I believe if science was brought to popular culture then the United States could bridge the gap between itself and other first world countries.

Why we need to understand science.

“Why We Need to Understand Science” is the essay first published in 1989 in Parade Magazine, wrote by Carl Sagan, to argue for the importance of science to the security and prosperity of the United States. American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularize and science astronomy and natural sciences. He is probably best known as the host of the popular television series, “Cosmos,” and as a writer who worked to bring science into the popular culture of the late twentieth century. (More information)

From the information above, we can easily find out that the purpose of this essay is to let American know about the current situation and stop feeling good about ourselves. He is trying to show that American are far behind in education in comparison to other regions of the world by showing to statistic data. And he is trying to make science became somehow interesting to make people start to like it and solving the problems by eliminating the negative emotion of science study.

For his intended audience, I think it will be all the readers of Parade Magazines. For more specific, it will be those american who feel perfectly fine about our education at current situation. Also to those in authority of education, Sagan also provide them with a solution to solving the problem on educator’s aspect.

His major claim of the essay is that we should take much care about science, not just the body of knowledge but the way of thinking. Since we are now living in a exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology. On the other words, it is saying that American are now in the danger of really low education and the think we teach kids are way too superficial in comparison to other regions of the world but our people just do not realize the truth that we are far behind.

For the evidence, he provides the Statistic data for supporting his claim. For example, less than half of all Americans know that the earth moves around the sun and takes a year to do it; In the test of average 17 years old in many world regions, the US ranked dead last in algebra. Even with that statistics, two-thirds of the Americans, but only a quarter of the Koreans, say they are “good at mathematics.”

He also provide solutions for the problem. We shall increase the salaries for teachers that approach what they could get in industry; more scholarships, fellowships, and laboratory equipment; laboratory science courses required of everyone  to graduate; and special attention paid to those traditionally steered  away from science. Also the providing of financial and moral encouragement for academic scientists to spend more time on public education is also significant. On the other hand, Media like magazine, newspaper or television should also pay more attention on math, science and technology instead of sports or amusement. People just need little motivation to learn. Also, adults should be more honest in dealing the question from their kids that they do not know. They should just tell them that they do not know and motivate and providing the tools for their kids to find out the answer themselves instead of avoiding the questions.

After finish reading the essay, I  am perfectly agree with the points Sagan says. What is more, I think it is not just an american issue, but also a global issue. The only way to make progress is to feel urgent. Once we feel good about ourselves, we are done.