Preaching to the choir

Has there ever been a time when science has been highly valued by the general public? For all our discussions and debates about the popularization of science, framing, and science education, it seems that a sense of history is often lacking. Many of us feel like we're fighting a losing battle, understanding of science having degenerated in recent years. The push towards greater scientific education and government support of scientific endeavors after the launch of Sputnik acts as some nebulous high point in which science as a way of understanding the natural world was more fully embraced, but even if we accept this it is difficult to determine when the decline of popular science began (or if it's even real). Science education in public schools has come a long way since the days of the Butler Act, but many of us are airing laments awfully similar to those from researchers of the Victorian era (and receiving taunts akin to those that naturalists of centuries past received).

In the last days of the year 1818, the Mayor's Court in Manhattan heard the case of Maurice v. Judd, a trial that aimed to determine whether or not a whale oil could be considered fish oil and therefore subject to inspection (the main argument being over whether or not a whale was a fish). The star witness defending Judd, a man who had refused to pay the inspector Maurice $75 for several barrels of whale oil, was the scientific polymath Samuel Latham Mitchill. Despite his credentials, Mitchill's determination that a "a whale is no more fish than a man" on scientific grounds was not enough to convince the jury that it was truly so. The issue was as much an economic one as it was one about the natural order, and the opinions of chandlers, whalemen, and business moguls were all obtained in an attempt to cast light on the issue of whether the spermaceti used to make the candles of that name should be subject to the charges associated with inspection at the docks. As recounted in the book Trying Leviathan, a volume devoted to this particular trial, the jury found that whales are fish, although Judd immediately sued and a revision to the law outlining the inspection of marine oils was soon passed, legally separating whales from fish. The latter decision is often forgotten, and for many years after the trial the naturalist Mitchill had scorn heaped upon him by journalists and satirists alike. Scientific circles might have been horrified to learn that the backwards people of New York had declared whales to be fish, but for many the case was a victory for the general public; the "common sense" of the masses had trumped the dusty book-learning of elite academics, and that was just as it should be.

Even when systems of knowledge about the natural world more actively engaged the arts and the public, as illustrated in The Earth on Show, the wonders of nature were only truly available to the middle- and upper-classes. People who were engaged in manual labor (or had no job whatsoever) were not allowed into the sanctum of natural philosophy. Museums were for people of refined tastes and many had policies analogous to the "No shirt, no shoes, no service" mantras of modern businesses; even if you could afford entrance you would not be allowed if your appearance was not refined enough. Likewise, books were often prohibitively expensive (even for the relatively well-to-do), and many amateur groups pooled their money together so that they could afford important texts in certain fields of interest. Such libraries never rivaled those of the highest classes, though, and even if someone of a lower class had an interest in a subject like geology it would be difficult explaining to the family that a day's worth of wages had been spent on a book.

Public lectures, too, were geared towards interested members of the higher classes, and some tactics (i.e. not allowing anyone to attend the last lecture, which usually touched on the most interesting topics, until they paid for the rest of the series) were often used. Not everyone was pleased with public lectures open to "just anyone," though. As reproduced in the preface of Victorian Popularizers of Science, there were some individuals who felt that public lectures led scientists to sensationalize what was otherwise respectable, debasing themselves and their science for "the patronage of the vulgar." The consolidation of science into an almost purely academic affair also contributed to the widening gap. While there were some naturalists who were essentially self-made, gaining entrance to scientific societies by means of their discoveries or show of talent (why do you think Darwin spent so long studying barnacles?), the Victorian era marked a time in which the amateur was increasingly looked down upon and science became the property of the elite. This was a consolidation and closing of ranks that had already been in progress, but I think it also created something of a dangerous division between naturalists and the public. A system was developed in which those that acquired and purveyed knowledge were set apart (and above) those that were to attentively listen to the decisions of the scientists. As the Maurice v. Judd case illustrates, the general public did not take kindly to naturalists deciding the order of God's nature in their moldy libraries when the answers to questions about the natural world could be readily given by just about anyone on the street (often with not insignificant help from the Bible); who needs those egg-heads anyhow?

Nearly 200 years after the famous whale trial, a similar distrust of science still seems prevalent. In a discussion I once had with someone about the merits of science I was told that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for scientists to mess about with butterflies or study the mating habits of some obscure species; it's not real work and is an offense to people who put food on the table by getting their hands dirty. Even beyond such resentment many people seem to ignore particular areas of science and determine their stance by belief or other associations; why worry about evolution when the Bible says God created?

Science also suffers from the stigma of being dull. Learning about a given scientific topic requires a concerted effort, a significant investment of time, money, and attention, and many people just don't want to crack open a science book. Many people would rather relax and watch television before going to bed and I can't say I blame them, although I would be counted among the minority that does consider reading (and reading about science, above all) to be fun and rewarding. Indeed, the image problem that science has is one of the most entrenched and difficult to combat, visions of old white men in lab coats still being the erroneous archetype that springs to mind when many people think of scientists.

Part of our present problem, then, is that science has gone from being a system of curiosities and oddities that can be appreciated as something distinct from the rest of culture to something deeply ingrained within it. The overall disinterest in science that we bemoan is not anything new, but it is all the more troubling when science and technology have become so integrated into daily life. (Likewise, questions about extinction, "antediluvian monsters," the habits of whales, and other questions are not so interesting as they were when enigma still shrouded many of these issues. The jawbone of a whale doesn't seem as interesting when we're constantly subjected to the wonders of special effects and technology.) Anthropogenic global climate change, for instance, is something that concerns everyone on the planet, yet there is unnecessary controversy about it because the issue is closely tied to science, science often being viewed as an intellectual institution inhabited by a group of liberals that have not done an honest day's work telling the working man how to run his life. I don't believe that such perceptions are an accurate depiction of what science is and what its relationship to society should be, but such an interpretation has roots that run deep and are difficult to dig out.

I wish that I could end this post with some optimistic plan about how to generate a broader public understanding of science; at present nothing comes to mind. The problems associated with science popularization, it appears to me, stem from an artificial divide between science and the rest of culture, something that scientists themselves play into by often being blind to the areas in which science and culture do intertwine. Public acceptance of science may wax and wane according to various societal factors, but in reading of the attempts of science popularizers in centuries past I feel that we have failed to take into account the changing relationship science has had with the public and more widespread (if not always accurate or reliable) ways of knowing about the world. In a way, I feel that I have become part of a minority that cares deeply about science, shaking our collective heads at the prevalence of creationism and climate change skepticism, but as much as we may support each other it has become increasingly difficult to engage members of a public that may not have very much respect for scientific understanding. This isn't a call to despair and merely give up, but just a realization that science popularization has always been a problem and will likely continue to be so going into the future. Whether the efforts of myself and my colleagues are ultimately successful in making science more relevant to a wider group of people, only time will tell, but I do hope that we don't become so insulated as to forget who we should be trying to reach out to.