The Wonder of Water and Scientists Who Should Know Better

Guess who’s never met a lawn sprinkler before?

BIGGER.

He reminded me of the joy of running through a sprinkler on a hot summer day. He was totally enthralled by it, transfixed on the motion of the oscillator, periodically lashing out to bite the water. Just look at that big black nose. Lucy beheld this oddity as well. She looked up at me with a most quizzical expression: “Not the brightest bulb on the string that one.”

What a day! 75, bluesky, and nary a breeze.

The trees have leaves, the grass is greening and growing, and our neighbor finished putting in three raised beds on his vacant lot on the south side of our house. One of them is for us. Fresh onions, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, chard, arugula, lettuce, chives and cilantro are only weeks away. If I have a say carrots, beets, and potatoes too. Our contribution to the project is water. I’m extending a second hose line under the deck and through the fence and connecting to a sprinkler. Out of reach of Harry, of course, who nevertheless remains fascinated by these myriad deployments of water.

…

Certain comments to a post at Derk Lowe’s blog the other day pushed one of my hot buttons. The gist of the post concerned an article published in Nature magazine that contradicted the widely held belief that pushing kids hard into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers is wise. Derek agreed with the author that this is really a fool’s errand. I generally agree as well, a position you may find odd — given both Derek and I are scientists you would think we would agree with such an initiative.

But what really got me started was this tangential comment to that post:

#1: Well said. The problem is not fewer scientists, it’s the increasingly dwindling number of citizens who can’t tell a meson from a melon. Re-routing some of that STEM funding into public outreach programs might get you a bigger bang for your buck in the long term.

I replied that not understanding, for example, the theory of evolution or anything about particle physics doesn’t hinder in the least tens of thousands (I should’ve said millions) of people from leading satisfying and productive lives. Another commenter responded and claimed that encouraging children toward STEM isn’t about living a fulfilling life, but rather that scientific literacy is essential (his word) to intelligent decision making in a technological democracy.

A claim, I pointed out, that happens to be false. I provided an example.

Worse, another person chimed in and disagreed with another commenter who said, correctly I think, that a lack of scientific literacy is no big deal for many people. The person disagreeing evidently thought this was nonsense, and offered an example of geology, claiming that without a fundamental basis in theory one couldn’t, for instance, successfully explore for oil and gas, an industry I happen to have been employed in for over twenty years.

I pointed out that his claim was also false, saying he may be interested to know that the largest oil field on the North American continent was found by serendipity, in a formation where the prevailing geologic theory at the time predicted oil would not be found.

I see this a lot, people bemoaning the state of scientific literacy in this country, offering only the flimsiest of arguments for why it should be improved, and worse, when these claims come from scientists, having no basis in fact.