Comments on: Science Education is Lagging, Business Groups Say http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/07/science_education.html Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:35:19 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: George Smith http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/07/science_education.html/comment-page-1#comment-1613 George Smith Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:26:17 +0000 http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/?p=1835#comment-1613 Here's the thing: Bachelor degrees in science, at best, qualify you only as a lab technician. Lab tech work is tedious, repetitive, often does not pay particularly well, and offers little opportunity for promotion. Students are not attracted to it for these reasons, as well as others. And such degrees also do not generally grant any aptitude in critical thinking, since it isn't taught as a subject. Now, if one wants more low pay lab technicians as industrial cannon fodder, the recommendation makes perfect sense. However, if one wants a more scientifically informed polity, then the best place to start is in high school, where serious education on basic everyday science is now virtually non-existent. Here’s the thing: Bachelor degrees in science, at best, qualify you only as a lab technician. Lab tech work is tedious, repetitive, often does not pay particularly well, and offers little opportunity for promotion. Students are not attracted to it for these reasons, as well as others. And such degrees also do not generally grant any aptitude in critical thinking, since it isn’t taught as a subject.

Now, if one wants more low pay lab technicians as industrial cannon fodder, the recommendation makes perfect sense. However, if one wants a more scientifically informed polity, then the best place to start is in high school, where serious education on basic everyday science is now virtually non-existent.

]]> By: jhm http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/07/science_education.html/comment-page-1#comment-1610 jhm Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:48:45 +0000 http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/?p=1835#comment-1610 It would perhaps be beneficial to the state of education in this country if apparently serious public speakers who claimed global climate change, natural selection et cetera were hoaxes, were given the ridicule their positions deserve, not lauded. It would perhaps be beneficial to the state of education in this country if apparently serious public speakers who claimed global climate change, natural selection et cetera were hoaxes, were given the ridicule their positions deserve, not lauded.

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