A New Kind of Literacy
The sharp sound of an alarm breaks through the fog of the morning, waking you up with an infusion of the stress hormone cortisol. You jump out of bed, terrified that you are going to be late to work, even though the sleep that you missed from waking up early will probably hurt your company’s profit much more than the few minutes that you are late to work. You spend the next eight hours sitting down and staring at a screen, two actions that have been proven to cause high blood pressure and decreased emotional capacity, among other things. Finally, after a day of hard work, you decide to treat yourself to a trip to a local seafood restaurant and you order something exotic. You order a steaming slab of swordfish, completely unaware that its consumption is not only detrimental to the environment but is also harmful to you as it contains large amounts of mercury. All in all, you have gone through the average day of most Americans without realizing the harm and inefficiency associated your lifestyle.
You probably don’t know it, but you likely aren’t living your life to its fullest potential. However, none of that is your fault. From day one, the education system you went through claimed to teach you about science, and yet it never taught you to apply it to your own life. It’s not just about knowing that the earth isn’t flat, or that smoking is bad for you. These are the decisions that affect your family’s quality of life, now and forever. A scientist knows how to use their knowledge to benefit their own lives as well as those of others. But unfortunately, many of us aren’t taught how to embrace scientific literacy and are scared off by the mysterious and obscure terminology of textbooks and academic articles. That is why it is important for society to value individuals with a new skillset: scientific literacy. Scientific literacy, as defined by the US National Center for Education Statistics is "the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity". In English? It’s the ability to use scientific knowledge and processes to determine truths about the world around you and use it to benefit your life and the rest of the world. We live in a society that values mainstream “science” such as the fat-free-food movement and doesn’t encourage individuals to dig deeper and ask how and why we know things in order to determine what is true and what isn’t for themselves. On the other end of the spectrum, there are individuals who deny all forms of evidence in the pursuit of some vested interest who would find some emergent truths to be inconvenient to its progress. This isn’t just about climate change, conspiracy theories, evolution, or any of these mainstream scientific “debates”, it is about determining the nature of the world for what it is, not how we might like it to be, and using it to benefit us in our own lives.
While it may not seem like it initially, a more scientifically literate society tends to be a healthier, more sustainable one. The Netherlands, for instance, outperforms the United States in terms of scientific literacy according to a survey conducted by the OECD PISA. It found that the United States actually ranked fairly lower on the scale than other English speaking nations, whereas the Netherlands was higher up on the list. Interestingly enough, the Dutch, on average, spend nearly 4000 dollars less per capita on healthcare than Americans and have a higher average life expectancy for both males and females. Now it is true that America does not have the lowest score on the list by any means, however, it is important to see how having a more scientifically literate population can benefit public health. But health is not the only aspect of the human experience affected by scientific literacy. Switzerland, which also ranked higher than the United States on the survey, was declared the most innovative nation in the world by Business Insider, and the same article recognized Singapore, the world’s most scientifically literate nation, for its breakthroughs in urban sustainability, an area in which America is notoriously lacking. The US does make it on the list, however, it does so for its financial capacities, not for anything that benefits the majority of the population, whereas Switzerland manages to combine its innovative technologies with its fiscal endeavors. Perhaps most notably, Switzerland, a very scientifically literate nation, is ranked as one of the top ten happiest places to live in the world, whereas America does not make it to the top ten. The moral of the story? A scientifically literate nation is simply a better one to live in and affords more opportunities to those who live in it.
While it’s easy to see the kinds of benefits that a scientifically literate society will bring, getting there is going to be a challenge. The current education system teaches science as textbooks to be read, facts to be memorized, and calculations to be done, not as a tool to examine the world around us and help those dear to us. This country needs science now more than ever. This is where we come in. At Aletheia, we are devoted to the spreading of scientific literacy, in order to make science accessible to anyone and everyone. We have taken it upon ourselves to bridge the gap between mainstream education and what science really is. It is our mission to ensure that people are sufficiently aware of scientific issues and processes to make responsible decisions on how to vote, what to eat, and how to use technology for the betterment of mankind. In the end, we have to take it upon ourselves to be better human beings in a universe that is forever shifting, changing, and expanding.
References:
Alton, Larry. "How Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Day At The Office." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 08 Sept. 2016. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
Hetter, Katia. "Where Are the World's Happiest Countries?" CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
"International Student Assessment (PISA) - Science Performance (PISA) - OECD Data." The OECD. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
Levine, James A. "Too Much Sitting Is Bad for Your Health." Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 04 Sept. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
"Netherlands." World Health Organization. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
"United States of America." World Health Organization. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.
Weller, Chris. "The 15 Most Innovative Countries in the World." Business Insider. Business Insider, 29 Aug. 2016. Web. 08 Nov. 2017.