Recent surveys suggest that nearly half of all American adults do not accept human evolution and an even larger majority is open to the teaching of nonscientific alternatives in our public schools.

There was a time when such statistics could be accepted without much alarm. After all, one need not accept or even understand evolutionary biology to become an excellent aerospace engineer, a computer scientist, or even a heart surgeon. And besides, isn’t society in the midst of a period of secularization such that advocates for creationism will be an ever-shrinking and increasingly marginal minority?

These two arguments are undermined by recent research on the teaching of evolution, and recent trends in the politicization of science in America. As a result, scientific illiteracy with respect to evolution is better viewed as a symptom of broader weaknesses in science education and we can expect that the tactics used by evolution deniers will soon be applied to other issues such as climate change.

Our recent book on how evolution is actually taught in the nation’s public schools reveals a broader undermining of science that has the potential to breed distrust of sound science in mainstream American culture.

• We estimate that at least 13 percent of all public high school biology teachers flout U.S. federal court decisions by explicitly endorsing creationism or intelligent design in their classrooms.
• We find that even in states with very rigorous content standards with respect to evolution, teachers’ coverage of evolution is largely dictated by their own personal values and their desire to accommodate local community sentiment.
• To avoid controversy, many teachers disassociate themselves from the material—explaining that students need to learn it simply to pass the test.
• Other teachers who themselves accept evolution nevertheless encourage students to come to their own opinions about the validity of evolutionary biology—conveying the idea that it is just a matter of opinion.
• Still others focus only on microbiology. Not only do most avoid human evolution entirely but many omit fossil, genetic, and anatomical evidence of common ancestry of vertebrates—leaving high school graduates open to the common creationism argument that there is no real evidence for the emergence of new species.

It is not hard to see how these practices produce new generations of citizens who lack an appreciation for the nature of scientific inquiry and whose distrust of science will make them easy marks for those who see the findings of mainstream science as a threat to their profits or ideology (a phenomenon well documented by Oreskes and Conway in their book, Merchants of Doubt).

In sidestepping potential controversy, teachers are missing opportunities to explain how science actually works. For example, the field of evolution has many great examples of how scientists gain increasing confidence in hypotheses as replications and convergent evidence from disparate approaches cumulate in favor of the same conclusion. Teachers are missing opportunities to explain how modern science moves forward through the efforts and integrity of thousands of highly competitive individuals, all operating under the scrutiny of peer review.

In short, the current teaching of evolution represents an opportunity lost—the opportunity to prepare the next generation of citizens to play an informed and meaningful role in public debates that hinge on scientific evidence.

If this missed educational prospect was not cause enough for concern, it seems clear that instruction in earth science is likely to become embroiled in similar politics. Increasingly partisan and ideological politicians and activists are linking the two topics. Consider Ken Mercer, a former member of the Texas Assembly and current two-term member of the Texas Board of Education. When asked a question about his stance on evolution, he stated, “what we do have is the right for our kids to raise their hands in class and ask honest questions, especially in the areas of evolution and global warming.” As reported in a recent New York Times article, the joining of these two issues offers tactical advantages to each camp. Evolution deniers can claim that their skepticism of mainstream science is not rooted in religion because they also ask for teaching of “gaps” and “weaknesses” on climate change research, while climate skeptics can gain strength by allying with well-organized networks of socially conservative Christians who seem predisposed to doubt the conclusions of mainstream science.

These two trends—the cultivation of distrust in science generally and the convergence of interests of evolution and climate change deniers—signal a new chapter in the politicization of science. We can expect that mainstream science will be under attack in several venues. These include state boards of education that approve curricular standards, and local school boards that make choices among state-approved textbooks and instructional materials. But our research suggests that the most consequential arena will be the nation’s classrooms and the key players will be the nation’s science teachers. Moreover, the surest way to ensure teachers will not bow to political pressure is to arm them with a rigorous science education to complement their expertise in pedagogy and classroom management. If our research on high school biology teachers generalizes to science teachers more broadly, we can expect that many lack confidence in their ability to respond to politically motivated pressures with cogent explanations rooted in scientific research. Lacking such confidence, the sensible choice is to downplay scientific conclusions that generate controversy.

In this light, policymakers should review the rigor of science education that is typical of newly minted science educators and, where appropriate, elevate the expectations of what background is necessary to be considered well qualified. Such reforms have the potential to reduce the number of children who become casualties of the new science wars.

Podcast interview with Dr. Eric Plutzer conducted by Diana Epstein, a Policy Analyst at American Progress. Article by Dr. Eric Plutzer, professor of political science, and Dr. Michael B. Berkman, professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Penn State University Political Science Department. Dr. Plutzer and Dr. Berkman are the authors of the new book Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms. This article was cross-posted at Climate Progress.

References

Berkman, Michael, and Eric Plutzer. 2010. Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kaufman, Leslie. 2010. “Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets.” The New York Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html).

Newport, Frank. 2010. “Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism.” Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx).

Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 2005. “Religion A Strength and Weakness for Both Parties.” Washington.

Tuma, Mary. “Q&A | Ken Mercer, Republican Nominee for State Board of Education, District 5.” Community Impact Newspaper (http://impactnews.com/vote10/candidates/8633-qaa-ken-mercer-republican-nominee-for-state-board-of-education-district-5).

The administration got things started with an address to the National Academy of Sciences in April 2009, during which President Obama announced major initiatives to boost research funding and bolster math and science education. The president called science, “more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, and our environment than it has ever been.”

In November 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named three prominent U.S. scientists—professors Ahmed Zewail of the California Institute of Technology, Elias Zerhouni of John Hopkins School of Medicine, and Bruce Alberts of the University of California, San Francisco—to serve as the country’s first three Science Envoys as part of President Obama’s “New Beginning” initiative with Muslim communities around the world. In the year since their appointment, the Science Envoys traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia to identify opportunities to deepen partnerships in science and technology.

To further demonstrate the administration’s commitment to science diplomacy, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) announced three additional Science Envoys to Muslim-majority nations—professors Rita Colwell of the University of Maryland, Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University, and Alice Gast, president of Lehigh University—at CRDF Global’s George Brown Award in September 2010. These news envoys will build upon the work of their predecessors, in new nations including Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

The Science Envoys program is one of several recent U.S. science diplomacy initiatives that recognize the important foreign policy benefits of international science engagement. The connection between science and diplomacy may not seem critical, particularly when one considers the very complex web of political, cultural, economic and security issues that modern diplomacy must address. But it is precisely this complexity that requires fresh approaches to building bridges, forging trust and building lasting relationships.

What is “science diplomacy” and how can scientists contribute to international peace and security? To some, science diplomacy may be viewed broadly and include, for example, the international collaboration taking place at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, where nearly 8,000 scientists and engineers—representing 580 universities and research facilities and 80 nationalities—are seeking to unravel the mysteries of subatomic physics. Or consider the bilateral activities that U.S. government agencies are implementing under almost 50 intergovernmental science agreements signed with other countries.

While important for solving scientific problems and strengthening international cooperation, these initiatives represent established cooperation among longstanding partners. The uniqueness of President Obama’s “New Beginnings” science diplomacy initiative is its focus on using science as a tool for engaging countries that are emerging from isolation or with which political relations are strained. Science diplomacy involves dialogue, exchanges, and eventually collaboration. It is a long process that requires creativity, patience, and perseverance to achieve success.

Mobilizing America’s researchers for science diplomacy makes sense for three reasons. First, many of today’s global challenges—food, water, energy, climate, and health—require technical solutions. Scientists, engineers and innovators must be involved in understanding these problems and then designing and implementing the proposed solutions. In a flat world, scientists must work in partnership with colleagues around the world. Very few of today’s global challenges are confined to any single country. Disease, drought, and environmental degradation know no borders. They can be successfully addressed only through cross-border collaboration.

Secondly, U.S. science and technology is highly respected around the world. Recent polling of citizens in Muslim-majority countries shows high regard for U.S. science and technology leadership. This is an area where their citizens seek cooperation with the United States. By building on this interest, the United States can significantly expand opportunities for collaboration.

Third, scientists and engineers speak a common language that transcends political, cultural, and economic boundaries. Whether working in the United States, scientists from Russia, Egypt, or Indonesia understand and apply the same formulas and principles. They are driven by an overwhelming interest to discover new knowledge and find solutions to some of today’s most vexing problems. Their ability to forge new pathways of collaboration, often despite difficult political environments, is a valuable tool for diplomacy. Furthermore, as we have seen all around the world, when science and technology flourishes, so do economies.

What is needed for science diplomacy to succeed? First, we must continue to educate the international research community, policymakers, and the public about the importance of science diplomacy. Earlier this year, CRDF Global joined with the Partnership for a Secure America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to highlight the importance of science diplomacy.

Through the release of a bipartisan statement signed by leading scientists and diplomats, coupled with workshops held in Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley, and with additional events planned in 2011, we are building broad-based support for mobilizing one of America’s greatest assets—its scientists and engineers—as a key part of U.S. diplomacy.

Secondly, we must provide concrete opportunities for scientists and engineers to engage globally. Science and technology must be an integral part of our foreign policy agenda, particularly when dealing with countries with which the United States has strained relations. Science implementing agencies and organizations, both within and outside government, should be empowered to catalyze and test new initiatives and receive the appropriate policy and financial support from the U.S. government.

But this should be a comprehensive effort that that spans not just U.S. government agencies but also universities, the nonprofit community, and private businesses. Agencies should give higher priority to international collaboration as integral to achieving specific agency objectives. U.S. universities should provide incentives for faculty and student exchanges overseas, particularly with developing countries or countries emerging from isolation. Foundations and nonprofit organizations should lead the way in developing and testing innovative new program approaches.

The third success factor is designing systems to periodically assess and evaluate progress being made as a result of science diplomacy efforts. This is not an easy task because success is likely to be years in the making, and may be measured in incremental steps, such as the ability to exchange science delegations or the development of collaborative agreements. In some cases, the fact that scientists are keeping open a channel of communication, particularly when other channels have closed, is a positive indicator. We know from U.S. scientists who collaborated with Soviet scientists during the darkest days of the Cold War that these relationships kept open a valuable channel of communication, and provided the trust needed to pursue the nonproliferation agenda of the 1990s.

CRDF Global has been mobilizing America’s researchers to promote peace and prosperity through international science collaboration for 15 years. Recently, we initiated our new Global Innovation through Science and Technology initiative to work with partners in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia to create new mechanisms for technology development, establish digital libraries such as the highly successful model in Iraq, and strengthen capacity for scientific research.

Science diplomacy is not easy and by itself will not solve the world’s problems. But it is an important and underutilized resource that must be tapped more energetically for the benefit of global prosperity. When the infrastructure for collaboration exists, there is always hope. Science diplomacy provides that infrastructure and points the course to sustainability. Whether it is furthering nonproliferation goals by encouraging civilian science and technology, fostering scientific collaboration between scientists of regions with historical tensions such as Armenia and Azerbaijan, or developing a Virtual Science Library to bring Iraqi scientists and engineers into the global community, foreign policy is positively shaped by international science engagement.

When we have education and innovation, we have progress and peace. When science advances, civilizations advance.

Cathy Campbell is president and chief executive officer of CRDF Global, an independent nonprofit organization that promotes international scientific and technical collaboration.

But has all the debate and airtime affected how well Americans understand climate science? A recent study released by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication sought to find out.

Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change, released October 12 and conducted from June 24 to July 22, questioned a group of 2,030 American adults on their knowledge of “how the climate system works, and the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming.” The findings highlighted just how far we still have to go to educate our nation about climate science.

The study suggested that many misconceptions associated with climate change continue to persist. The study, for example, indicates that a majority of Americans believe incorrectly that the “climate” changes from year to year (62 percent) and that “weather” is the average climate conditions in a region (51 percent), suggesting that many Americans still confuse “climate” and “weather.” Only 57 percent of Americans have both heard of, and correctly understand what the greenhouse effect is, while only 45 percent know that carbon dioxide contributes to it.

A majority of Americans also incorrectly believes that the hole in the ozone layer, toxic wastes, aerosol spray cans, volcanic eruptions, the sun, and acid rain all contribute to global warming. These misconceptions are important to identify and understand because they lead people to question climate science and deny the impact of human-caused pollution on global warming— making it easier for climate science deniers to beat the drum of inaction.

The study also displayed the contradictory nature of Americans’ understanding of climate change. The study showed that people trust scientists and scientific organizations (such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) as “a source of information about global warming,” but they don’t trust scientists to predict future climate change.

The most trusted sources of information were the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (78 percent), the National Science Foundation (74 percent), natural history museums (73 percent), and scientists (72 percent). The least trusted were environmental organizations (58 percent), television weather reports (50 percent), military leaders (42 percent), and the mainstream news media (35 percent). At the same time, only 37 percent of people surveyed said scientists’ models for predicting climate change are reliable, and only 39 percent think that scientists can predict future climate.

Another interesting contradiction is that while 63 percent of those surveyed acknowledged the major role that natural climate variations have played in the collapse of past civilizations, only 27 percent say that global warming is either extremely (7 percent) or very (20 percent) important to them personally. This would seem to suggest that Americans understand the power of climate to affect society broadly, but still don’t recognize the myriad ways that those effects impact their lives.

Overall, 63 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, according to the study. This is down from 85 percent in March of 2006, according to a November 2009 Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

But despite this recent decline, public support for climate action remained high in 2009 and 2010 amid the attacks on climate science. A June 2010 NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that respondents favored comprehensive energy and carbon pollution reduction legislation by 63 percent to 31 percent—a two to one margin. Even as prospects for a climate bill dimmed in the Senate, an August 2010 Benenson poll showed support for alternative approaches to capping global warming pollution.

When this poll asked whether “the government should regulate greenhouse gases from sources like power plants and refineries in an effort to reduce global warming,” 60 percent of respondents support it and just 34 percent oppose it. And 54 percent say they are confident in the Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to regulating greenhouse gases while 42 percent are not. Finally, when asked about a bill that “would suspend the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases for two years,” just 37 percent support it, while 53 percent oppose it.

There is support for EPA regulation of greenhouses across the political spectrum. Fifty-four percent of independents supported it—with just 35 percent opposed. Even Republicans are evenly split, with 45 percent supporting and 43 percent opposing it.

The upshot: Support for climate action among the public has stayed remarkably strong throughout 2009 and 2010—despite record ad spending and lobbying from Big Oil and dirty energy friends to oppose climate and clean energy legislation.

Fortunately, those surveyed by the Yale Project also offered a suggestion for how to address the knowledge gap and put the misconceptions to rest. Participants were given the statement, “Schools should teach our children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming” and asked to either strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement. Seventy-five percent agreed (35 percent strongly) while only 25 percent disagreed (11 percent strongly).

More Americans believe in the need to teach our children more about global warming in schools than believe global warming is happening. It is perhaps the study’s most powerful finding. This suggests that while many Americans may still be skeptical or confused by the details of climate change, a vast majority recognize that their children need to learn more.

Ultimately, while the dip in belief about climate change since 2006 is disheartening, this study is hopeful because nearly two-thirds of Americans still believe global warming is real. Most support clean energy and climate action as well. Those who understand the science surrounding these issues and those who know the serious challenges a changing climate will continue to present must continue to speak up and not be deterred by climate change science deniers. A majority of Americans demands it.

Brett Daley is an Intern with the Center for American Progress’s Energy Opportunity Department.

Consider an episode last month on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC. The president of Caltech, Jean-Lou Chameau, went on the air to offer his provocative theory about why the United States fares so poorly in science and math education. Our science teachers don’t tend to have science backgrounds, Chameau argued, but instead tend to be trained in general education. That’s the problem-they don’t know their subjects intimately, and so can’t excel at teaching them.

Lehrer’s callers, though—all of whom had been screened to privilege those with science education backgrounds—quickly related their own experiences and complicated this narrative. Few disagreed directly with Chameau’s point, but they added in quite a number of complicating factors.

For instance, some callers pointed out that the necessity of “teaching to the test” often constrains the ability of science teachers to more creatively engage students. Similarly, others observed that many students are afraid of science and math, fearing it’s too hard, and simply not for them. It’s something I’ve heard as well from science teachers: That many of their students insist they’re not a “science person” or a “math person.”

And that’s just the beginning. Another Brian Lehrer caller sadly remarked that we don’t pay our teachers well, whatever their training. Another noted that we live in a culture that values celebrity and money, not intellect. And Lehrer himself pointed out the religiosity of the United States, and how that can impair science education, which of course is particularly notorious on the topic of evolution.

Is it possible that all of these things are true, and all of them are the problem? I would argue that is precisely the case—and indeed, how could it be otherwise? U.S. science education occurs in the context of an American culture that has very deep problems with science—problems that are manifested in many spheres other than the educational system, but are certainly reflected there, too.

What this inevitably means is that even as we fight off the creationists, and (hopefully) invest more in paying teachers and training them, we have to push for cultural change with regard to how we think about science. And at the core of that change must be the recognition that science doesn’t have to be something weird, different, and alienating. It isn’t just brainless memorization, and it isn’t useless stuff that you’ll never need. Rather, it’s fun, and it’s relevant—or at least it can be in the hands of a good teacher. At the middle-school or high-school level, any teacher who can convey this ought to be celebrated, whether or not he or she has a science background.

Since I am a person who was actually turned on to science at a particular point during my educational trajectory, perhaps my personal history is instructive here. Nothing against my high school teachers, but while I got A’s in science, I didn’t learn much of anything in a way that made it deeply resonate for me. That’s because I viewed the whole thing as a kind of game: memorization, which I was good at. The trick works especially well in biology, where knowing all the parts of the cell, or the stages of the Krebs Cycle, are the kinds of things you’re tested on.

It was only in college, when I started reading books by people such as Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson that science actually took on some meaning for me. In the hands of these literary scientists, science was no longer a body of facts. Rather, it unlocked who we were, where we were going, and why it all mattered. I’m too young to have been a watcher of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series, but this is a core reason why it, too, inspired so many people to get interested in science.

There’s almost a kind of trap when it comes to teaching an intricate topic such as science. If you lose non-scientists in the weeds of the information, they’ll never see why it matters. But scientists thrive in the weeds-that’s their job. Our science teachers, then, are a critical conduit between the two groups. They may or may not have scientific backgrounds, but if they can’t trim the garden, they are bound to fail.

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”

SOURCE: oberlin.edu

Oberlin College senior Kristin Braziunas replaced 10,000 incandescent light bulbs with CFLs on her campus and in her community

Looking for a way to decrease your college’s or university’s carbon footprint? Rather than purchasing carbon offsets from businesses with unproven track records, schools can instead look to their own backyards. The students at Oberlin College have cut out the middle man and guaranteed their carbon offset efforts are effective by investing directly in their community.

While some schools purchase carbon offsets to reduce their carbon footprint, carbon offsets are unregulated by the Federal Trade Commission. This makes it nearly impossible for a school to verify their effectiveness, and some carbon offsets companies invest the money ineffectively. Instead, Oberlin College senior Kristin Braziunas and her fellow “Light Bulb Brigade” at the college handed out 10,000 compact florescent light bulbs, or CFLs, to churches, department stores, and residents in the surrounding community. She exchanged incandescent light bulbs for the CFLs, reaching about 800 residents. CFLs use about 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs, depending on the model. About 48 percent of the country’s electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for 40 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions, and CFLs can cut carbon emissions by reducing the amount of energy those plants must produce to meet demand. If every American home replaced just one CFL, the emissions reductions would equal to taking 800,000 cars off the road.

Braziunas, in addition to reaching about a quarter of the population of Oberlin, claims she cut about 6,500 tons of carbon from the atmosphere. The institution can measure its carbon reduction based on the how many bulbs are distributed, and unlike other carbon offset credits, Oberlin College can monitor and verify their investment. But the students don’t just hand out bulbs; they also educate their community about the importance of emissions reductions and energy efficiency. Many colleges and universities, from Notre Dame to Princeton, have established CFL exchange programs on their campus, reducing the institution’s overall carbon emissions, but few are expanding this program to the surrounding community. Until the Federal Trade Commission regulates carbon offsets, Oberlin students may be setting a trend for colleges and universities across the nation.

There may be markets—and therefore, potential profits—for materials in which hitherto no one had an interest.

What’s so new about digital publishing? One short answer is long tail economics. In 2004 Chris Anderson published “The Long Tail” in Wired, followed by a book of the same title. He argued that traditional production and marketing follow the Pareto Principle, or the “80/20 rule:” 20 percent of the population holds 80 percent of the wealth; 80 percent of profit comes from 20 percent of goods produced. For example, 20 percent of movies will be “hits” and produce 80 percent of a studio’s profit. Anderson argued that the 80/20 rule operates under conditions of scarcity, but that under conditions of abundance of goods and of access to those goods, there is potential for profit in that hitherto untapped 80 percent of goods, which can be cheaply produced and marketed. This is the “long tail,” in which there are niche markets for nearly every product. It’s easy to see how this applies to the entertainment world. But who would have an interest in obscure or difficult scholarly publications in the humanities or social sciences? I don’t think we know. What we do know is that if millions, and perhaps eventually billions, of people have access to on-line search engines and digital media, as Michael Jensen pointed out in his article, “The Deep Niche,” there could be many “niche” markets that simply wouldn’t have existed before. There may be markets—and therefore, potential profits—for materials in which hitherto no one had an interest.

Academic—especially commercial academic—publishers have already begun to exploit such new potential markets. Here is just a sampling:

• A typical journal article can be purchased as a PDF at Science Direct for $30; at Kluwer for $32; at Ingenta for $42. Ingenta began in the academic and research sector, and has expanded to include other forms of publication. Its motto for publishers is “maximizing the value of your content digital assets.”
• Articles in JStor, a subscription journal database, appear in Google searches with a link to a page where an article can be purchased.
• The Review of Metaphysics, a scholarly philosophical journal, sells individual articles and book reviews linked to the books they review at Amazon.com for between $5.95 and $9.95, depending on year of publication, as well as a subscription to the journal for $40.
• Individual book chapters as well as entire books can be purchased as PDF files at the National Academies Press. Just recently, a print copy of a new book was $45.86, a PDF file of the book was $15, and of an individual chapter was $2.50.
• Highbeam.com is an on-line research service that maintains a library of scholarly articles; like JStor, its articles are indexed by Google. In order to view the articles in its database, one must pay a membership fee: $29.95 per month, $199.95 per year, with a 7-day free trial period. Highbeam pays a publisher a licensing fee, just as JStor does; and each may “sell” an article or access to it.

While the profits in the humanities and social science may be small compared to those in the entertainment industry and the hard sciences, the underlying economics are the same. Whether academic or commercial, the publisher’s main interest, just like that of the Hollywood studio’s, or any media entity’s, is in profit; for the publisher, maintaining control over and asserting copyright is a means to profit.

When we turn to the knowledge/culture creators (e.g., scientists, writers, scholars and academic authors, artists, actors), there is more divergence of interests. Most artists and (non-academic) writers think that they, the creators, should have a share in the potential profit of their work. For example, the recent WGA strike was over writers’ share in the profit from “reuse” (sale, on-line streaming, video and DVD downloading, and ad revenue from on-line streaming) of their work. On the other hand, as users, many artists find the permissions and fees for reuse stifling of creative work, and in that respect, are interested less in profit than in looser interpretations of fair use. Academic and scholarly authors (especially in humanities and social sciences; less so in the sciences where there may be commercial gain to be had from the application of scientific work) have shown little concern for issues of monetary gain, and typically have been most interested in dissemination of and access to scholarly works for the sake of ongoing research, scholarship and educational purposes. This is a reflection in part of the academic value of open availability of ideas and knowledge and in part of what has been the economics of print publication. The academic value in openness of ideas is also tied to the fact that the producers of academic and scholarly work have been—and so far still are—the primary users of the work produced, and as such tend to be more interested in open access than in monetary gain for the knowledge/culture creator.

Traditionally, academics have focused on the research and/or “prestige” values of their work, and traditional criteria for tenure and promotion have reinforced the latter. Prior to digital media, in principle, anyone could have purchased a scholarly article. But, in practice it was pretty unlikely because the means of developing an interest in a topic and gaining easy access to the sources did not exist—unless one were associated with a university or research institution—and the sources themselves were scarce and expensive (e.g., small print runs, materials going quickly out of print, high subscription costs). Moreover, in the humanities and social sciences, unlike in the sciences, there is usually no commercial application from which profit could be made. But with digital production (and hence cheap storage and reproduction), the costs of maintaining and delivering digital inventory is miniscule compared to the costs of maintaining print inventory, as Anderson pointed out in his “long tail” analysis, and with on-line search engines there are potential markets even for infrequently purchased items. As the examples above indicate, publishers are already exploiting these markets.

In addition to potentially new dispersed “niche” markets, there are corporate and university markets. The Copyright Clearance Center negotiates, on behalf of publishers, hefty fee structures for corporate access to and reuse of scholarly and research databases. Same with the copyright fees charged to university libraries for “reuse” of scholarly material in the form of Electronic Reserves, course packs and the like. These are all forms of profit, which are magnified by digital media.

If the “markets” for scholarly works are changing, and developments in digital technology—the cyberinfrastructure—suggest that they are, then academic authors and institutions need to take a very different stance towards the conditions under which authors’ works are published and distributed, and to become much more actively involved in reshaping the digital publishing world.

As long as academic authors continue to sign exclusive and restrictive publishing agreements, publishers will control the market.

Whether the interest is profit or dissemination, academic authors need to stop signing restrictive publishing agreements. First, if there is profit to be had, academic authors should have a fair share of it. An academic publishing contract which stipulates that an author collects no share of the sales in each form (e.g., print or digital) until at least 300 copies of that form are sold annually does not give the author a fair share of the profit. There is no extra cost to the publisher annually; once produced, the sale of a digital product is almost entirely profit; similarly for print copies if print on demand is well-established. Second, for purposes of dissemination, authors may be poorly served by a standard restrictive publishing agreement which grants publication and distribution rights exclusively to the publisher. If a publisher decides to not distribute or “print” the work, the author may have little or no avenue for having her or his work distributed.

Universities, too, have an interest in how this new world is structured. As things stand now, universities already pay the salaries of academic authors, and hefty subscriptions to journals and research databases. Thus, when a university has to pay copyright fees it could, ironically, and unlike corporate clients, end up paying twice or even thrice for the use of material. For example, if the school puts a digital copy of one of its print journals on E-reserve, or if a faculty member posts a digital copy of an article from one of the university’s print or electronic journals on a course management website, the university may have to pay a copyright fee—yet the university already owns that material, paid for it, and may even have paid to produce it, as one of its own employees, or an employee of another university, which is in the same boat, may have created it in the first place.

There have been attempts by academic organizations and universities— such as MIT, and most recently Harvard—to have open access digital repositories of at least their own faculty members’ works, but thus far, these efforts have not been particularly successful. Until such efforts are widely coordinated among all universities—and not just a few elite ones —and equipped with indexed and searchable information, this does not constitute the kind of system-wide restructuring of the publishing domain that would be in the broad interest of researchers, scholars, and the public. There is a lot of discussion about this—for example, at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley and at the information technology non-profit Ithaka, but thus far no coordinated action.

There are alternative copyright licensing structures, such as Creative Commons or the GNU Free Documentation License, that might serve as models of what could be developed for publishing digital works. But whatever the models developed, the main point is that as long as academic authors continue to sign exclusive and restrictive publishing agreements, publishers will control the market. Once an author has signed the copyright and licensing rights to her or his work over to a publisher, the law is on the side of the publisher who enforces copyright as a means to making profit. Such enforcement can include curtailing the author’s ability to disseminate her or his own work, as well as collecting clearance and reuse fees through the Copyright Clearance Center and issuing “take-down” notices of electronically posted material.

Under The Copyright Term Extension Act, copyright for a work created after January 1, 1978 subsists from its creation and (with some specific exceptions) endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death. If an author has signed a standard exclusive and restrictive academic publishing agreement, and if a work unexpectedly “sells,” the profit will go exclusively to the publisher and the licensing fees will be collected exclusively by the publisher.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives copyright holders, usually commercial publishing and media companies, legal tools to enforce alleged violations of technological anti-piracy measures on digital media. DMCA is particularly worrisome since it appears to give greater control to the copyright holder of digitized works that are encoded and encrypted in digital media than to copyright holders of print media; the former appear to have exclusive control over access and use for an indefinite period of time. Copyright infringement does not have to have been established for a “take down” notice to be issued under DMCA, even when a strong or reasonable fair use defense could be made. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent this will adversely affect things like Interlibary Loan of digital materials and any subscription or password protected materials.

All the more reason then for academic authors with the luxury of salary and tenure to take the lead and to be actively engaged in widespread coordinated action to restructure the publishing world—untenured academics are in a more vulnerable position until the profession reconceives its criteria for tenure and promotion. For example, authors could stipulate in their publishing agreements that no reuse fees be collected from universities and public libraries. Or, they could play a role in pricing so that even those not affiliated with a university could afford to purchase scholarly work. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition has developed tools for authors to help them renegotiate agreements with publishers and this might be a place for individual academic authors to start.

Universities, too, need to engage in coordinated, systematic action to facilitate more reasonable conditions for the dissemination of ideas that is the lifeblood of research.

At the same time, individual attempts to negotiate with publishers may not be a sufficiently coordinated action to make a dent in current publishing practices and to overcome each individual’s interest in publication for other reasons—for example, getting their ideas published, prestige, tenure, and promotion. All the more reason, then, for scholarly organizations and universities to get into the act if humanities and social science scholars are really going to reorient themselves to the technology and new economics of digital publishing. Even in the sciences, which are ahead of the humanities and social sciences in terms of grappling with the implications of digital publishing, a huge amount of scientific scholarship still lives behind a subscription wall, earning publishers huge amounts of money. However, the sheer volume of research available in open-access repositories like PubMed Central (for life sciences) and arXiv.org (for physics and computational sciences) is evidence of very different approaches in the sciences: not negotiations with publishers, but either Federally-mandated access (for NIH-funded research) or total circumvention of the traditional publishing route (despite the fact that many of the papers uploaded to arXiv.org are eventually accepted for publication in professional refereed journals). In the humanities there have been some developments in this regard, including Ars Disputandi and Philosophers’ Imprint, but thus far, they have tended to be somewhat isolated and marginal.

Universities, too, need to engage in coordinated, systematic action to facilitate more reasonable conditions for the dissemination of ideas that is the lifeblood of research. Right now publishers compete with one another developing software tools that may be of little use to users, and there is tremendous duplication of effort and resources both among universities—between presses, libraries and IT departments—and publishers building the cyberinfrastructure for producing and managing scholarly work. Universities are the primary customers and users of scholarly work, and therefore, have tremendous leverage if they exercise it in a coordinated fashion.

While there may be some discipline-specific issues such that a single model won’t work for all areas, institutions—i.e., universities and scholarly organizations—and academic authors from all areas need to take an active role in setting the terms for digital publishing and in exploring the development of systematic and coordinated reputable peer reviewed open access venues. ”Open” need not necessarily mean “free,” but it does mean that publishers’ interest in profit should not be the controlling force of the digital publishing world, at least as far as scholarship and research are concerned. Researchers, scholars and academic institutions need to take the lead. Doing so would encourage treating knowledge and culture products as public goods, rather than only as property, and as part of the information commons that nourishes open and informed democratic societies.

©2008 K.A. Wallace

K.A. Wallace is a Professor of Philosophy at Hofstra University.

Analyzing student achievement data from around the industrialized world, the report finds U.S. students consistently finishing in the middle of the pack on both math and science tests. According to the report, students did not fair well on the federally-sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress math and science tests either. The report also takes a look at public school STEM teacher’s backgrounds and finds nearly four out of ten 7-12th grade math teachers do not have a college major in the subject they teach.

The report maps out progress trends in STEM education among public school students and grades different states on their use of technology in the classroom.

All is not lost. States and the Federal government are starting to pay more attention to the challenges of STEM education. According to the report, schools have begun employing new strategies, from raising the bar on math and science coursework to adopting new technology-based approaches to STEM teaching. The Federal government is stepping up as well, coordinating the efforts of disparate agencies to improve best practices in STEM education and research stronger teaching methods.

The research may go a long way in plugging holes in the STEM system and better-preparing students for technical careers.

Image: Education Week

Judith Tabron, director of faculty computing services at Hofstra University, describes the challenges of encouraging the most effective uses of information and communication technologies in colleges and universities in a recent commentary (subscription) in The Chronicle of High Education:

All too many tools facilitate less-desirable teaching methods. My IT colleagues often observe that what course-management systems like Blackboard do well is deliver material. Here’s your stuff: Read it, absorb it, review it. What the systems do not do well is facilitate interaction. Here are your peers and teachers: Listen, talk, challenge, answer, try, fail, try again. Both the true liberal-arts curriculum and the online world are examples of revolutions in communication. We have to figure out how to use the latter in service to the former.

Tabron continues by explaining the benefits of allowing faculty to experiment without being judged prematurely by their peers, and of investing technology budgets in long-term academic outcomes, rather than only short-term needs, like equipment repairs.

She also points to the need to invest time and resources into determining new and effective ways to harness technology in the classroom–an avenue that can benefit university education and secondary education alike. Last month, the House authorized funding for a new learning center dedicated to researching and developing innovative digital learning and information technologies for the nation’s education system. And Federation of American Scientists President Henry Kelly explained some of the untapped possibilities for educational technology (including video games) in his recent column for Science Progress.

In their report, “A National Innovation Agenda,” Science Progress advisors Tom Kalil and John Irons argued for a ten percent yearly increase to the NSF budget because of the central role the agency plays in spurring innovation and high tech job creation in the United States. Dr. Bement echoed these same sentiments in his testimony, equating investment in the NSF with investment in economic security and emphasizing the important role the agency plays in attracting bright young scientists and students from around the world. Other countries are increasing funding for their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, he said, and if the U.S. fails to keep up, multinational companies will take their operations and high-paying jobs overseas. The FY2009 budget tries to address this concern with a boost to education funding skewed toward graduate student fellowships and grants, but continues to underfund K-12 STEM education, which is logistically difficult to improve due to a lack of a national science education standard, said Dr. Bement.

Dr. Steven Beering, Chairman of the National Science Board, offered testimony calling for the NSF to focus on both international cooperation and innovation sharing. “Science is an international language,” he said, asking that Congress designate money for international collaboration on scientific initiatives. He also spoke on one of the NSB’s upcoming projects to create a taskforce to study the engineering and science challenges related to sustainable energy.

Tomorrow, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science will hold their own hearing on the NSF FY2009 budget request.

How is science doing in America? The National Science Board, the oversight agency of the National Science Foundation (NSF) released its biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education in the U.S. According to the report, the United States is still the leader in scientific and technological innovation but the gap is closing quickly as Asian countries ramp up their science and engineering efforts. To keep the innovation ball rolling, the NSB recommends expanding science funding and increasing “intellectual exchange” between academia and industry.

Science magazine recently interviewed embattled Department of Energy Undersecretary Raymond Orbach on the state of physics research in the United States. The DOE’s Office of Science endured cuts to proposed budget increases in the new Congressional spending bill, and many in the scientific community are wondering what the future holds for physical science research. He discusses the status of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the U.S. involvement in the International Linear Collider, and the funding prospects for physical sciences in the 2009 budget.

Robert Palazzo argues in The Scientist that the United States is in danger of losing its leadership role in biotechnology innovation if it continues to scale back support of research. By flat-funding the NIH and other programs, foreign scientists will end up returning to their home countries where, increasingly, more resources are becoming available. In addition, scientists are forced to spend more time writing grants competing for funding than devoting their time to research and innovation. In light of greater international collaboration in science, the United States needs to reaffirm its commitment to life science programs if it hopes to continue leading the way in progress and improving the quality of life around the world.

You have a new tool to track the pulse of science reporting. The Columbia Journalism Review announced the launch of the The Observatory, a department whose sole purpose is to track and critique press coverage of science and the environment. Built on the mounting national discussions of climate change, stem cells, and public health, the new department hopes to improve national discourse by improving the quality of science journalism in the media and on the Internet.

Goldston, a scholar in residence at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the former staff director of the House Science and Technology Committee under Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), was responding to the new report, “Into the Eye of the Storm,” by B. Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration, and Harold Salzman, a sociologist and senior research associate at the Urban Institute. Their study argues against conventional wisdom to say that U.S. students are improving in performance in math and science and that the number of graduates in science and engineering actually exceeds the available jobs.

Industry and policy professionals alike have argued that declines in the S&E workforce threaten U.S. economic competitiveness, especially with China and India graduating large numbers of scientists and engineers each year. Goldston noted that, “we need to make sure that we’re not using competitiveness as a screen.”

Indeed, Salzman and Lowell’s findings suggest that education reform may not be the key to maintaining the prominence of U.S. science and engineering in the global market. But Golston pointed out that competitiveness is not the ultimate issue. Rather, he suggested, “we need to talk about what kind of economic future we want the U.S. to have.”

Reorienting U.S. science and engineering policy for the 21st century should not focus solely on producing more engineers and scientists, he said. Policymakers must also ensure that graduates entering these fields have the opportunity to analyze problems and design solutions that make our economy more dynamic and more equitable.

Tackling this issue from a different angle, William Bates, vice president for government affairs at the Council on Competitiveness, lauded the U.S. S&E students for their creativity, pointing to programs such as the Georgia Tech Computer Science program, which marries traditional instruction in computer architecture with various “threads” leading to practical application of those fundamentals. “We need scientists that think like artists and artists that think like engineers,” he said.

That’s exactly what other countries are learning from the United States, added Salzman. He pointed out that test scores in South Korea, Japan, and Singapore outpace those of the U.S. in math and science but are low on reading and literacy. South Korea in particular is backing away from education policies that emphasize “test-and-drill” results and instead cultivate creativity and innovation.

The major report sounding the alarm on the state of U.S. STEM education is the National Academies’ Rising Above the Gathering Storm, but Goldston pointed out that Salzman and Lowell’s new data analysis does not necessarily mean that the recommendations of the former report are misguided. Improving STEM education is in general a good thing and, as Goldston pointed out in an August editorial in Nature (subscription), none of the Gathering Storm recommendations “contributes in any obvious way to the agenda of an interest group.” In the same article, Goldston wrote that:

As a result, Congress hasn’t spent much time discussing, say, what might be done to increase the demand for, rather than just the supply of, scientists and engineers, or what sort of training they should be getting in the liberal arts. Rather, in an era of unprecedented global competition, most of the policy ideas are simply recycled proposals from the competitiveness debate that occurred two decades ago, when the United States felt threatened by Japan.

That’s why policy makers and scientists alike must challenge reactive questions like, “How do we stay ahead,” which do not serve the long-term interests of the U.S. economy, U.S. citizens, or the global common good. Or, as Daniel Sarewitz, Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, pointed out in his recent analysis of U.S. science policy, most elements of the debate simply revolve around questions of “how much” rather than questions of “what for.”

If we can understand from Salzman and Lowell’s paper that the country is not fumbling into the future with a shrinking cohort of inept science and engineering graduates, then we can begin to ask how to shape an economy that gives those bright minds the space and resources to make the world a better place.