Prize winning science writer: "What does '32 feet per second per second' mean...?"

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Orson, May 1, 2003.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    David Appell, freelance science writer, observes the following with interest and serious concern:

    "This past weekend I watched a panel on science writing on C-SPAN2, broadcast from the LA Times Book Festival. Brenda Maddox's book _Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA_ won the science and technology category, but during the panel she said something that made me wince:

    '...32 feet per second per second--now what does that mean? Some one can tell me afterwards perhaps.'
    "
    "This kind of comments always rankles me, not because I'm a science writer, or even because I have degrees in science and just like to feel superior, but because any educated person ought to understand what that means.

    It's far too acceptable in our society to profess ignorance of even basic scientific concepts (and this one is taught the first week of high school physics). Yet no person would be considered educated if they did not recognize certain key passages from Shakespeare, if they knew nothing of the Russian Revolution, or understood the concept of, say, supply and demand. Understanding the basic concept of graviational acceleration falls into the same category--and one can't make a utilitarian argument, since they all have about the same degree of usefulness.

    "I'm always surprised to see other science writers openly confess their inabilities at math, for example. (And newspaper editors seem more interested that their writers have journalism degrees than degrees in science.) Maddox is no doubt a very good nonfiction writer, but I wonder if she makes the connection between her own lack of scientific knowledge and curiousity and that of the public's in general. Her book is only ranked number 993 on Amazon. Surely one could hope that a prize-worthy book on an interesting woman on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA would do much better than that."
    http://www.davidappell.com/archives/00000054.htm


    WHAT about OUR innumeracy? OUR scientific illiteracy?
    Who among us is remedying that?

    (Or did the LA Times simply select this book because of the politically correct topic of an "overlooked" woman scientist?--not because it was the best in its category?)

    --Orson
     

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