Science, Nonscience and Nonsense: Approaching Environmental Literacy
By Michael Zimmerman
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. 217pp., $45 (hb)
Reviewed by Dot Tumney

Like lots of other material with this subtitle, this book discusses greenhouse, CFCs, pesticides, pollution, nature conservation and externalising unwanted effects. This is at an introductory level, so the first time reader will be unintimidated and probably itching for more depth and detail (go on to Budiansky's Nature's Keepers).

The regular GLW reader will get most from the discussion of the relation between ineffective science education and community impotence in the face of marketers touting "the" simple solution or the apologist explaining why something is not proved and therefore no change is needed.

Defining "science" is basic to deciding what it is good for. Zimmerman illustrates this by analysing why "creation science" fails to fit even a judicial definition of scientific investigation. Functional scientific literacy requires not a collection of facts and certainties but a rudimentary comprehension of statistics and experimental methods.

What is the probability of a false positive in the drug test your employers insist on? Do they admit the possibility? Is there a right of appeal? Is there a reason to test for a particular drug? Does blanket testing ever provide anything other than intimidation? Science and its applications rapidly run into social desires and power relations. Knowing when one is being diddled is basic to being informed.

Zimmerman is much more worried about the pseudo-science aspect than religion when it comes to opiating masses. Religion selling itself as scientific is one case covered in depth. He also covers scientific jargon without content or method, Lysenko, biology misapplied as social Darwinism and the proud to be unprovable anti-science "alternative" merchant.

Probabilities, tentative conclusions and hypotheses awaiting experimental testing do not fit into the mass market media sound bite. Would a population understanding anything of the process of research permit regular news items scripted thus: "Scientists (specialty undefined) have discovered X". Appearance by discoverer or associate, appearance by interest group/lobbyist saying this will be wonderful/disastrous if it works, concluding with we'll be able to apply it in five years if it checks out. Dissolve. Ongoing stories are only for soap operas, parliamentary subtleties and sport.

Quality science education has more in common with philosophy than with arithmetic. It is the process of testing and learning how to ask the useful question that gets you somewhere. This can be tricky if you want to train functionaries rather than thinkers, of course. How do you set limits to curiosity and questioning if you need answers to fit a particular agenda? Researchers like questions. An empowered public likes questions. Children like questions until they learn different.

If you are after a quick buck, the gimmick needn't actually work: it just has to sell well. Consider the diet industry and the fad food -- pseudo-science at its best nutritionally speaking, but wonderful studies in social behaviour and marketing. There is always a new breakthrough forthcoming. It is interesting that the prepared meal service is the go now, as the annoying detail is penetrating customer minds that it is whole cereals and fresh vegetables which are the statistical success story rather than something neatly extracted and packed. (I'm waiting for Jenny Craig to discover soy oestrogens.)

There is always a desire for more consumer information which is resisted or downplayed with screams of"scare tactics" from producers. The public "won't understand" the complexities. Well no, they won't, will they, if you equate information with promotion?

The tobacco industry has done marketers no favours since it provides an ongoing saga designed to teach consumer to distrust producer. Consumers expect to be lied to and react whenever they catch someone out, but a few corporate casualties are a lesser disruption to the status quo than potential purchasers habitually assessing product qualities and requirements.

Impotence by cynicism is just as detrimental as impotence by ignorance. Both leave religious conversion or suicide as the only solution to despair. Cynicism and ignorance are both devastating to collective effort and rational decision making, but they are ideal for flogging the latest in individual solutions. Pseudo-science is ideal for crafting a gimmick since it has no defined standards for failure. The art of asking the appropriate question, on the other hand, is extremely subversive. Knowing the difference is very useful for saving the world. n

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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