Are we in a scientific golden age?
Instead of following the lead of stress-free English majors, many college students slog through their biology, physics and chemistry courses, land those straight As, graduate — and go into other fields. “A lot of the people who have gone out and done important things were trained as scientists,” says Harvard physicist Lisa Durham, author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, which was included in the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2005. But all is not quiet on the scientific front, Durham says, even though this is what she considers a golden age: “There is a general fear that that won’t continue . . . that people won’t take it as seriously; that if there are budget cuts that’s where it will happen,” she says. How can we make sure students stick with science?
The geniuses across the pond at Durham University’s Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre have a solution to this. They’ve determined that the hard sciences are called that for a reason (and it’s an understatement) and brave and crazy students who enroll deserve additional credit, according to Wired’s Science blog.
This educational research group proposes a sliding grading scale that would equalize the disparate efforts of happy humanities majors and those weighed down with the knowledge of their own molecules. Britain’s national testing services does not agree with this brainstorm, possibly because they know that the only reason to major in physics is to complain/brag to the hordes of humanities buffs about how impossible the subject is, secretly basking in the glory of how smart you look, even if you’re failing. At this point, the U.S. would do better plugging a fabulous life chained to a lab by skipping the extra credits and offering free cheeseburgers to the first 100 converts.
http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/9244
