Over the past 10 months or so, a steady stream of distressing numbers and facts has created alarm about the future of American science: A recent study found that out of 39 countries surveyed, American 15-year-olds placed 27th in math literacy. In a measure of science literacy among high school seniors, the U.S. placed 42nd out of 44 countries. According to a 2002 poll by the National Science Foundation (NSF), only half of the American public knows that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted or that atoms are larger than electrons.
Nonetheless, according to Daniel Sarewitz, director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, a lack of public science literacy is neither a new phenomenon nor a cause for alarm.
“We basically have a scientifically illiterate public,” he said. The Nobel Prize winners, he said, were members of the country’s scientific elite, and America’s future ability to win Nobels “has nothing to do with the average level of scientific literacy.”
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As long as American institutions remain rich in cash and committed to the free exchange of ideas, the U.S. will remain a destination for the best and brightest scientists, no matter where they were reared. And, as a result, the Nobels will continue to roll in.
After all, who cares if our next generation of Nobelists aren’t U.S.-born? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about?
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