We define scientific literacy too narrowly: the tools of science are applicable to everything from economics to terrorism

(Image: Claire Cocano/Picturetank)

HERE’S a game to play next time you catch the news headlines. Count how many would dissolve away or be markedly different if the people writing them had evaluated the evidence more critically. Your count will probably be alarmingly high.

We have a long tradition of allowing civic affairs to be settled by persuasive rhetoric. That is inadequate for our modern society. Science and technology shape our world and, as a society, we need to make well-reasoned and scientifically literate choices about everything from genetic engineering to geoengineering.


“Using rhetoric to settle civic affairs is inadequate for running our modern society”

But many of the tools used to make science-heavy decisions are also needed to properly evaluate a much broader range of subjects: in particular, critical thinking and numerical analysis. A basic grasp of statistics and probability, for instance, is key to judging the risk from terrorism, say, or how to invest your money (see “How to outsmart your irrational brain“).

But the desired combination of scientific literacy and critical thinking remains rare in public discourse. Perhaps that is because we hope children will learn to evaluate claims rationally if we teach them science. That works for some, but all too often the reaction is: “I’ll never need to use this once I’ve left school.”

That’s being taken up by the Programme for International Student Assessment. The PISA tests, which attempt to compare student performance around the world, are always controversial, but their central concern is sound: “What is important for citizens to know and be able to do?” This year, they are focused on the scientific literacy of 15-year-olds from more than 70 states and regions around the world. But then what exactly is scientific literacy?

PISA’s lengthy definition begins with “an individual’s scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions” and ends with “willingness to engage in science-related issues, and with the issues of science, as a reflective citizen”.

We have made progress on the first part of this definition. In 1996, a survey found that more than half of the US population didn’t know Earth orbits the sun; few even knew what that might mean. But more recent polls suggest that US scientific literacy has improved greatly. A Pew survey released in September concluded that “most Americans can answer basic questions about several scientific terms and concepts”: that Earth’s core is its hottest part, for example, or that uranium is needed for nuclear energy and weapons.

But mastery of facts alone is not enough for the internet age. Much of the copious online rhetoric is more viral than factual, so it is just as important that we know how to evaluate sources of information, and how to tell correlation from causation, and opinion from fact – in matters both obviously scientific and otherwise.

This is where we’re falling short of the tail end of PISA’s definition. Kids who don’t see the point of science often lack chances to hone their critical thinking toolkits, particularly their numerical sides. And textbook knowledge doesn’t translate easily to practice: cell biology can seem very remote when deciding who’s really worth listening to about vaccination.

This shortfall is being addressed: in UK schools, for example, the Twenty First Century Science GCSE module covers issues of relevance to everyone, whatever their scientific ambitions (or lack of them). But our societies still have a long way to go when it comes to reading between the headlines – or rewriting them.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Critical thinking”