Natalie Angier's Joyride of the Science World

Interesting. I'm curious what level of background she writes for, how that meshes with an existing understanding.

Natalie Angier is on the right track when she calls for the need for a more scientifically literate public. One need only look at the debate over what, as policy, should be taught in science class or what if anything does weather have to do with global warming.

Unfortunately, during the show, Natalie forgot to point out the role her own profession could play in promoting scientific literacy. Perhaps, being an NY Times journalist it's easy to forget how dismal most other newspapers are when it comes to covering science. The Times has a well endowed science beat with great reporters including Ms. Angier. And, sadly, newspapers do much better than local TV news which does little or nothing. Almost every newspaper features a regular astrology or horoscope segment.

Few newspapers have regular science beats. If they have a science section at all it's usually appended to the health and science or science and technology section. And the coverage is heavily biased towards what tries to pass for health reporting or coverage of gadgets and tech products. Basic science gets short shrift, at best.

When newspapers do reporting on the importance of a scientifically educated public it's almost always focused in children's education and public education scapegoating.

With their recent fiscal strains, I'm not naive to believe that newspapers will suddenly run out and hire the next generation of Natalie Angiers. A couple of possible solutions would be for newspapers to form a consortium that would provide a national science editor(s) that would compile a set of science stories for the paper's daily or weekly science section. A second solution would be to create a long term basic science refresher tutorial.

Just a few thoughts.

Rick Evans

I'd like to comment on a remark made by Natalie Angier on the program in which she said something like "we should look at the reality of what's around us and not explain it with miracles." But is it not a miracle that anything exists at all? Why should anything exist, rather than nothing? She also dismissed, as many scientists do, the idea of an intelligence creating the universe. But what are the laws of science themselves if not an intelligent order giving rise to this incredible dance we call the universe, a designer within creation and not outside of it. Even if the intense point of energy that gave rise to the Big Bang itself came into being as a "singularity" out of nothing, it is the laws of quantum physics, a kind of intelligent order, that allowed this creation. In the beginning was the word.