More on the need for science education

Ran across this story from The Scientist (free registration required) about the results of a an essay contest sponsored by the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG). The contest elicited high-school students' understanding of human genetics. The results are dispiriting, to say the least. Here's an outtake:

"When people who cannot have children and want their own from their own blood, meaning having their genes, what will stop them from putting some cells into a cow to get their child?"

"Genetics create a perfect being. Change the genes. Make that child perfect. There's no better solution to an impending health care crisis. A perfect child means that health care can be focused on an aging generation of people. What we can have is a sea of people who all look brilliant, who are all smart and who all have perfect eyes, nose and lips. It's a perfect society, what more could we want?"

Here's the original article from Genetics, for more information about the ASHG contest.

Consider this, too: these are the responses of students who were willing to participate in an essay contest about genetics. What must be the level of understanding among those who wouldn't bother? Clearly, CLEARLY, we need to do a better job of K-12 science education.

If there's a silver lining here, it might be that ethical questions could serve as a "way in" to discussion of the science, especially for students who may have little interest in science per se. In both the examples above, students' grasp of the science is lacking, but there are clues that suggest they have some sense that there's a moral element involved.

Training Tomorrow's Peter Parkers

A New York Times article describes new efforts to teach biotech to students in high schools.

MORE than a decade ago, after George Cachianes, a former researcher at Genentech, decided to become a teacher, he started a biotechnology course at Lincoln High School in San Francisco. He saw the class as way of marrying basic biotechnology principles with modern lab practices — and insights into how business harvests biotech innovations for profit.

If you’re interested in seeing the future of biotechnology education, you might want to visit one of George Cachianes’s classrooms. “Students are motivated by understanding the relationships between research, creativity and making money,” he says. [emphasis mine]

Lincoln has five biotech classes, each with about 30 students. Four other public high schools in San Francisco offer the course, drawing on Mr. Cachianes’s syllabus. Mr. Cachianes, who still teaches at Lincoln, divides his classes into teams of five students; each team “adopts” an actual biotech company.

The students write annual reports, correspond with company officials and learn about products in the pipeline. Students also learn the latest lab techniques. They cut DNA. And recombine it. They transfer jellyfish genes into bacteria. They purify proteins. They even sequence their own cheek-cell DNA.

While I am a strong proponent of stronger science education in our high schools, I am concerned that we are teaching skills without teaching wisdom. Yes, the new advances in biotech are fascinating (I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't), but, to quote Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility." And I worry that while we are encouraging our youth to pursue the incredible power of biotechnological and other advances, we are not teaching them that such power also bestows deep responsibilities - to their employers, their customers, and to society as a whole.

Some may argue that high school students do not have the cognitive capabilities to engage in such moral/ethical discussion, but at least some of them do, as evidenced by the thriving sport of high school Speech and Forensics (aka Debate) where policy and philosophy are routinely utilized on an undergrad level to address current events and issues. Perhaps not everyone does, but a student who is able to handle complicated genetic manipulation ought to be able to absorb at least a little social awareness on the side.

Of course, it will be more difficult to find someone versed in ethical philosophy who is sufficiently motivated to work in the high schools (as there are no "Ethical Philosophy" corporations to give backing), and it is probably not wise to create an adversarial binary environment (ethicists vs. corporate interests) but some type of engagement must occur, lest we allow today's youth (tomorrow's leaders) to develop motivations based solely on personal achievement and profitability, and not built at least partly on a sense of responsibility to society.