[This is an update of an article originally posted in 2010.]
Newt Gingrich maintains his support for increases in federal spending on scientific research. And I mean massive funding increases at two Federal agencies in particular, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (these agencies primarily oversee and support scientific research across the U.S.). Yet, in the 1990s as part of his Contract with America, he axed one, relatively small Congressional agency you’ve probably never heard of: the Office of Technology Assessment. The scientists and policy wonks who worked there published hundreds of reports at the request of Congress to help them make sense of often complicated science and technology policy matters. You can find archives of the reports here. Many are still referenced today.

Newt felt the OTA had become too politicized and insignificant. Perhaps it had. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that one tiny little line in the legislative language crafted to form the OTA was ignored as the years passed. The OTA was created to provide a shared working space for scientists, policymakers and citizens in an effort to assess, to the best of our abilities, the potential opportunities and challenges inherent in an endless stream of emerging technologies…then to use that combined knowledge to better inform policies. Basically, to help us, as a nation, better anticipate some of the economic and societal implications of emerging technologies. But the “citizen input” never really happened. Turns out it was difficult to make this happen in the 1970s when the OTA was launched. This was before the Internet, mind you, and with a tiny budget, the OTA couldn’t regularly afford to fly people together for meetings of the minds. If public input had become a staple of the OTA, as was designed, is it possible the agency would not have been viewed as a politicized one? Perhaps the public would have rallied to save the agency when Newt issued his call to arms.

Not too long ago, I launched a national effort to reopen the OTA and it sparked a strong, well-organized movement within the science community now to lobby Congress to refund the OTA. On one hand, I was thrilled! Wait, let me back up a bit to tell you how I became obsessed with the OTA. Please bear with me for just a moment.

I stumbled upon the OTA as a graduate student at UPenn (this is me on graduation day with comedian Yakov Smirnoff, seriously!) where my History and Sociology of Science professor handed me an assignment to “write about the rise and the fall of the OTA.” I read virtually every piece of literature that existed and contacted many of the authors and former staffers of the OTA.

I even met with Newt Gingrich, Sen. Kennedy, Rep. Rush Holt and chatted with Rep. Vern Elhers and several of the architects of the OTA. I was convinced that Congress was lost a bit without its only source of dedicated, nonpartisan tech assessments and believed the Office should be refunded (it was never really killed by Congress…it was just stripped of its $23million +/- budget).

However, in this era of public participation, open source, collaboration, and transparency, I sought to open a new, decentralized, 21st Century OTA, one that would provide a mechanism to both inform the public and seek their input before Bills are posted for public comment (who really comments on posted Bills besides lobbyists and special interest groups anyway?). It’s not an entirely new idea. Richard Sclove, the founder of the Loka Institute, more than hinted at this suggestion back in the 80s. Ironically, following a major public, political and economic disaster surrounding the 1990s roll out of genetically modified foods in Europe, the E.U. opened parliamentary OTAs with a twist: the science and technology assessment undertaken by the experts at their OTAs often include citizen participation as this has been found to help assess risk, create a better informed public, and better understand societal implications of emerging technologies. All of which are key ingredients in good policy making decisions, no?  Do you want scientists or special interest groups to represent you and your questions/concerns societal impacts of science and emerging technologies? Congress knows no more than you do about these and many other scientific issues and they openly admit this. While I think it’s imperative for scientists to drive a discussion and impart their expertise on such matters, it’s equally vital that WE are afforded the opportunity to learn about and weigh in on these matters BEFORE Bills are created.
This is where the organizers of the current effort to reopen the OTA (the science community) and I differ. For the most part, they either do not understand or they don’t see the value in public participation. I can understand why if recent Town Hall meetings are what they’re basing their opinions on…but that’s not the type of participation I’m advocating for. I’m talking about a deliberate, well-constructed, inclusive approach that’s been proven to be successful in Europe (and even in China for crying out loud) and here in the U.S. although those efforts were not directly tied to Congress.

To advance this idea and help produce a “proof of concept,” Science Cheerleader teamed up with the Boston Museum of Science, Arizona Statue University, the Loka Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars to form ECAST: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology. We’re in the midst of our first, official activity tied to the World Wide Views on Biodiversity. If you’d like to learn more or get involved, please visit the website to sign up. It’s pretty exciting and I hope you’ll join in this evolving journey!

So where does Newt stand on the matter of the OTA today? Here’s a fairly recent video in which he suggests a few scientists on this side (R) and a few scientists on that side (D) would suffice as advisors. Dare I suggest this idea is worse than reopening the old OTA without public participation? Not only is he suggesting an “expert-only” approach, but a mere handful of experts at that. This former cheerleader can smell a clique a mile away

What do you think? Is there a better path forward, a shinier future for science policy making? Now, more than ever, let’s hope the answer is “yes.”

Hat tip to David Hartman for sending this recent article to us. David’s the former host of Good Morning America and widely sought-after speaker on all things aviation and beyond.

The article calls attention to a report in yesterday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which a study of first- and second-graders “suggests female elementary school teachers who lack confidence in their own math skills could be passing their anxiety along to the girls they teach.” Lead researcher,  Sian L. Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago, says because young students “tend to model themselves after adults of the same sex, having a female teacher who is anxious about math may reinforce the stereotype that boys are better at math than girls.” (Maybe moms who fear math should teach preteens, because it’s been my experience that daughters model the exact opposite preferences of their moms. But I digress.)

It’s worth noting that the math gender gap is narrowing and in fact some say there’s no such thing as a “math gender gap”. So how do we explain the fact girls and boys score roughly the same on standardized math tests until they reach high school? Until recently, girls in high school weren’t taking the same rigorous math courses that the boys were. Now that they are, scores are evening out. Yup, it’s that simple. Check out this piece from Time.

And remember what Rita-the-Eagles-Cheerleader/Mathematician taught us:

“2-4-6-8!”

“The sum is 20.”
Cheers!

Talk about a fun radio interview! Last week, the Science Cheerleader was featured on Weekend Workout (“a fun, entertaining, edifying and sometimes twisted look at the world of fitness, food, and supplements”).

My chat about science literacy, with the host Jose Antonio–who didn’t shy away from asking some provocative questions–followed a conversation on “functional underwear.” Success! Truth be told, it feels great each time I can spread the gospel of science to a new audience. Thanks Weekend Workout!

Yale’s official mascot (known as Handsome Dan XV11, or Sherman, if you live with him) was in Philly for the Yale v Penn game so I thought I’d help give him a science makeover with the help of Discover Magazine. He’s definitely an Ivy Leaguer. (Thanks, Keli, Churchill and Dana for your participation!)

See how Yale, Discover and the Templeton Foundation partnered up to explore this question: Does evolution explain human nature.

In the news.”Science’s Rah-Rah Gal:
Philly’s Darlene Cavalier Cheers for Discovery”

“A former 76ers cheerleader has taken up the cause for promoting science education among adults, and she is turning the old beauty vs. brains debate into a full-blown marketing campaign.”

That’s the lead-in to a recent feature article in Keystone Edge, a newspaper that “tells the story of the new economy in Pennsylvania–a narrative of creative people and businesses, new development, cool places to live, and the best places to work and play.  Each Thursday, the Web site and weekly online magazine presents original stories, video and photography to tell that story, from Pittsburgh to Philly.” This past Thursday, Science Cheerleader was featured.

Here’s the article, as reported by Rory Sweeney.

Do you know why cell phones work? Probably didn’t care either, which makes sense. People want things that simplify tasks without having to know how or why they work. It’s intrinsically what separates good products from bad ones.

But just because you don’t know exactly how you’re able to read this or why some fats are beneficial when others aren’t shouldn’t mean you stop wondering about all of the world’s why’s?.

Darlene Cavalier has hope for you.

Though she didn’t create the idea, she’s accepted her identity as the “Science Cheerleader” and taken to it, leading the crusade to bring science back to the masses and make analytical thought as routine as starting the car in the morning.

“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for people to weigh in on things, not at a federal level,” says Cavalier, who’s an advisor for business development at Discover magazine. “I felt like I had more to contribute to conversations, but I didn’t know what it was.”

So, in April, 2008, the Philadelphia resident started a website–the idea for the title came from another parent at her children’s school who has a marketing background.[Note from Darlene: "He" is Steve Grasse, CEO of mega ad agency, Quaker City Mercantile. ] He became interested in her desire to democratize science and quizzed her about herself to help develop a niche. When he stumbled across her somewhat-hidden past life as a cheerleader, he knew he’d found it.

“I kept it a secret. They’re two totally different worlds,” says the one-time pom-pon shaker for both Temple University and the Philadelaphia 76ers basketball team. “I was already dealing with stereotypes because I looked a little different than some other people who worked at Discover.”

Read: Hot vs. not so much. But almost more important was the vague stigma she feared her cheering past would create, as if she had been too frivolous then to be taken seriously now. “I know for myself, I really, really wanted to prove myself professionally,” she says.

But then add a few drinks at an office party and a chance run-in with an old teammate, and Cavalier was outed, showing off lifts and dance routines she had locked away years ago. Luckily, the office brass didn’t flinch. “They thought it was cool because I had already proved myself at Discover,” she says.

Proving she belonged was important to Cavalier because her bona fides were somewhat suspect. Her collegiate years probably appeared to be spent studying “mixology” and cheerleading, she admits, and aside from a temporary job stuffing envelopes, her first paying gig after school was on the 76ers dance team, from the 1991-92 through the 1993-94 seasons.

While traveling with the team and dancing for thousands of fans every night was fun, Cavalier knew it was a short-term assignment. As it turned out, it was the temp position that landed her not only permanent work, but her calling. She was stuffing envelopes for scientists applying for awards from Discover, which forced Cavalier to interact with them. Invariably, their conversations gravitated toward explanations of the scientists’ work, and Cavalier became convinced that other regular people could be interested in this science-y stuff if they had the same level of interaction.

Fast forward: Cavalier is hired full-time by Discover when it’s purchased by the Walt Disney Co. and she goes to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania to study public interaction with science. One of her main research topics is why the federal Office of Technology Assessment failed miserably–so miserably, in fact, that most people didn’t even know it existed before it was defunded by Congress in 1995.

By the time she graduates in 2005, she has her answer: “Part of studying the OTA was studying the criticisms,” she says. “Part of the reason people feel it was shot down is it had no public support. I was hoping somebody was pushing for a 21st-century OTA.”

When she found no one, she became that somebody. While her Web site began as a forum to discuss science issues and raise interest among her friends, it quickly morphed into a convention-breaking beast with three goals: increase adult science literacy, enhance citizen involvement in research and reopen a public-friendly OTA.

To increase literacy, Cavalier approached George Mason University physics professor (and author of various books on adult science education) James Trefil, who helped design a “brain makeover”–18 important science principles, whose descriptions are made easier to digest with a little help from the current 76ers dance team, followed by a 26-question test on what’s really important in the world.

The ladies don’t say much. Sample line: “No. 6, Atoms are bound by electron glue,” says blonde Melanie in a subtle but spot-on Philadelphia drawl–but the eye candy is just the spoonful of sugar.

“If we want to move the needle on these issues, we need to be real and realize what motivates people,” Cavalier says.

Does that have to mean selling sex, an idea implicit in using beautiful cheerleaders? “I’m happy to get the lowest common denominator, but I don’t aim for them,” she says.

Rest assured, Cavalier is aware of the incongruity between cheerleading and scientific endeavors–her 11-year-old daughter already “automatically thinks: science equals geek.” The stereotype clash of all-bimbo-no-brain vs. all-science-no-fun is one she plays with on the site. “With Science Cheerleader, it’s like making fun of myself–that Legally Blonde” idea, she says.

But make no mistake; she didn’t start out so self aware. Her early life was firmly entrenched in the carefree, mentally unencumbered world of cheer and all it entails. “I never knew what an engineer was until I went to college,” she says. “I thought it was a train conductor.”

So she pulls from that to engage her audience. They probably got turned off in high school, she reasons, perhaps because they were bored, or maybe just interested but terrified. Either way, her goal is to rekindle that flame.

“I’m saying it is not too late; why do I have to wait for my kids to change the world if I could be weighing in right now if I had access to the right information,” she says. “There are a lot of me out there, I think.”

Must be. The videos have received at least 10,000 views, and she’s making inroads with the Philadelphia Eagles, getting former defensive standout Hugh Douglas to star in a few videos.

The site also boasts a search engine of real science research projects in which regular people can participate, as well as Cavalier’s research into townhall-style science forums in Denmark that she believes could be the model for the improved OTA.

There is criticism, she acknowledges: “mostly feminists,” but also scientists. “To be honest with you, I think there’s jealously. I think they missed the bigger point,” she says. “There is an element of territorialism: ‘Let us have this.’ The point isn’t to take away.” But she admits that it could simply be her perspective: “Maybe if I were on the other side, I would agree.”

Still, she doesn’t regret being a lightning rod for the changing culture of science.

“You can break these two stereotypes; you can blend these two worlds,” she says. “This is just a personal endeavor, and I think that makes it more legit and trustworthy for people because I’m not getting anything out of this. I don’t think I could have been doing what I’m doing now without everything leading up to it.”

Rory Sweeney writes on energy and the environment when he’s paid to and sits around talking about them when he’s not. Send feedback here.

My podcast interview with Sean from ScienceChat (Ireland). In this piece we talk about science literacy and citizen involvement in science policy. That was fun, Sean! Although, for some reason, I sound a little like Hillary Clinton when. she. was. on. the. campaign. trail. (Very de-li-ber-ate delivery.)

One week ago today, the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council held a public briefing and symposium to release the report “Engineering in K-12 Education:  Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects.”  The report assesses the value of developing and implementing engineering curricula for kindergarten through grade 12.  The report also describes what engineering concepts children are able to understand and at what age, and provides an analysis of more than a dozen engineering curriculum projects.

Access the report for free online or listen to the webcast of the event.

On a related note, recently, a friend and extraordinary man David Hartman forwarded to me an Aviation Week and Space Technology article. Hartman, a former cohost of Good Morning America, is the tall man pictured here with a VERY pregnant, fat me…it was yeeeeaaars ago, OK!?  Recognize MIT’s Marvin Minsky, Penn and Teller, ABC’s John Stosell, Robin Roberts and Antonio Mora? Hartman and Mora cohosted the Discover Technology Awards, a program I directed. But I digress… the article’s written by Norman Augustine, an engineer and former CEO of Lockheed Martin, who addresses his “concerns about the impacts current trends will have on his field.” *

If you’ve stayed through that intro, you deserve a mind-boggling excerpt from this article: “Students in grades 5-8 have a 98% chance of having a science teacher who does not have a degree in science.”

Read the piece titled Race to the Bottom and take note that it’s not all bad news. In fact,  I’ll be back with a look at how and why U.S. adults are outpacing other nations when it comes to science literacy…while our kids continue to lag far behind.  (9/29 addition: Here’s a related article on Why the World Needs More Engineers. Thanks, subscriber Bart, for sending this to us.)

*Augustine and Hartman go back to 1987 when Hartman produced a prime time documentary on National Defense and the U.S. Military.  I should mention that Hartman wants readers to know that it was Tony Borotto, a retired aviator, who sent him Augustine’s article.

Want to support science literacy, citizen science, and participatory science and technology policy? Have I got a deal for YOU!

Buy a ScienceCheerleader.com T-shirt. (Pass the Science Cheerleader’s Brain Makeover adult science literacy quiz and get $4 bucks off the price.)

Send us a picture of you or a pal WEARING the shirt and we will post it here on sciencecheerleader.com.

GOOOO Science!

An interactive report from Sarah:

This week,  BBC News released findings from a poll indicating that 80% of British parents have been stumped by a science question posed by their children and 20% of those parents admitted to feeling silly when they were not able to produce an answer. Also, more than half of the 1,002 parents surveyed felt their children knew more about science than they did!

So, what’s the big deal if some adults just don’t know science?  Among other reasons, understanding some basic science principles allows citizens to participate in democracy more fully.  I could cite many political issues that are worth the effort it takes to research and understand the basic scientific principles involved in each of them. (“Effort” is very loosely defined here to include something as simple as watching these 76ers cheerleader videos and reading Professor Trefil’s related short blog posts on 18 big science ideas “every adult needs to know to be a science literate”.)  I’ve preached about this here on ScienceCheerleader.com but, until now–as a newlywed–never considered the possibility that knowing random scientific facts about the world around us will come in handy when David and I decide to have children. Because of our professions (we’re both researchers) we will be prepared to answer our child’s questions, such as: Why’s the sky blue? What makes a rainbow?  These were two of the top three most challenging questions in the BBC News poll.

I find this study both surprising and alarming because there are little resources to combat this problem.  Children will eventually get their questions answered by their teachers in school…but how will the parents brush up?  Short of going back to school, there are very few resources available for parents to learn more about the every day scientific wonders that surround us all…until now.

This survey of UK parents with children aged five to 16 marked the launch of a website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The website, called Science: So what? So everything, gives information to parents on answering those tricky questions from children, as well as downloadable activity sheets and ideas of places to visit (in the UK only, sorry). The website’s goals are not unlike ours here at ScienceCheerleader.com and it’s an excellent resource to learn, among other things, answers to the questions that stumped THOSE parents (not you, of course):
How are babies formed? The website explains that “babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or fuse. After the two cells fuse, the site goes on, they divide over and over again to create a ball of cells called an embryo that goes on to become a baby that grows inside the mother for nine months.
How are rainbows are created? “A rainbow is made from light and water – with help from the sun.”
And, why is the sky blue? “Because the sun produces white light which is made up of all the colors of the rainbow. But a clear, cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more easily than they do red light.”

I polled my (very small) group of friends that have young children, and found that of the non-scientists, 2/3 of them felt like their child will have more knowledge than them about the environment and basic scientific principles once they enroll in school. When I asked my friend Rachel if this fact bothered her, she winked and said, “They always warn you parenting is a learning experience. I guess I’ll brush up on my science too while I’m at it.”

So how about it, readers? Do your kids seem to know more than you about why the sky is blue and other everyday science questions? Have you ever been stumped by a science question your kid has asked? If so, tell your story here in the comments section, below (click on “comment”). Be sure to respond with any question that continues to stump you. I’ll write a follow-up piece answering any of the questions that come up.

Some of you have asked to see the video of the Two Cultures event at the NY Academy of Sciences (I was a panelist for the Science and Policy discussion). Two main architects of this event were Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, authors of Unscientific America, a book on the crisis of scientific illiteracy. Speaking of which, see how YOU stack up against others who’ve taken this brief, basic science literacy quiz.

Here’s a note from Shawn Otto, CEO of Science Debate, and a link to the videos.

On May 9, 2009 we co-organized and co-hosted a conference with our friends at the New York Academy of Sciences marking the 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” lecture.   Snow famously complained of a “gulf of mutual incomprehension between science and the humanities.”

That gulf now exists between science and policymaking, and in an age when the world’s greatest challenges revolve around science and engineering, it must be overcome.  This is the focus of our work at Science Debate.

The conference proceedings, including video of the presentations, are now up at the New York Academy of Sciences website.  We hope you can join us online as we explore issues and strategies, with keynote addresses by:

Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson
former Congressman John Porter
Segway inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen

And panel explorations with an all-star line-up:

Cultural History
Moderator
D. Graham Burnett, Professor of History, Princeton University
Panelists
Ann Blair, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Harvard University
Lawrence Krauss, Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University
Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University
Guy Ortolano, Author, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain

Science Communication 101
Moderator
Corey Powell, Editor in Chief, Discover Magazine
Panelists
Paula S. Apsell, Executive Producer of NOVA, Director of WGBH Science Unit
Ira Flatow, Executive Producer & Host, NPR’s Science Friday
Andrew Revkin, Environment Reporter, The New York Times
Carl Zimmer, Author and Science Essayist

Political Science
Moderator
Chris Mooney, Co-author, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
Panelists
Darlene Cavalier, Founder, ScienceCheerleader.com
Matthew Chapman, Darwin descendent, filmmaker, author, founder Science Debate 2008
Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist and Director, Scientific Integrity Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Shawn Otto, Co-founder and CEO, Science Debate 2008; filmmaker
John Porter, Chair of Research!America’s board of directors and Partner in Hogan & Hartson’s DC law office

Education and Citizenship
Moderator
Sheril Kirshenbaum, Co-author, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
Panelists
Stacy Baker, Biology Teacher, Calverton School, Huntingtown, MD
Kevin Finneran, Editor-in-Chief, Issues in Science and Technology, the policy journal of the National Academies
Adrienne Klein, Co-Director, Science & the Arts, The Graduate Center of The City University of New York
Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology, Duke University

Don’t miss this unique and important event – and if you think this kind of discussion is helpful, please contribute!