The
Boston Forum on Science, Education, and Future Generations was a meeting
and workshop held at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 27, 28 September, 1995. The Forum's essays were published
in 1998 by Gordon & Breach in the form of a book entitled THE
THIRTEENTH LABOR: Improving Science Education, edited by E. Chaisson
and T-C Kim. What follows is the preface and front matter of that book.
For two days in the fall of 1995, a highly diverse and international group of invited guests came together at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in Cambridge, to discuss a broad and timely topic of interest to all people. The first Boston Forum on "Science, Education, and Future Generations" was designed to explore how we might improve science literacy among future citizens--and generally how we can foster a more humane, globally oriented society, given (or perhaps despite) the technological democracy in which most of us live. The objective was to convene a decidedly interdisciplinary cluster of broad thinkers to address the issue of how we can help build a better future for all humankind--and specifically what role science and technical education have, if any, in helping to ensure that better future.
Our spirited debate and deliberations were guided by an intentionally relaxed agenda, finding only fleeting foci within our wide-ranging conversations. This minimal structure was deliberate among the organizers, for we aimed to achieve a liberal interchange among a small gathering of eclectic individuals who had thought deeply and written about the issues at hand, off and on during the past many years, yet none of whom is considered an "expert" at the interface of science education and future studies. The objective was to seek fresh approaches, interdisciplinary crosstalk, a suite of new ideas, and to do so by recreating a forum of old--a free and open interaction among a score of wise men and women who hail from very different backgrounds and disciplines--scientists, educators, philosophers, diplomats, futurists, and theologians, among others, including Nobel laureates, businessmen, and high-school teachers.
No papers were read at the Boston Forum, no planned speeches given. The intent was to allow each participant the opportunity to have his or her say with maximum ease and comfort, yet also to allow others to interrupt the flow of discourse if so moved. The forum itself was facilitated by using the Council Room at the American Academy, where all 22active participants sat around a large octagonal table, engaging each other face-to-face without any obviously preferred orcentral location. Behind us, in an "outer orbit," were a dozen observers--mostly master pre-college teachers, who entered the conversations sparringly, just enough to keep our discussions relevant and useful to real-world objectives. All sessions were simultaneously translated into Japanese and English, and all were videotaped by NHK, Japan's public-broadcasting system.
The resulting intellectual atmosphere was stimulating and productive, the exchanges fruitful, indeed infectious at times. However and intentionally, there were no conclusions drawn, no recommendations rendered by the group as a whole. We wanted to brainstorm without restrictions, to think innovatively and creatively about the issues at hand, to draw from each other frank and candid feelings that otherwise might not be expressed at a more formal, academically oriented meeting having strong chairpersons, time limits, and prepared lectures.
The four sessions comprising the daily workshops were loosely arranged, each around a topic that we, the forum organizers, feel is central to the global problem of science illiteracy:
- The first session, featuring introductory remarks by all, held high the common query, What can science education do now for the well-being of future generations?
- The second session explored how we might achieve a better balance between the broader, integrated, interdisciplinary view of science that will likely better serve future generations and the current highly specialized model under which we all now labor.
- The third session examined novel, reformed educational programs and activities that are needed to better inform non-scientists about our technological world, as well as more systemically train scientists and technologists of future generations.
- And the fourth session sought to identify action items and specific plans to aid future generations in creating a more technically literate yet humanely oriented society--the kinds of things we can do now to lay the foundation for science and science education in the new world order.
Many of the papers collected here were written in light of the forum's lively discussions, often incorporating aspects of the wide spectrum of ideas and arguments expressed during the two days of nearly non-stop interchange on the ways and means that science and science education can better serve future generations. The daily working sessions continued during long breaks while walking through Norton's Woods at the Academy, and on into the evening at the nearby Harvard Faculty Club, aided and abetted by two provocative after-dinner speakers: Hungarian-Italian systems philosopher Ervin Laszlo and Swiss Nobel biologist Werner Arber.
The Boston Forum was only one of several working meetings occurring throughout the world in 1995, under the sponsorship of the Future Generations Alliance Foundation, a relatively new philanthropic organization dedicated to making planet Earth a more secure and hospitable home for present and future generations. The founder and chairman of the Foundation is a remarkable Japanese businessman, Katsuhiko Yazaki of Kyoto, whose aim is to affect change by means of innovative educational and social programs. Each of the forums addressed a different topic, such as environmental pollution, agricultural reclamation, and public policy issues, their common denominator being their global import; it was our task in this forum to consider issues concerning science, technology, and technical education.
In addition, the Boston Forum was pleased to have the support of the Fondation H. Dudley Wright, a Geneva-based institution dedicated, in part, to the creation and sharing of novel instructional techniques and interdisciplinary resources for pre-college science teachers. This foundation, one of whose principal vehicles of dissemination is the Wright Center for Innovative Science Education at Tufts University, underwrote an opening reception at the Hosmer House in Concord, Massachusetts, as well as provided administrative aid to help organize the forum, all of which was ably managed by Ms. Ellen Boettinger-Lang, the Program Coordinator for the Wright Center at Tufts.
We offer this volume of essays in the spirit of bettering East-West cooperation on global issues of importance to all humankind.
Eric J. Chaisson, Concord, Massachusetts
Tae-Chang Kim, Osaka, Japan
Boston Forum Attendees
Participants:
Werner Arber, biologist, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Willem Brouwer, retired optician, Lexington, Massachusetts
Eric Chaisson, astrophysicist and director, Wright Center, Tufts University
David Chen, biophysicist and science educator, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Vilmos Csanyi, geneticist, Oetvos University, Hungary
Julius Dasch, geologist and head of NASA's Space Grant Program, Washington
Freeman Dyson, physicist, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
David Ellis, chemist and president, Boston Museum of Science
Riane Eisler, cultural historian, Center for Partnership Studies, California
Andrew Fraknoi, astronomer and educator, Foothill College, California
Ursula Goodenough, biologist, Washington University, St. Louis
Dudley Herschbach, chemist, Harvard University
Kidou Inoue, Zen master and theologian, Kyoto
Tae-Chang Kim, head of Institute of Integrated Study of Future Generations, Kyoto
Ervin Laszlo, philosopher and systems theorist, Pisa, Italy
David Loye, psychologist, Institute for Futures Forecasting, California
Loyal Rue, philosopher and theologian, Luther College, Iowa
Brian Swimme, mathematician, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
Ronald Thornton, particle physicist and science educator, Tufts University
Uri Wilensky, mathematics/media educator, Tufts University
Janet Ward, cognition and head of Scientist as Humanist Project, New Hampshire
Katsuhiko Yazaki, chairman, Future Generations Alliance Foundation, Kyoto
Observers:
Scott Battaion, biology teacher and Wright Fellow, California
Mary Anne Church, biology teacher and Wright Fellow, Washington
Neil Glickstein, marine biology teacher and former Wright Fellow, Massachusetts
Ileana Jones, physics/astronomy teacher and former Wright Fellow, Massachusetts
Jamie Larsen, environmental teacher and Wright Fellow, Arizona
George Leonberger, chemistry/astronomy teacher and Wright Fellow, Texas
James MacNeil, geology and high-technology teacher, Massachusetts
Steve Metz, interdisciplinary science teacher, Massachusetts
Janet Kresl Moffat, biology teacher and former Wright Fellow, Massachusetts
Walter Stroup, physics teacher and former Wright Fellow, Massachusetts
Christopher Randall, earth science teacher and former Wright Fellow, Massachusetts
Ronnee Yashon, Educational Coordinator, Wright Center, Tufts University
Table of Contents:
Toward a Scienceless Society?
-Eric Chaisson
Transdisciplinarity in Science Education and in Science Communication
-Werner Arber
A Neglected, but Not Negligible, Responsibility of Science to Society and to Future Generations
-Ervin Laszlo
Toward an Empathic Science: The Hidden Subtext for Fundamental Educational Change
-Riane Eisler
Cosmological Education for Future Generations
-Brian Swimme
Tolstoy, Napoleon and Gompers
-Freeman Dyson
The Thirteenth Labor of Hercules
-Dudley Herschbach
Science Education and the Crisis of Gullibility
-Andrew Fraknoi
False Experts, Valid Expertise
-Ursula Goodenough
Confronting Complexity: A New Meaning to World Literacy
-David Chen
Sciences and the Future of Human Culture
-Vilmos Csanyi
The Guidance System of Higher Mind:
Implications for Science and Science Education
-David Loye
A Question of Will, Not Knowledge
-Janet Ward
Some Remarks about Education
-Willem Brouwer
Science Literacy for the Twenty-first Century: The Role of Science Centers
-David Ellis
Networking, Interdisciplinarity, and Scientific/Technical Literacy:Perspectives from the Space Program
-Julius Dasch
Why Don't Physics Students Understand Physics?
Building a Consensus, Fostering Change
-Ronald Thornton
Toward a Science-Friendly Society
-Loyal Rue