Is understanding science a necessity?

Carl Sagan’s, “Why We Need to Understand Science?” takes a different approach to get the reader into the writing.

Carl Sagan met somebody who is an average working man. In talking to this man, one can come to the realization that the average American doesn’t know a whole lot about science. Fact that prove this, is that American students are well bellow average in academics on a global scale. The world, unknowingly, is driven by science. Of course, science doesn’t always bring about good. For example, the creation of nuclear warheads, CFC’s, and Agent Orange. Therefore, there are many reasons people feel discomfited around science and technology. However, science is a way of thinking, and allows people to hypothesize on their own. The reason Americans are flunking, is the lack of scientific education. Partly is due to many of the teacher’s themselves don’t very well understand science. To fix this, more money is needed for teacher’s training and salaries, as well as laboratories. New generations need hands on training to fully understand the world of science. Currently high school students memorize facts, and most of them time are either afraid or are unable to take their own viewpoint on a subject and hypothesize. The reason why is because, when children are the age of asking questions that they themselves want to learn more about, they are often stopped in their tracks. Parent would rather tell their kids their question is pointless, then to say they themselves don’t know the answer. Children need to be encouraged to explore their questions more, and one day they will be able to possible answer questions that no one has done so before.

Carl Sagan was not only a renowned astronomer and astrophysicist, but also a science popularizer and science communicator. As such, he seeks to make science mainstream, and show others the importance of it. He is writing to absolutely everybody, or at the very least people who may have misconceptions of science. This essay was published in 1989, at the time when science was starting to need more attention in America. What best proves this is the titles of each section of the essay. “A Prescription for Disaster,” “Why Were Flunking,” “What Can We Do.”

This essay portray how science gives people the ability to think for themselves. Or rather, the absence of science causes the inability to think for oneself and improve oneself. The essay also understands the fact that sciences doesn’t always bring good. However, it is merely stating that the education of science is a necessity. Science is “much more then a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking”(13). The most important part of scientific education is the fact you gain the ability to think for yourself. This essay also shows the scope of the world and how much science plays a role in it other than education. Starting on page 12 onto page 13, Dr.Sagan brings up many major topics that are were going around at the time. Then brings up the question, “How can we decide national policy if we don’t understand the underlying issues?”(13) He is showing how science is needed for every major topic such as, going to mars, curing AID’s and cancer, fusion, supercomputers, even unimportant ‘high-resolution television.’

The video, “Pale Blue Dot” by Joel Somerfeild, in my opinion, perfectly exemplifies and reinforces Dr.Sagan’s thoughts. On our mote of dust, everything exists and is included. All of which is important to everyone on earth. Then it was exceedingly shown to be of mere in-importance to the universe. This shows the power of science, that the only way to prove our existences worth, or better yet, the only reason for our existence is to explore this universe in which we are a mere pale blue dot.