Fear
of Physics
Outside of jail, manacles or the stocks used
by Pilgrims to punish recalcitrant sinners, one of the most restricting
conditions for individuals is illiteracy. Women who can formulate
a business plan, practice law, write a book or help their oldest with
a research paper are unlikely to apply the concept to themselves. But
many have their beliefs, their ideas and their imagination shackled
by what might be called scientific illiteracy.
There are a number of hazy, rueful rationales for the deficiency
and a couple misguided but firmly held stances to support it. Many
women live with the vaguely ominous certainty that numbers and mathematical
relations only complicate things and should be avoided at all cost.
We are the product of generations of women who have been encouraged,
and sometimes required, to think women couldn’t, wouldn’t
and shouldn’t bother their pretty little heads with such heavy
stuff. The twentieth century psychosocial spin was praising little
girls for their early mastery and superiority of language skills. It
was understood that little boys rarely catch up verbally.
They’re too busy building rockets.
What science does is change the way we think about the world and
our place in it. If we allow ourselves to be denied access, we are
condemned to wander a hostile world in a heavy fog, under siege by
incomprehensible forces with equally incomprehensible consequences.
Whether it is electricity or electrons, x-rays or sound waves, the
more we know, the safer and more secure we are. What we don’t
know can and has hurt us. Everything we know helps us. The rules
of nature are the same, all the time, not arbitrary, not unpredictable.
They are the same on Monday as on Friday and when we understand them,
everything is easier.
Some people try to wall off science lest it erode faith, as though
the miracles of orbits and atoms and DNA aren’t even more astounding
when we figure them out. If it is amazing that God made a tree,
how much more amazing is it when we understand photosynthesis? What
could possibly be more miraculous than the exchange of oxygen and
carbon dioxide at the cellular level in the lungs? How incredible
is the structure of a DNA molecule and how it holds the blueprint
of humanity? Isn’t it wonderful that light has a
speed and that it can be measured? Isn’t it astonishing that
the force governing the motion of the earth around the sun is the
same that governs the sun around the galaxy?
Surely understanding should deepen faith, not destroy it.
Science is a creative, intellectual activity like art or music or
literature and the value of any cultural activity is how it enriches
our lives. The pleasure lies in experiencing the beauty, mystery
and adventure, the thrill of discovery and the rich satisfaction of
understanding. There is awe and appreciation.
Too many women have learned to fear science and dread math. But,
familiarity can breed comfort. Take the mystery out of math by thinking
about numbers in terms of what they represent, just like we do words.
At the very least, we should learn to appreciate the grand utility
of numbers. Insight- connections and relationships- is the goal, not
the equations and formulas we despised in school.
To be scientifically illiterate is to remain essentially uncultured. We
can’t understand nature just seeing one side of it anymore than
we can understand a person if we only know one thing about them. Understanding
in a variety of ways is the path to appreciating how the universe
works. Women have the right. They have the ability. They
have access to the information. Maybe all we need now is the courage
to face our old fears.
We have run out of excuses for ignorance.
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