Collaborating during turbulent times

Abstract

These are tumultuous times. As I write the stock markets of the world are rebounding after the biggest loss ever recorded in yesterday’s debacle in the US Congress when legislators failed to pass a $700 billion bailout for a flagging economy. Ripple effects, having the impact of a tsunami, rattled economies around the world, once again reminding us of the global networks that characterize today’s social life. Also, political life is constantly in the minds of the citizenry in the US as politicians compete with one another in the build-up to the November presidential elections. Of salience to science educators, in addition to a search for alternative energy resources, addressing global warming, and resolving pandemics such as AIDS, is the recurring issue of teaching creation science and defining the boundaries between science and religion. In fact Sarah Palin, a candidate for Vice President in the US elections, once suggested: ‘‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’’ (Kizzia 2006) While comments made by Palin in the Gubernatorial race in Alaska in 2006 may seem somewhat remote to science education in 2008, the Governor’s candidacy for Vice-President has raised the specter of yet another push for the teaching of creation science, intelligent design, or some other version of creationism as part of the science curriculum. It is easy to assume that this is what Governor Palin really meant, especially in the heat of political name-calling and nanometer deep exploration of issues. But something vaguely similar occurred just last week in Britain. Michael Reiss, an ordained clergyman and a biologist, resigned from Britain’s Royal Society because a furore erupted when, in a speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he said that: