Its an aside, but it always frustrates me to hear about the cuts at NASA and how the budget simply won't allow this or that project when every city in America seems to think it needs an $800mm tax-payer funded arena to "stimulate the local economy."<p>No, you don't get moon bases, hover cars and cures for cancer. You spent your allowance on football, remember?
Important to whom? To the average person-in-the-street, the answer is no. Science isn't terribly entertaining, lacks an easily understood competitive aspect and isn't accessible. Football, on the other hand, is something people can and do play amongst themselves and can be watched/enjoyed at many levels of competition.<p>To society as a whole is a different question. But I'm not sure it leads to a different answer. Billions of people watched the World Cup over several weeks. I can't imagine science, short of things like positive-net-energy fusion or curing AIDS having anywhere near that much interest.<p>I've studied science and have been fortunate enough to be able to create scientific software. I'm also comfortable with allowing people to do what they want, and pay attention to what they want. I'm not able to do football professionally, but I can (and do) do this science stuff professionally. Different strokes for different folks, eh?
Let's not confuse science and NASA too much in the discussion here I'd say. Flying the existing shuttle back and forth to space for 3 decades is as much dog and pony as it is science.<p>I'd like to agree with part of this article though. The science olympiad would have been a LOT more fun if the contest was to create the biggest explosion instead of the strongest toothpick bridge.
I thought the title was flamebait. ARE YOU KIDDING! science is more important than football. But once I went through the article, he does make some valid points.<p>I just wish that he hadn't inserted so many pics from his new book - now the article smells of a sales job. His argument should stand independent of his book
My middle school was willing to make us play frisbee dodgeball (with the expected results), and then spent millions tearing apart a couple of classrooms after some kids dropped mercury on the floor and stomped on it.<p>I think Phys. Ed. would be a good target level for danger in the classroom.
His complaint is that science education is boring, but the same could be said for any number of subjects in school. The irony is that it's the same scientists who've created performance targets for educators to hit in the form of standardized testing. This has led to unimaginative teaching and a strictly check-box approach to learning by running down a long list of curriculum items in a very limited time frame.
Interesting analogy. I would say the danger isn't quite in students injuring themselves in the classroom as much as it is giving destructive chemicals to students. Sure some of them can handle it, but the deviant ones will create havoc given the opportunity. In football there is a certain physical discipline allowed, where as in science its just the principals office, which can be better than class. Good analogy, but I think far from raising the argument...