In the productive sectors of the economy， though， the story is often different. There are furniture factories， for example， in danger of going out of business—not because there are no customers， but because so few entry-level workers can do simple arithmetic. A major electronics company reports that 80 per cent of its job applicants can’t pass a fifth-grade mathematics test. The United States already is losing some 40 billion a year （mainly in lost productivity and the cost of remedial education） because workers， to too great a degree， can’t read， write， count or think.
In a survey by the US National Science Board of 139 high technology companies in the United States， the chief causes of the research and development decline attributable to national policy were （1） lack of a long- term strategy for dealing with the problem； （2） too little attention paid to the training of future scientists and engineers； （3） too much investment in ‘defence’， and not enough in civilian research and development； and（4） too little attention paid to pre-college education. Ignorance feeds on ignorance. Science phobia is contagious.
Those in America with the most favourable view of science tend to be young， well-to-do， college-educated white males. But three-quarters of new American workers in the next decade will be women， nonwhites and immigrants. Failing to rouse their enthusi-asm， to say nothing of discriminating against them， isn’t only unjust， it’s also stupid and self- defeating. It deprives the economy of desperately needed skilled workers.
African-American and Hispanic students are doing significantly better in standardized science tests now than in the late 1960s， but they’re the only ones who are. The average maths gap between white and black US high school graduates is still huge—two to three grade levels； but the gap between white US high school graduates and those in say， Japan， Canada， Great Britain or Finland is more than twice as large （with the US students behind）. If you’re poorly motivated and poorly educated， you won’t know much—no mystery there. Suburban African-Americans with college- educated parents do just as well in college as suburban whites with college- educated parents. According to some statistics， enrolling a poor child in a Head Start programme doubles his or her chances to be employed later in life； one who completes an Upward Bound programme is four times as likely to get a college education. If we’re serious， we know what to do.
What about college and university？ There are obvious steps to take： improved status based on teaching success， and promotions of teachers based on the performance of their students in standardized， double-blind tests； salaries for teachers that approach what they could get in industry； more scholarships， fellowships and laboratory equipment； imaginative， inspiring curricula and textbooks in which the leading faculty members play a major role； laboratory courses required of everyone to graduate； and special attention paid to those traditionally steered away from science. We should also encourage the best academic scientists to spend more time on public education—textbooks， lectures， newspaper and magazine articles， TV appearances. And a mandatory freshman or sophomore （firstor second-year） course in sceptical thinking and the methods of science might be worth trying.
The mystic William Blake stared at the Sun and saw angels there， while others， more worldly， ‘perceived only an object of about the size and colour of a golden guinea’. Did Blake really see angels in the Sun， or was it some perceptual or cognitive error？ I know of no photograph of the Sun that shows anything of the sort. Did Blake see what the camera and the telescope cannot？ Or does the expianation lie much more inside Blake’s head than outside？ And is not the truth of the Sun’s nature as revealed by modern science far more wonderful： no mere angels or gold coin， but an enormous sphere into which a million Earths could be packed， in the core of which the hidden nuclei of atoms are being jammed together， hydrogen transfigured into helium， the energy latent in hydrogen for billions of years released， the Earth and other planets warmed and lit thereby， and the same process repeated four hundred billion times elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy？
The blueprints， detailed instructions， and job orders for building you from scratch would fill about 1，000 encyclopedia volumes if written out in English. Yet every cell in your body has a set of these encyclopedias. A quasar is so far away that the light we see from it began its intergalactic voyage before the Earth was formed. Every person on Earth is descended from the same not-quite-human ancestors in East Africa a few million years ago， making us all cousins.
Whenever I think about any of these discoveries， I feel a tingle of exhilaration. My heart races. I can’t help it. Science is an astonishment and a delight. Every time a spacecraft flies by a new world， I find myself amazed. Planetary scientists ask themselves： ‘Oh， is that the way it is？ Why didn’t we think of that？’ But nature is always more subtle， more intricate， more elegant than what we are able to imagine. Given our manifest human limitations， what is surprising is that we have been able to penetrate so far into the secrets of Nature.
Nearly every scientist has experienced， in a moment of discovery orsudden understanding， a reverential astonishment. Science—pure science， science not for any practical application but for its own sake-is a deeplyemotional matter for those who practise it， as well as for those nonscientists who every now and then dip in to see what’s been discovered lately.
And， as in a detective story， it’s a joy to frame key questions， to work through alternative explanations， and maybe even to advance the process of scientific discovery. Consider these examples， some very simple， some not， chosen more or less at random：