Scientific literacy: We must not allow such a large proportion of ignorant people who believe in false beliefs

Dr. Dan Ben David, an economist from Tel Aviv University, says in response that Israel lags behind the Western world in labor productivity and growth, due to the low level of knowledge in mathematics and science

James Nash, one of the editors of the American InformationWeek writes on January 20, 2003, that half of the adults in the United States do not know how long it takes the Earth to go around the Sun. This is according to a study by the National Science Foundation NSF. In fact, a previous survey by the NSF from 2001 showed that 42 percent of adults said they were unable to understand areas of science and technology - and this while literacy in these two areas resulted in a positive effect high on the level of health and the economy.
Joe Schwartz, director of the Office of Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal, says that ignorance and rejection of technology and science are harming development in these two areas.
NSF says better communication and dissemination of these issues could reverse the trend. The American Standards Institute recently assembled a panel of scientists, journalists, educators, and others to bring together the efforts of all who know how to communicate well with those in the dark. The panel's report was recently published and it called for a two-way relationship with all media channels, and among other things to link in the public's mind between science and the improvements in our daily lives, and to do this in a better way than just preaching.
"A lot of people feel uncomfortable," said Jesse Gordon, a senior systems analyst at the consulting firm Technology Planning & Management. According to him, those involved in teaching science are so immersed in the material that they have lost the ability to convey the subject in good communication, and in a way that people can digest it."
Gordon says that it is necessary to popularize science and technology, perhaps even in the way that Stephen Hawking does it. Schwartz, a chemist, is one of the popularizers: he has a weekly radio show where he answers listeners' questions in the field of science.
"I've learned that you can't communicate with those who have very strong beliefs, like the strong believers in astrology or those who claim the moon landing was a hoax, but you can educate people before they get to that stage. According to him, children and adults need vocabulary to think critically.
Both Schwartz and Gordon comment that the Internet is the main source of misinformation, however, they say, as the world learns how to evaluate the correct information from the unimportant information, the Internet will be a very important tool in the fight against superstitions and misconceptions.
Gordon says that in a conversation with such a person, things must be explained to him so that he understands that his belief is absurd. For example, a person who claims that the earth is flat, should ask, where do those who reach the edge fall?
Schwartz is not moved by the fact that the number of alternative beliefs about the world is increasing. According to him, in percentage terms, the proportion of illiterates in the population today is no different from what it was 100 years ago. The communication options have multiplied many times over in the meantime, thus allowing more people to make their voices heard.
This may be true, but the question is whether in a technological century like the twentieth century, why this rate did not fall sharply.

Intermediate: Ignorant even in the Holy Land
Dr. Dan Ben David, an economist in the public policy program at Tel Aviv University, says that Israel lags behind Western countries both in the number of workers (that is, in the percentage of the population in the workforce) and in the quality of their work, as measured by productivity per working hour.
Dr. Ben David has been researching for about seven years the source of income inequality and poverty in Israel and why growth is so low.
"For about thirty years, we have had relatively low growth rates compared to Western countries. In my opinion, education in the areas of the 'toolbox' has a very important role. In this context, we fall a little short. This is of course not the only explanation, but it is one of the main ones. In this context, many tend times to understand what the problem is. If you look at the level of universities, you see that it is in the global envelope, also in terms of the rate of students in universities and colleges. The main problem is what Learners are those who learn and who the learners are.
"Regarding the quality of education, the quality in elementary and secondary schools, especially in the elementary fields, is very poor, and we can see this by comparing the achievements of Israeli children in the fields of mathematics and science to those of children abroad. In this context, identical tests were given to children in grades 39 and 53, and if we compare ourselves, if in the eighties in grade eight we were in first place in mathematics, at the end of the nineties, Israel was in 10th place out of XNUMX countries. If we used to be above all the industrialized countries, today we are even below the countries from which we import foreign workers, such as Romania and Thailand, below Malaysia. In the US, the American average is about XNUMX percent higher than in Israel.
"In terms of income disparities, there is no doubt that the disparities in education are a factor. The standard deviation, that is, the disparities in achievements between the outstanding and the weak - in 49 of the 53 countries the disparities in results are much smaller than in ours. This is not the end of the story here either. If we look at the poverty rates - they Among the largest in the world and they have been increasing since the seventies. The candidates for being poor are the weakest among our students. If you compare the bottom five percent with the top five The lowest percentages in the rest of the world - we are in 46th place - which means that our weakest are also almost the weakest in the world.
"As for the outstanding ones - those who in a generation will lead the country - the top five percent in the 35th grade compared to the outstanding ones in other countries - XNUMXth place.
"In all cases, we are worse than all the industrialized countries and many more non-industrialized countries. Whoever thinks that he will be good with such an education in the basic fields, think again. High growth cannot exist when this is the level of education we provide, and if we do not take care to reduce the gaps, incomes and poverty - it will be It is very difficult to be an economy that competes with those countries when the ability of our children is poor."
According to Dr. Ben David, this study paints a relatively rosy picture of the situation in Israel, because the ultra-Orthodox students were not included in the sample at all.

What to do?

One of the things that also became clear - that the problem is not financial. Education expenses in Israel are among the highest in the Western world, and teachers' salaries are among the lowest. There is a problem with the money that disappears on the way to the teachers in the form of salary, but there is also a terrible lack of utilization of resources. Our emphasis is probably not in the right directions. We teach many things but little of everything. In particular, we do not emphasize the basic areas - knowing how to read, write, computer mathematics and English. These things get relatively little. In high school, some parents - those who have both the awareness and the means bypass the system and spend a huge fortune to give the children what the teachers do not give them. Who goes to universities? Only the children from this group.
Beyond the fact that this is a certificate of poverty for Israeli society that we do not allow everyone to reach their full potential, we are losing a tremendous pool of ability that is simply expressed in the fact that we are unable to maintain the growth rate of other countries. This can only get worse and worse as time goes by and a growing part fails to integrate into the labor market in an open and modern economy.
It's not just that unemployment rates are increasing for 30 years and it's not just that poverty rates are increasing and so is inequality. A growing part of the Israeli population does not have the tools to deal with an open economy.
To the site of Dr. Do Ben David, who is engaged in research on the Israeli economy