Association Of Village Idiots

Is Science a “so last week” thing in the USA

I grew up listening to shortwave radio. I lived my entire life in a few midwestern states of the US. I would often listen with an earphone late at night in bed as a child. The next morning I would be groggy and struggling to stay awake over my breakfast of frosted flakes. I would only fully wake up after a mad dash to the school bus through the cold morning air.

On my meager newspaper delivery and lawn mowing income I would about once a year upgrade my radio in an attempt to pull in more stations. I also became quite good at assembling wires and pieces of scrap metal into all forms of antennas. Most of them did nothing to help but always a select few improved the reception and I could pull in stations I had not heard before.

My favorite type of shows were the pure science shows. One of them is still going to this very day in much the same format. A Canadian show called “Quirks and Quarks” hosted by Bob McDonald.

I did not notice at the time but now looking back there were very few shows on US shortwave stations about science. There were a few here and there however none that even made an impression enough to remember the name of any particular show. Among the UK stations I could recieve there were many shows also Australia and Canada had a nice selection. Many of these shows still live on through the internet and podcasting for those who do not wish to fiddle with shortwave radios and strain their ears as the signal fades in and out.

I think as a young boy had I been more aware I would have seen the beginning of a trend that is so obvious now. America seems to have little interest in hard science. There are a few of us who do, but it is a very small number. It seems we have entered the age of “Infotainment” here. Now, I am not saying that isn’t prevalent elsewhere as my overseas friends have told me. It’s not just an American trend. However, I still see that other major English speaking countries have not yet dumped the hard science shows.

No better example of this thinking exists than the Texas “big hole” where we at one time were going to have a tevatron super collider. By the time we have finished filling the hole back in I wouldn’t doubt the cost would be over a third of what we would have spent finishing it. Maybe we just don’t deserve it to be here. Why not have it in Europe where it is close to the young scientists who grew up listening to science shows produced in their country or close by.

Chuck Howard (The Token Yank)