Kelvin Wade

Kelvin Wade
This week is National Science Week, in Australia. The United States doesn’t have one.
Oh, we used to, but it petered out and Congress hasn’t gotten their act together enough to create another. It’s a shame because we need stronger science literacy in this country. It’s time we stop embracing ignorance.
The problem is dire. Only 33% of California students meet or exceed state science standards. In the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District it’s even lower at 26.85%. It shouldn’t be that way because few subjects evoke curiosity and wonder like science can.
I was hooked on science in Mr. Gaut’s and Mr. Jones’ science classes at Grange. With Mr. Jones I wondered how an adult man could be so excited by clouds. But even today, when I’m looking at cumulus, stratus or cumulonimbus clouds, I think of Mr. Jones. He helped spark that interest.
Sure, it sounds nerdy, but let me give you some cool science facts to blow your mind. You’ve never seen the sun in real time. You’re seeing it as it appeared 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago because that’s how long it takes its light to travel to Earth. A single cloud can weigh over a million pounds.
Did you know all of our solar system’s known planets would fit between the earth and our moon with many miles to spare? Did you know that Venus’ day is longer than its year? The atoms of your body were forged in stars billions of years ago. Some of the atoms in your body predate the Earth. The same atoms you breathe now could’ve been breathed by George Washington, Gandhi, Jesus Christ and the dinosaurs. You’re drinking water made of molecules that Neanderthals drank.
But wait, there’s more. It’s likely that it rains diamonds on Neptune and Uranus. A teaspoon of matter from a neutron star is so dense it would weigh billions of tons on Earth. Lightning is much hotter than the surface of the sun. The Sahara Desert used to have lush grasslands, rivers and lakes.
Your stomach lining continually replaces itself so your stomach doesn’t digest it. Bananas are slightly radioactive. The difference in DNA between you and anyone else on the planet is only 0.1%. Sharks are older than trees. And speaking of trees, there are more trees on Earth (3 trillion) than stars in the Milky Way (100 to 400 billion).
Science is strange, gobsmacking and beautiful.
Science tells us that honey doesn’t spoil; that 3,000-year-old honey found in Egyptian tombs is still edible. We live closer to the time of T-Rex than T-Rex lived to Stegosaurus. Humans have roughly the same number of hair follicles as a chimpanzee. You produce about a liter of mucus per day, and you swallow it. And did you know that you have blind spots in your vision, and your brain simply fills in what it figures should be there?
These are wild but true facts about the universe you live in. But science isn’t a laundry list of cool facts. It’s a method of thinking. Critics are quick to point out when science gets things wrong. And it does. But you know what corrects bad science? Better science.
The point of science is to arrive at the truth and if a long held “truth” is revealed to be false by new research, then we reject the old answer and embrace the new. New and better data should change minds.
“I don’t know” is a perfectly good scientific answer. It’s OK to not know. We use science to find the answer and until we do, I don’t know is the appropriate response.
Science tells us that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the late ‘80s, I, along with my Regional Occupational Program instructor, watched a UFO flying over the Twin Sisters. Was it aliens flying over Vacaville? I can’t say that. Science tells me it was an unidentified object. So, I don’t know.
With science, one has to be skeptical, especially of things they want to be true. The evidence and conclusions are the evidence and conclusions no matter what scientists may believe. It’s not about belief. It’s about what can be proven and replicated.
There’s a cost to being scientifically illiterate. There’s a price to be paid in storms, fires, crop damage and lives when we deny manmade climate change is happening when the data clearly demonstrates it is. There’s a human cost when we reject vaccines that are safe, effective, don’t cause autism and save lives. There’s a cost to our health when we eat ultra-processed foods, pretending they’re as nutritious as whole foods. There’s a cost in trust and societal cohesion when we embrace conspiracy theories instead of letting the facts speak.
And there’s another cost. The National Science Board says China has surpassed the U.S. in STEM student production. According to the National Science Foundation, China produced about 31% of the world’s S&E research articles in 2024, compared with 12% for the United States. To maintain our technological edge, we have to do better.
Can we just leave science to AI? AI is a game-changing development, but it can be wrong. Way off. You should always verify claims no matter who or what makes them.
Science is fun. It’s not enough to just know all of these amazing facts, but to learn how these facts were derived. And you may disbelieve some of the facts I’ve mentioned in this column. Research them yourself. Science shouldn’t teach us to just trust scientists (or columnists). It should teach us to trust evidence.
Embrace this world of wonder and our country and society will be better for it. Peace.
Kelvin Wade, a writer and former Fairfield resident, lives in Sacramento. Reach him at Kelvinjwade@outlook.com.
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