environmental studies: an annotated bibliography

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q 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0036-8326/98/060699-20

THE BOOKS

Hugh Munby, Thomas Russell, and Jeffrey W. Bloom, Section Editors

Environmental Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, by Diane M. Fortner, 1994. The Scare-crow Press, Inc., London, UK, and Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 169 pp. ISBN0-8108-2835-9.

Environmental Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, by Diane M. Fortner, is an excellent reviewof a wide selection of books on human beings and their relationship to the environment. The bookis intended as a library resource for high school and undergraduate students interested in knowingmore about environmental topics. It includes books from a wide range of subject areas. The orga-nization of the book is topical and chronological. Early publications focus on nature writing andenvironmental legal history. Books addressing current topics deal with recent environmental issuesthat appear in popular literature. The last section of the book focuses on the future and predictionsof the consequences of our actions. The author includes a wide selection of books that deal explicitlywith ecology and environmental science as well as social, political, and economic issues related toenvironmental degradation.

In her introduction, Diane Fortner expresses her deep concern for the future of the human raceand its dependence on the earth. She calls for active engagement of civilization in the care of natureand the best interest of our children’s future. Throughout the book, she calls attention to books thatcan help us educate young people, adults, and ourselves in basic ecological, social, economic,political, ethical, and moral considerations of the human/environmental condition. As the bookconsiders a range of carefully selected books on the subject of humans and their ecosystem, it alsoconveys the author’s values about the future of both the human race and the earth.

The three main sections of this book may simply be referred to as the past, the present, and thefuture. The first part, the past, includes examples of nature writing (both classic and modern),environmental history, legal history, general ecology, and background materials. The second sectionfocuses on present-day environmental concerns that are frequently reported by popular media. Thetopics include global warming, ozone depletion, garbage, acid rain, and tropical deforestation. Thefuture is addressed in the last section, where Fortner considers what various authors think must bedone to preserve nature, maintain, or improve the human ecological condition, and create a sus-tainable future. This section includes books on public policy, informed citizenry, steady-state ec-onomics and environmental ethics. The book selections are wide-ranging, interesting, andstimulating. The author freely admits that the collection is a selective grouping and that some titlesare missing.

The book is intended to point the reader in the right direction, to identify relevant topics forstudent research, and to provide a starting point for more in-depth investigations. References foundin each of the selections will prove useful to the student researcher. This book provides an excellentbackground and context for upper-level and undergraduate students to view the world. Most of thebook selections were published in the USA. The author provides very good geographic distributionof topics throughout the USA, including references to western water issues, northwest logging,everglades preservation, and eastern settlement patterns. However, students may fail to recognize

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cultural diversity with respect to various societies and their relationship to nature and the environ-ment. The author does include a few selections from Great Britain and other USA-published booksaddressing global issues.

Each chapter begins with a short introduction by the author in which she explains the contentsof the chapter and how they fit together. The first section of the bibliography, entitled “HumanInteraction with the Environment,” begins with reviews of the great naturalists. Following thepopular approach to educating young children about nature, the focus here is on insightful obser-vations guided by curiosity and joy in nature. The authors whose books have been selected forreview represent wide geographical and philosophical perspectives, yet they also reflect a commonunderstanding of and respect for nature. The first section of the book includes many of the greatestnature writers, including Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Ralph Waldo Emerson,Stephen Jay Gould, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Gary Snyder, and Henry David Thoreau. The secondpart of the first section focuses on environmental history and addresses the impact of many of theauthors previously mentioned. The next section, “Topical Environmental Issues,” includes booksthat address what you might expect to hear about on the evening news. This provides a good placefor students to begin their work with topics they may already know something about. The sub-headings for this chapter are Atmospheric and Climactic Change, Biodiversity, Endangered Animalsand Plants/Tropical Deforestation, Ocean Pollution, Localized Issues (transnational, national, re-gional, local), the Water Cycle (acid rain and groundwater pollution), Waste, Household Garbageand Toxic Industrial Waste, Air Pollution, Ambient Air Pollution, and finally Indoor Air Pollution.This is the largest section of the book. Interestingly, some of the books in this section were writtenby journalists or news teams who first became aware of an environmental issue in the course oftheir work and wanted to bring citizens more complete and better information on the topic. Thissection includes books by Barry Commoner, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Bill McKibben, and AndrewRevkin.

The section entitled “The Environment and the Future” completes the book. Selections includedhere have the greatest conceptual diversity, ranging from the description of sustainable developmentthrough the political system by the World Commission on Environment and Development to in-dividual aesthetic, existential, and ethical contexts of environmental issues. Books reviewed includeworks by Al Gore, Barry Commoner, Dave Foreman, James Lovelock, and Jeremy Rifkin. Manyof the books reviewed in this final section were written with a view to providing readers with theknowledge necessary to bridge the gap between our current ecological condition and a positive,sustaining future. They provide an excellent resource for students to consider critically their personalbehaviors and their consequences as well as those of our society generally.

Environmental Studies: An Annotated Bibliography is an excellent resource for students who areinterested in learning more about the environment, our human condition, and our common future.The book would be a valuable addition to high school, college, and university libraries. It providesconcise, well-organized summaries of many of the outstanding books in the field. Diane Fortnerhas done an excellent job of selecting books for inclusion, writing summaries and providing in-sightful comments that allow the reader to determine the usefulness of each book while also stim-ulating interest in reading the selections.

MICHAEL BRODYMontana State UniversityBozeman, MT, USA

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Making Sense: Simulation-of-Research in Organic Chemistry Education, by Hanno van Keu-len, 1995. CD-b Press, Center for Science and Mathematics Education, Utrecht University,Utrecht, The Netherlands. vii 1 239 pp. ISBN 90-73346-24-X.

Making Sense: Simulation-of-Research in Organic Chemistry Education, by Hanno van Keulen,was published as part of the CD-b Series on Science Education. The book reflects on the devel-opment and implementation of laboratory instruction for first-year university students destined todo research in chemistry. van Keulen, who identifies himself as a “content-oriented researcher,” isaffiliated with the Department of Chemical Education at Utrecht University.

The introduction provides a brief overview on the content and organization of the book’s eightchapters. The second chapter, “The Cookbook Problem,” identifies problems traditionally associatedwith organic chemistry laboratory instruction, including a fundamental problem: Although studentscan follow laboratory manuals and obtain desirable yields, they often fail to make sense of theorganic synthesis process. “A Hermeneutic Framework,” the third chapter, unravels van Keulen’sphilosophy of science education. Applying the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer toscience education, he proposes a departure from objectivist education. The cookbook problem, theauthor argues, is a consequence of objectivist education, which encourages a view based on transferof established facts from textbooks and teachers to students. In chapter 4, “Methodology,” the authorreviews current theoretical frameworks and research methodologies in science education. He crit-icizes constructivism and cognitivism, and thereby extends his argument for the application ofhermeneutics in organic chemistry laboratory instruction.

“Interpretation,” the fifth chapter, describes Esters, an educational context based on the herme-neutic framework and implemented with Utrecht students. This context is grounded in a simulation-of-research approach “that builds on a conception of education characterized by issuing discourseon the bases of explicated experiences and on a conception of chemistry as a research activity basedon questions and hypotheses” (p. 117). Problems, questions, and conjectures are to guide students’activities within the laboratory environment, just as they guide scientists’ actions in actual research.In chapter 6, “Understanding,” the author revises Esters to provide students with more opportunityto understand various relations in stages of organic synthesis, particularly between formation andpurification.

Chapter 7, “Application,” introduces another educational context, called Ethers. In this context,students use and extend their understanding of Esters to work on discovering a new reaction typeand new elements of synthesis-planning. Particular shortcomings of the simulation-of-research ap-proach are illustrated, and potential remedies are proposed. In the final chapter, “Discussion andConclusions,” van Keulen proposes lines of future research based on the hermeneutic approach. Heconcludes with the argument that application of such research would require the adoption of anonobjectivist philosophy in teaching and teacher education.

van Keulen’s main thesis is that facts in textbooks and procedures in laboratory manuals do notnecessarily prepare students to do research in organic synthesis. His point of departure in this thesisis the cookbook problem—the problem of treating organic synthesis as cooking or the followingof recipes. Although recipes can give high yield and purity, students do not gain an understandingof the organic synthesis process by merely following recipes. Throughout the book, van Keulenrevisits the cookbook problem and traces it to the application of objectivist philosophy to education.He argues that a hermeneutic framework, applied to the design of instruction and learning of science,as well as educational research methodology, can begin to provide a solution to the cookbookproblem.

Hence, the author applies the hermeneutic research cycle—a sequence of interpretation, under-standing, and application—to the design and implementation of the Esters and Ethers educational

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contexts. To assess the effectiveness of his program, van Keulen adopts a methodology based onthis cycle, which he justifies in the following fashion:

A methodology for studying students’ developing understanding should thus have a longitudinalcharacter. In hermeneutics, this can be seen as a progressive spiral of interpretation, understandingand application, which can be described as contextual development. Learning in this respect isidentical with scientific research, which also progressively moves through spirals of interpretation,understanding, and application (p. 72).

Central issues in organic synthesis, such as formation, purification, and characterization of com-pounds, are addressed in Esters and Ethers. In both contexts, van Keulen extends his colleague DeJager’s synthesis planning theory: Although students are to learn how to make and justify choiceswith respect to the entire synthesis process, these processes can be emphasized differentially de-pending on the learning goals. For instance, students can be provided with prescriptions for tech-niques and reactants but are expected to design purification procedures. In the Esters context,students’ decisionmaking is left to the determination of alcohol–carboxylic acid ratio, whether touse a catalyst or not, identification of purification processes, and judgment of product quality, whilethe technique of refluxing and the identity of reactants are prescribed. Furthermore, van Keulenexplores the role of quantitative reasoning in organic synthesis. He identifies instances in whichreaction conditions cannot be dictated a priori by quantitative reasoning. That is, for a given re-action, conditions such as temperature, concentration, stoichiometry and voltage are not necessarilyknown to chemists, but neither do chemists start from scratch when they begin to tackle a synthesisproblem. Here he provides another example where recipe-following with fully predetermined re-action conditions would not constitute a correct simulation of organic synthesis.

Assessment of students’ learning throughout the program is done with qualitative methodology.van Keulen asserts that parameters such as yield, purity, and reproduction of textbook equationsthat could be measured with quantitative methodology do not qualify as indicators of learning inorganic synthesis. Parameters surrounding organic synthesis, he argues, are almost, by definition,ambiguous, and quantification of these parameters would require that the meaning of all chemicalterms be fixed and identical for everyone. Upon completion of Ethers, van Keulen evaluates learningin terms of students’ ability to relate purification to formation, and he does so by relying on hisinterpretation of students’ meanings. Given the focus on sense-making, however, the book is shorton summarizing students’ meanings in a systematic way beyond the reflections on particular dis-course episodes. That is, characterization of students’ sense-making within the domain of organicsynthesis is underdeveloped, even on a qualitative basis. One generalization that the author doesoffer is that, despite the emphasis on processes, students still tend to focus on products of organicsynthesis.

It is important to note that the author is working within the dominant educational system, whichmaintains a lecture– laboratory dichotomy in science instruction. The study then raises the questionof whether or not innovative research simulation can be accomplished regardless of reform inclassroom instruction or reform with respect to this dichotomy itself. Furthermore, the study beginsto address what is to be simulated of organic synthesis in the educational context. There is, however,a lack of emphasis on the sociocultural context in which organic synthesis is embedded. Althoughvan Keulen does maintain that his interest lies in chemistry content validity, social dynamics is asignificant aspect of learning and, in an educational setting, it cannot be detached from considera-tions of content. Apart from the knowledge of organic chemistry content and reasoning skillssurrounding hypothesis-advancement and synthesis-planning, what characteristics does a commu-nity of organic chemists share that might be simulated in an educational context? What kinds ofdiscourse patterns are typical of organic chemists, and how can students be enculturated into them?What is the nature of collaboration in an organic chemistry laboratory and how can it be manifested

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in instruction? From an educational point of view, the content of organic synthesis is not exclusiveof the implications of such questions.

van Keulen’s emphasis on content is justified on the grounds that the designed instruction isintended for university students who are to do research in chemistry. Structure–activity relations,reaction types, and synthesis-planning are important aspects of organic synthesis research and henceshould be a part of instruction. Although this argument is well taken, the author’s criticism ofconstructivism and cognitivism falls short of relating the importance of content to issues of highereducation. In what ways might learning objectives for secondary and higher education be similaror different? Indeed, what characterizes learning at the university level? The author does not provideenough discussion to give the reader a sense of how these learning theories apply in higher edu-cation.

Overall, the book is a valuable contribution to research in higher education, where less attentionhas been devoted in comparison to elementary and secondary education. van Keulen offers consid-erable insight into critical issues surrounding organic chemistry education. He raises significantpoints on the definition of domain-specific knowledge in relation to organic synthesis. There arenumerous examples of discourse episodes that shed light on student reasoning and argumentationin organic chemistry in general. Throughout the book, van Keulen speaks with a self-critical andreflective tone, and displays the thinking of a careful researcher.

SIBEL ERDURANPeabody CollegeVanderbilt UniversityNashville, TN

Nature’s Imagination: The Frontiers of Scientific Vision, edited by John Cornwell, 1995. OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, UK. xii 1 212 pp. ISBN 0-19-851775-0.

In the preface to Nature’s Imagination: The Frontiers of Scientific Vision, John Cornwell explainsthat “a group of leading expositors of science met at Jesus College, Cambridge in September 1992to discuss the continued primacy of reductionism as a key to understanding nature as we approachthe twenty-first century.” The 13 papers in this book are the result of that meeting. From FreemanDyson’s introductory paper, “The Scientist as Rebel,” to Gerald Edelman’s closing paper, “Memoryand the Individual Soul: Against Silly Reductionism,” the various authors critique scientific reduc-tionism. I briefly summarize each paper and then comment on the book’s implications for scienceeducation.

In chapter 1 (“The Scientist as Rebel”), physicist Freeman Dyson argues that the progress ofscience requires both holism and reductionism. The scientist as rebel was articulated by biologistJ. B. S. Haldane to the Society of Heretics on February 4, 1923, and Dyson uses this metaphor toinsist that “dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.” Dyson argues thatscience flourishes best when it is unconstrained by preconceived notions as to what it should be.Roger Penrose’s “Must Mathematical Physics be Reductionist?” (chapter 2) begins by showing thatcertain figures (e.g., Mobius band, knot, impossible triangle) must be analyzed as whole structures.He claims that Kurt Godel’s work in mathematics and quantum theory in physics shows that un-derstanding is not algorithmic or computable. Gregory Gaitin also relies on the work of Kurt Godel,combining it with Turning’s work to argue that incompleteness and irreducibility are characteristicof mathematics. In “Randomness in Arithmetic and the Decline and Fall of Reductionism in Pure

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Mathematics,” Chaitin observes, “God not only plays dice in quantum mechanics and in classicalphysics, but even in pure mathematics, even in elementary number theory.” In his chapter, “Theoriesof Everything” (TOE), John Barrow, an astronomer, describes the physics quest for a TOE, and hequestions the assumption that nature’s laws are continuous, which lies behind the quest for a TOE.Barrow suggests that the universe may not be in great symmetry but a computation.

Philosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland take a more sympathetic view of reductionism thanprevious authors do. In chapter 5, “Intertheoretic Reduction: A Neuroscientist’s Field Guide,” theystate, “The whole point of a reduction, after all, is to show that what we thought to be two domainsis actually one domain, though it may have been described in two (or more) different vocabularies.”The Churchlands give examples of intertheoretic reductions in the natural sciences (e.g., Newton’stheory reduces Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory reducesother laws, Einstein’s special theory of relativity reduces Newton’s laws). They conclude by as-suring the reader that psychology will not disappear as it is “reduced” to neural explanation; it willsimply become “married” to neuroscience.

Chapter 6, “Neural Darwinism: The Brain as a Selectional System,” provides two neuroscientists,Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi, the opportunity to explain Edelman’s theory of neuronal groupselection (TNGS). A kind of neural Darwinism, the TNGS “considers that there is a continualgeneration of diversity in the brain with selection occurring at various levels.” Linking basic bio-logical components of the nervous system to psychological functioning is clearly a kind of reduction,although Edelman and Tononi contrast their selectionist approach to genetically specified reduc-tionism. Edelman’s TNGS is touted by Oliver Sacks, in chapter 7, as the only theory able to accountfor facts of evolution and neural development. The TNGS posits that perception and conceptioninvolve synchronization of scattered “maps” throughout the brain, and that the maps are continuallychanging. According to Sacks, the TNGS is the “first truly global theory of mind and consciousness,the first biological theory of individuality and autonomy.”

In chapter 8 (“The Limitless Power of Science”), physical chemist P. W. Atkins enthusiasticallyendorses scientific reductionism and strongly criticizes holist, religious approaches: “Theism (andthe implicit rejection of reductionism) is a system of knowledge based on ignorance, and that twinof ignorance, fear.” Atkins continues his criticism of religion by characterizing it as a politicalstruggle: “I consider that religion is a delusion propagated by a combination of ignorance, art, andfear, fanned into longevity and ubiquity by the power it gave to those in command.” BertrandRussell would have approved, as he might have welcomed Mary Midgley’s cautions, in “ReductiveMegalomania,” against adopting scientific reductionism as a model for the social sciences andhumanities. She is very critical of B. F. Skinner’s behaviorist psychology and E. O. Wilson’ssociobiology, charging Wilson with “megalomania” for trying to reduce human psychology toneurobiology.

In the first of three chapters on artificial intelligence, Margaret Boden describes recent work ongenetic algorithms and artificial life. Genetic algorithm systems self-modify continuously, modelinggenetic processes such as mutation and crossover, whereas artificial life models simple, self-orga-nization behavior such as schooling of fish. Boden concludes that AI need not reduce our respectfor human minds or our sense of human dignity. Huo Wang (“On ‘Computabilism’ and Physicalism:Some Subproblems”) uses Kurt Godel’s work to explore the computational nature of thought. Wangasserts that “Godel wished to deny and Turning wished to affirm that all thinking is computational.”Although Wang does not take a strong position on the computational nature of thought, he issympathetic to Godel’s position. In chapter 12, “Knowledge representation and myth,” computerscientist W. F. Clocksin attempts to show that human cognition is not rational. He describes hisown research (State-Space Robotics project) as using no algorithms or explicit representations. Bytrial and error, certain behavior is “naturally selected” by the environment.

In “Memory and the Individual Soul: Against Silly Reductionism,” Gerald Edelman stresses theimportance of unconscious forces and emotion in human thought. He thinks consciousness must

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be explained in biological terms before a science of human beings can emerge. Edelman concludesthis final chapter with a thoughtful view of science and our understanding of ourselves: “Perhapswhen we understand and accept a scientific view of how our mind emerges in the world, a richerview of our nature and more lenient myths will serve us.”

Reductionism, the focus of Nature’s Imagination, will be of interest to science educators whofollow the nature of science debates among philosophers, historians, sociologists, and others. Thestatements in the opening paper by Freeman Dyson are reminiscent of much earlier comments onthe nature of the scientific spirit by physicists Percy Bridgman (“Doing one’s damnedest, no holdsbarred”) and Richard Feynman (“Science is a belief in the ignorance of experts”). However, thisshould not be interpreted as similar to Paul Feyerabend’s “anything goes” brand of relativism thatseems to be in vogue among many academics today. Closely related to the theme of reductionismin Nature’s Imagination is the question of psychology (study of the mind) being “reduced” toneurology (study of the brain). Nobel Prize winner Gerald Edelman’s theory of neural Darwinismhas many features that will be of interest to science educators who embrace one or another formof constructivism. Edelman gives unconscious forces and emotion considerable importance in histheory of neuronal group selection.

Nature’s Imagination is not a science educator’s guide to curriculum and instruction, nor is it aguide to research techniques. It is a source of a variety of ideas on reductionism in the naturalsciences and mathematics, and interesting questions are raised about mind–brain relationships. Oneof the most important messages for science educators appears in Freeman Dyson’s introductorypaper: “Every time we introduce a new tool, it always leads to new and unexpected discoveries,because nature’s imagination is richer than ours.” Scientists pay careful attention to nature, andscience educators should pay careful attention to science as we search for useful tools to improvescience education for all. Many science educators will see Nature’s Imagination as a secondaryrather than a primary source of ideas in our search for ways to improve scientific literacy for all.

RON GOODLouisiana State UniversityBaton Rouge, LA 70803

Biotechnology in Latin America: Politics, Impacts, and Risks, edited by N. Patrick Peritore andAna Karina Galve-Peritore, 1996. Scholarly Resources Inc., Wilmington, DE. xxiv 1 229 pp.ISBN 0-8420-2556-1.

The title of this book might lead readers to expect a comparative perspective on biotechnologyresearch and industry in Latin America. What one learns, however, is about the lack of such researchand industry, with the possible exception of Cuba. But even here, given the recent policy directionof the United States, any possible optimism is dampened. This book’s importance becomes apparentin its treatment of the issues of the low level of biotechnology in Latin America and the impact ofbiotechnology brought in from outside. As such, Biotechnology in Latin America is an invaluableresource for science educators teaching from a science– technology–society or a global educationperspective.

Although the book is a collection of chapters by different authors, one can sometimes forget thisas one reads. The perception of a particular context, namely, that the “postmodern economy is oneof regional markets and transnational corporate giants, leaving nation-states and international or-ganizations in a weak position to regulate the impacts of biotechnology” (p. xvii) is shared by the

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authors. Likewise, “the authors of this volume do not oppose biotechnology but rather are criticalof its potential impact on Latin America” (p. xxiii). The book opens with an introduction that setsthe context clearly and also provides a brief review of the basics of biotechnology. Although thebook is a good refresher, the reader really needs a previous knowledge of DNA replication andrecombinant DNA technology to understand this overview. While desirable, it is not necessary tounderstand the technology to follow the arguments of the book.

The first three chapters in this collection deal with general issues of corporations, governmentpolicies, technostructures, and commodification of genetic materials. They are “Biotechnology:Political Economy and Environmental Impacts,” by N. Patrick Peritore; “Third World Biotechnol-ogy, Latin American Development, and the Foreign Debt Problem,” by Daniel J. Goldstein; and“Plant Intellectual Rights: The Rise of Nature as a Commodity,” by Jose de Souza Silva. Chapters4 to 6 are a series of case studies of specific nations: “Mexican Biotechnology Policy and DecisionMakers’ Attitudes toward Technology Policy,” by Ana Karina Galve-Peritore and N. Patrick Per-itore; “Cuban Biotechnology: The Strategic Success and Commercial Limits of a First World Ap-proach to Development,” by Julie M. Feinsilver; and “Colombia and the Challenge ofBiotechnology,” by Gustavo Hernandez-Boada. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with specific technologies:“Recombinant Growth Hormone: A Challenge for Latin America,” by Ramon Aboytes-Torres and“Manipulation of Gametes and Embryos in Animal Biotechnology’s Impact on Livestock Produc-tion in Latin America,” by Jose Juan Hernandez-Ledezma and Valantine Solyman-Golpashini.The final chapter provides a criticism of neoliberal deregulation and offers some alternatives;“National, Regional, and International Regimes and the Regulation of Biotechnology,” by N. PatrickPeritore.

Every single chapter is worth reading. From my Canadian perspective, I found that the case ofMexico since joining the North American Free Trade Agreement (chapter 4) contains a clear warn-ing to Canada’s biotechnology industry: “Mexico’s biotechnological dependency in pharmaceuti-cals is due to a deliberate transnational corporate decision to liquidate the country’s researchcapacity. Mexico currently reimports its own invention at high cost” (p. 75). Possible environmentalimpacts of biotechnology are also addressed.

In many ways I found this a very scary book. If biotechnology is implemented to its full extent,“farming may well disappear as agriculture becomes a factory operation” (p. 7). Further, there is atendency for the research to be conducted in areas that are likely to provide high monetary returns,on varieties of ornamental plants, for example, rather than on vaccines for diseases in less-developedcountries. The dangers of unexpected consequences from genetically engineered products areunderemphasized and often unreported by biotechnology firms. But perhaps scariest of all isthe patenting of naturally occurring genomes. Having read this book, I was better able to appre-ciate the arguments of Vandana Shiva in her latest book, Biopiracy (Toronto: Between the Lines,1997), in which she discusses the dangers of the GATT and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights)agreements.

EVA KRUGLY-SMOLSKAFaculty of EducationQueen’s UniversityKingston, ON, Canada

Young People’s Images of Science, by Rosalind Driver, John Leach, Robin Millar,and Phil Scott,1996. Open University Press, Buckingham, UK. xiii 1 172 pp. ISBN 0-335-19381-1 (paper);

(cloth).0-335-19382-X

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This book presents a detailed account of the evolution of a research project related to 9-, 12-,and 16-year-old UK students’ views of the nature of science. It is the result of a funded project firstleading to 11 working papers. Listings of these papers and details related to research instrumentsand coding schemes are available in the Appendix. I used the book in a graduate course on thenature of science and science education along with books by Poole, Matthews, and DeBoer and therecent special issue of Science and Education on science and religion. Young People’s Images ofScience is an exemplar of the kind of empirical research that can be done on the nature of science.It is a splendid example of one group’s attempt to arrive at a balanced appraisal of what science is,what it is not, and how best to appraise student views.

The introduction makes an important connection between students’ ideas about science and theirunderstanding of the natural world: If we are trying to determine how best to teach students forunderstanding, we must know something about their notions of the nature of science. Thus, delvinginto history and philosophy of science for teachers seems an essential part of their repertoire.Chapters 1 and 2 provide a strong justification for the research team’s decision to probe students’understanding of the purposes of scientific work, the nature and status of scientific knowledge (theyconsider this most pivotal), and science as a social enterprise.They discuss the aims of science andjustify scientific literacy as an important curricular aim, citing the literature emphasizing utilitarian,economic, democratic, cultural,and moral arguments.

Chapter 3 cleverly develops a “map to guide the development of an exploratory study” (p. 42).This is actually a summary of the areas of consensus they believe do exist on the nature of science,despite differences between science and technology (primarily in aims) and the natural and socialsciences (in terms of subject matter), and despite the positions held by philosophers, historians andsociologists of science. The authors do a commendable job of distilling down to 18 readable pagesthe debates related to explanation in science, induction and its problems, falsification of Popper,the theory-laden nature of observation, the “research programmes” of Imre Lakatos, the Kuhnianrevolution, the sociology of science and its “strong programme,” the realism–instrumentalism de-bates, and the impact of the postmodern notion that local knowledges as opposed to universalexplanations can be established within particular situations or standpoints.

The areas of consensus that Driver and her colleagues see as forming the kernels of the natureof science deserve specific mention here. First, the aim of science is to address questions that leadto explaining natural phenomena. Limiting their study to the natural and not social sciences andlimiting the objects of their questions to the inanimate or animate, while excluding those whoseconsciousness might be expected to appreciably influence data collection, they also exclude ques-tions that involve values.

Second, as to consensus regarding the nature and status of scientific knowledge, the authorsdecided to explore: (1) scientific inquiry involving the collection and use of evidence, pointing outthat this may be either to test proposed explanations or provide raw material which an explanationhas to account for; (2) scientific explanations being based upon generalizations (laws) and theoret-ical explanations (theories); and (3) laws and theories always being underdetermined, that is, in-volving explanations going beyond the available data that are conjectural to some degree. Choicesbetween competing theories are based on rational criteria such as accuracy of prediction, consist-ency, breadth of scope, fruitfulness, and simplicity in suggesting lines of inquiry.Nevertheless,judgment is involved in deciding how these apply in each case. Thus, the authors take a middle-of-the-road stance in the rational–natural debate about theory choice. Finally, they find considerableagreement that scientific knowledge is the product of a community, not an individual, because anindividual’s findings must survive an institutional checking and testing mechanism before accept-ance.

Chapter 4 reviews what is known about student understanding of the nature of science.The researchers clearly benefited from the strengths or weaknesses in other methodologiesbefore launching their study. One example is their challenging the value of using multiple-choice

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questions about students’ views of science. Even when followed by interviews, students’ initialchoices may be constrained or even redirected by the choices, so that their exact positions maynever emerge, according to the authors. Other concerns relate to studies that explore the differencebetween science and technology and all the questions it raises about student tendencies to collapsethe two. The investigators went into their study with the premise that science is generally thoughtof as inductive, with experiments being conducted to see what happens. Few students see scienceas seeking explanations. Science is seen more in an instrumental way; that is, improving the humancondition and seeking cures. Generally, there is a lack of distinction between science andtechnology.

Regarding scientific knowledge, the authors agree that most students see explanations as emerg-ing directly from the data. The extent to which theories are conjectural or experiments are necessaryto provide raw data for theorizing or as a test of a theory depends on students’ ability to considerthe two as separate entities. Previous studies showed this a challenge, especially to younger students.As a result, a naive realist interpretation of theories often occurs. Research in the area of scienceas a social enterprise is rather neglected, according to the authors. They did look at several studiesshowing that students draw upon a range of social images of science and scientists, viewing sci-entists mostly as producing artifacts or knowledge to benefit humankind.

Background research resulted in the authors setting their research questions in specific sciencecontexts rather than asking general questions about science and scientists. They forewarned readersthat both general and specific approaches had shortcomings; they concluded that when questionsare asked outside of any framing context, like “Why do you think scientists do experiments?,” therisk of getting espoused views rather than views implicit in action is too great. While specificcontext may make generalization more difficult, they chose this. Each question was, however, setin more than one context to lessen the context-specific nature of the responses. Each researchquestion was also addressed by more than one “probe” or research tool.

There were nine research questions emanating from the three broad categories of science’s aims,nature of knowledge and nature of social dimensions of science. Specific details of how six differentresearch probes were used and their results are described in chapters 6 to 9. Two example probesare: (1) having students classify questions as scientific or unscientific and classifying events as anexperiment or not an experiment; and (2) presenting students with several possible explanations fora set of phenomena related to electric circuits and floating objects, and then asking them to selectwhat they thought to be the best explanation, to make predictions based on their chosen explana-tions, and to watch as the new behavior was demonstrated. They were then asked to considerwhether this behavior supported their explanation and to justify their answer. Student reasoningwas then probed.

Some of the graduate students in my course wondered if Figure 7.6 on page 104 promotedmisconceptions about floating and sinking with the choices children had for their explanations inone of the probes. None of the choices seems adequate. All were chosen based on research onchildren’s generalizations from experience. In this case, those generalizations do not adequatelyallow for what happens in the relationship between mass and volume of an object that will or willnot float. As described above, children had to do several things once they chose their explanation.The reader, however, does not know if children were moved close enough to the best explanationby the choices made available to them. The authors provide readers with helpful details about theirmethods of probing and analysis, including audiotape transcription and initial ideographic codingcategories derived from student responses, sometimes followed by another level of analysis basedon expected patterns of reasoning.

The sample included 30 same-gender pairs of students at the three age points (9, 12, and 16years) for each probe. (Through trials, the researchers learned that pairs of students tended to discusswith each other their conceptual understanding before moving on to the metacognitive probes about

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the science involved. For that reason, the main study employed interviews in pairs for all probes,except one on closure of debate in science, where groups numbered four.)

A few of the authors’ findings suggest age-related trends, such as younger students characterizingempirical testing as a simple process of observation followed by describing outcomes, to olderstudents being more aware that experimenting may be testing theories or finding out about mech-anisms. Little evidence emerged that students at any age could articulate a general characterizationof a scientific question or use a particular representation of science in consistent ways. Some of mygraduate students agreed that the use of line graphs (as opposed to bar graphs) connecting categoriesof responses for the 9-, 12-, and 16-year-olds in chapters 6 and 7 could mislead the casual readerinto thinking the same children had been followed for 7 years to see trends.

Regarding the nature and status of scientific knowledge, a wide range of views and understandingsis effectively summarized in the “Framework for characterizing features of students’ epistemolog-ical representations” (pp. 113–114) in chapter 8. The first category is simple phenomena-basedreasoning, where no distinction is made either between description and explanation or between thephenomena and the explanation. Next is relation-based reasoning, still largely depending on induc-tive relationships, but with recognition that explanation and description are separate; explanationis still seen as emerging from the data. The researchers determined the highest level of understandingwas use of model-based reasoning, where the nature of theoretical knowledge is problematic. Heretheories and models are conjectural and explanations are an attempt to develop a coherent story,often involving discontinuity between the observational and theoretical entity, with multiple modelspossible. The relationship between explanation and description is hypotheticodeductive: There is aclear distinction between the two; explanation involves considerable conjecture, and explanationcannot be logically deduced from the evidence. Model-based reasoning in students was rare and,when it did occur, was found with the older students—sometimes in only one instance of a partic-ular probe.

As for results dealing with science as a social enterprise, 12 groups were probed using questionsabout the Wegner continental drift case and the current debate on the irradiation of food. With bothcases students indicated that evidence was the key factor leading to consensus, and the lack ofevidence the main reason for disputes. They did not separate theory and evidence much and didnot seem to see evidence as providing raw material for judging and evaluating theory. Instead, theysaw theory more as “unproblematic access to the ‘truth.’” Students tended to see science as readingnature rather than as a social enterprise where measurements as well as many “facts” have inherentuncertainties, being a product of a social enterprise.

Chapter 10 does an effective job of bringing together the theoretical argument for teaching aboutthe nature of science and the results from their research, with some important implications forscience education and teacher preparation. This chapter highlights “core features” of scientificunderstanding and points out that what goes on in schools is typically a different view of scientificknowledge. Given the way in which the epistemology of science tends to be represented, it is notsurprising that students are often confused about the status of conclusions drawn from experiments.The authors remind us that the ultimate goal in school science is for students to be able to use theirknowledge. Truly understanding the application of scientific knowledge, however, requires thatstudents can appreciate the way scientific explanations reflect worldly imperfection. Although thesemodels may be uncertain, they point out, they are the best we have.

Each chapter has a helpful summary and excellent references. Chapters are cross-referenced,aiding the reader in building a bigger picture of the study. One can readily appreciate the balancedviewpoint, the thorough justifications for the research done, and the methodologies making bestuse of both qualitative methods and some quantitative displays of student views via graphs, charts,and tables. There are numerous specific student accounts backing up the conclusions. Graduatestudents agree that this book is best used with other reading in philosophy of science providing

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additional material for deeper understanding of philosophical and historical issues. My students andI appreciated the unique and significant contribution of Driver, Leach, Millar, and Scott to theresearch in Young People’s Images of Science. All wondered if studies done in the USA to replicatethis research would yield similar findings.

CATHLEEN C. LOVINGDepartment of EDCITexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, TX, USA

Oak Ridge National Laboratory: The First Fifty Years, by Leland Johnson and Daniel Schaffer.The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN. xv 1 270 pp. ISBN 0-87049-854-1.

While aspiring journalists are taught to answer the five Ws, book reviewers can credit their readerswith the ability to answer Where and When (to buy the book), and thus they only have to addressthe other three: What is the book all about?, Who should read it?, and Why? This book’s titleprovides a simple answer to What? The 50-year history of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory(ORNL) is covered chronologically in just under 250 pages (excluding index, etc.), for an averageof five pages per year. When further allowance is made for 63 historic illustrations, it is apparentwhat this book is not: a detailed technical account of the enormous amount of science and tech-nology that has been undertaken by ORNL. Rather, it provides an overview of all the major activitiesand many minor ones, showing how they were born, how they developed, and ultimately how theyflourished or died.

What the title does not show is that ORNL was initially concerned with nuclear activities andstill accords highest priority to its nuclear projects. This agenda is well known by those in theinternational nuclear community, but, for reasons to be explained, others should not switch off here.Indeed, those involved in nuclear sciences and technologies are unlikely to be satisfied with thenecessarily brief treatments of their individual specializations. Originally, in wartime 1942, “nuclearactivities” were exclusively weapons development. Later, as the need for weapons decreased, othermilitary applications and the development of civilian nuclear power took over. Thus, the militarybudget paid for much of the infrastructure, both hardware and software. Later still, an increasingshare of the laboratory’s effort was devoted to non-nuclear activities.

Who, then, should read this book? Anyone interested in science and technology (S&T) policy.Although the authors do not address this aspect explicitly, there is much of potential value to befound in ORNL’s experience. Reading the book stimulates questions such as what, if any, shouldbe the role of national laboratories. Much discussion of S&T policy ignores the wealth of relevantexperience. Those with the experience, by failing to analyze it for lessons to be learned, must sharethe responsibility.

ORNL’s history demonstrates vividly the importance of an explicit mission in defining the re-search and development (R&D) to be performed. At its start, ORNL had a clear dual mission: toscale-up Enrico Fermi’s original reactor into a pilot reactor that would support the design of largeplutonium-production reactors to be built at Hanford, Washington, and to provide enough plutoniumfor the chemists to develop the necessary separation process. Added a little later was the respon-sibility to provide R&D support for the adjacent uranium-enrichment plant. In all three areas, ORNLprovided useful input to the development of these technologies. However, unfortunately for ORNL,

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it backed a loser in its design of a reactor. Its X-10 reactor was air cooled, and so was not truly apilot for the water-cooled Hanford reactors. This had the long-term effect of leaving ORNL out ofthe mainstream for developing water-cooled reactors, which came to dominate the civilian market.

ORNL continued to maintain its prominence in chemical processing for the separation of plu-tonium and other transuranics and it applied those techniques to the preparation of radioisotopes.In parallel, the uranium-enrichment technology was applied to the separation of stable isotopes.However, a long and extensive program of reactor development came to naught. Indeed, the firsthalf of the book, up to about 1970, reads like a litany of lost causes.

Very early, and with excellent foresight, ORNL proposed and designed a materials-test reactorwith a high neutron-flux, but this was built in Idaho. Also at this early stage, ORNL proposed agas-cooled design for power production, the Daniels Reactor. Later, ORNL supported the devel-opment of a High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor, contributing significantly to the developmentof graphite-coated fuel particles for it, but this type is no longer on the market. In 1947, theresponsibility for Fast-Breeder-Reactor development was assigned to the Argonne National Labo-ratory.

For many years, seeking a new major mission, ORNL concentrated on homogeneous reactors,where a liquid fuel circulates through the core, for power production. The first application, launchedin 1949, was a reactor using molten uranium salts as fuel to power military aircraft. The aircraftproject was canceled in 1961. In 1956, the same technology was applied in a Molten Salt Reactorfor land-based power. It demonstrated the feasibility of the concept, and was operated to breedfissile material from thorium, but in 1976 it too was canceled. In 1954, development of a homo-geneous aqueous reactor had been initiated. A pilot reactor operated reasonably well but ran intocorrosion problems, and the project was canceled in 1961.

Two heterogeneous-reactor projects were more successful. In 1953 , ORNL designed a pressur-ized-water Army Package Reactor to supply heat and electricity for remote bases. A few reactorsbased on this design were deployed in the Arctic and elsewhere. Also, in 1957, ORNL participatedin the design of the nuclear-powered merchant ship “N.S. Savannah.” This subsequently demon-strated its feasibility but never gained acceptance and was withdrawn from service. ORNL studiedpossible reactors for the space program in the 1960s and for President Reagan’s “Star Wars” in the1980s, but no major mission evolved.

ORNL’s experience illustrates an unpalatable truth for S&T policymakers. In research, failuresmust be expected; if the outcome could be predicted, there would be no point in doing the research.ORNL’s inability to gain acceptance for its designs for power reactors can be partly attributed to“industrial inertia.” Once the pressurized water reactor, developed for nuclear submarines, wasestablished in the civilian power market, it was easier to expand and extend that technology thanto introduce a new one, however attractive it might appear technically. Despite ORNL’s lack ofsuccess in finding a reactor project, the book’s authors identify many contributions that ORNL hasmade to physical and biological sciences, and to technologies developed further elsewhere.

With ORNL lacking a coherent, core mission, the second half of the book repeatedly refers tothe search for a new mission and for diversification of its purpose into non-nuclear applications,concentrating on energy and environmental issues. What has evolved is a very large interdisciplinarylaboratory, based on disciplines in which ORNL had demonstrated expertise, providing S&T sup-port for a variety of missions managed by other agencies. Embedded in this institutional structureare 12 “user facilities” for university and industry participation, such as the High TemperatureMaterials Laboratory and the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility; and centers of excellence, suchas the Civil Defense Institute and Information Centers for nuclear data and ten other subjects.

Throughout its history, ORNL, along with other nuclear laboratories, has made valuable contri-butions to the protection of health and the environment, to waste management, and to reactor safety.One of the most notable has been its hosting of the Nuclear Operations Analysis Center that pub-

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lishes the well-regarded journal, Nuclear Safety. Surprisingly, this contribution from ORNL findsno recognition in the book. R&D in support of fusion, initiated in 1953 and still continuing, isanother durable project.

A disturbing revelation in the book is the extent to which policy decisions were affected byjingoistic rivalry with the USSR. The series of Geneva Conferences, which many of us regardedand welcomed as truly international exchanges, are presented here as “Scientific Olympics” withonly two competitors. In reaction to the USSR’s lead in space with its Sputnik satellite, ORNL wasexhorted to “do everything it possibly can to have incontrovertible proof of a thermonuclear plasmaby the time of (the second) Geneva.” The 1965 proposal for a new high-flux reactor (the “Super-Duper Cooker”) was apparently spurred by learning that the USSR had designed one that surpassedthe USA’s existing one at Idaho. Similarly, in 1969, justification for an advanced accelerator wasbased on the argument that “it would protect the United States from being surpassed in scientificresearch by other nations, particularly the Soviet Union.”

ORNL’s early experience demonstrated the value of a national laboratory in addressing verylarge and complex technological challenges of national significance and with no short-term com-mercial returns. Now that the original mission has disappeared, ORNL has become a large multi-disciplinary laboratory similar to others in the private sector, such as Battelle Memorial Instituteand Stanford Research Institute. This raises the policy issue of whether the national laboratoriesshould compete with, or complement, the others. A broader issue is how institutions should evolve,or die, when their missions are fulfilled, recognizing that their own most fundamental objective isself-perpetuation.

The answers to these questions could be different for the US, with many large, competing cor-porations, each with self-sufficient S&T capability, and for other countries with more limited tech-nological resources. In examining such policy issues, useful comparisons may be drawn betweenwhat appears in this book and in a recently published technical history of Atomic Energy of CanadaLimited (AECL) (Critoph et al., 1997). AECL’s Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (CRNL) startedin the same year as ORNL, and both were built in idyllic rural settings or in the boondocks,depending on one’s perspective. Both started with exclusively nuclear missions, both continue toshare several of the generic nuclear programs such as reactor safety, health protection and wastemanagement, and both have attempted to diversify into non-nuclear applications. Each enjoyed thetechnical leadership of an outstanding thinker of their generation, Alvin Weinberg and W. B. Lewis.An analysis of the differences in their successes and failures could be illuminating. Such an analysisis not offered here but is left as an exercise for the reader. As the author of “Learning from History:A Retrospective,” the final chapter in the account of AECL, I have my own opinions.

J. A. L. ROBERTSONDeep River, ON, Canada

REFERENCE

Critoph, E., et al. (1997). Canada enters the nuclear age: A technical history of Atomic Energy of CanadaLimited as seen from its research laboratories. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, by James Trefil and Robert M. Hazen, 1995. John Wiley& Sons, New York. xxii 1 752 pp. ISBN 0-471-58931-4.

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The Sciences: An Integrated Approach occupies an otherwise vacant niche on the publisher’slists of books available for use in general science courses for college students. The major reason isthat this niche has only recently been acknowledged as one that should be filled. Because TheSciences is the first significant entry, it is likely that it will be adopted by many institutions that arescrambling to accommodate this newly identified need of our students. Following adoption, it ispossible that the structure of this book will drive the organization of the courses for which it ischosen. While the book has much to commend it, a brief examination also shows that it fails tosatisfy all possible and reasonable goals of such nonmajors’ courses. Indeed, no one book could.For this reason, The Sciences should be considered for adoption only after the goals of a particularcourse have been thoroughly examined and the textual requirements have been determined. If nosingle alternative is found, instructors may have to resort to their own or other packages of printedmaterials to satisfy their needs.

What might a course for nonscience majors strive to convey? The typical courses in this veinare usually based on single disciplines (biology, chemistry, geology, physics) and try to distill whatthe course developers believe to be the essence of each discipline. The new movement, to whichThe Sciences is addressed, emphasizes the breadth and relatedness of all aspects of “science,” hencethe subtitle. In the first place, this book is comprehensive, current, and—true to its subtitle—integrated, but all only to a point. Thus, of the 25 chapters, 7 deal with biology, 2 with the chemicalbond and properties of materials, 2 with plate tectonics and cycles of the earth, and the rest—forjust over half of the pages—with more traditional physics (including astronomy), which includesthe topics of quantum mechanics, fundamental particles, relativity, and cosmology. This might bea frankly reductionist approach to the scientific enterprise, accepting the notion that understandingthe concepts of energy, the second law of thermodynamics, and electricity and magnetism (chapters3, 4, and 5) may be both necessary and sufficient for an appreciation of all that follows.

But, describing a book by chapter counts and topic lists is incomplete and deceptive. Each chapterstarts with a bold-faced statement of a great idea, followed by a “random walk”—a general intro-duction to the major question considered in the chapter. Also, the text is liberally sprinkled through-out with brief discussions of four integrating themes of the book: “Science in the Making,” “TheHuman Body,” “Technology,” and “Science by the Numbers.” To emphasize their recurrence, theseminiessays are both color-coded in the table of contents and identified by miniature icons. Also,the layout of the book is such that these discussions are not boxed in such a way that they interferewith the flow of the text, but are included where they demonstrate the interrelationships of ideas.The book’s structure suggests that it is designed to appeal to a general reader and to present aconnected discussion of science.

Unfortunately, the idea of science that emerges is of a body of knowledge without history—despite the 34 “Science in the Making” inserts. In part this is due to the compressed form in whichso much history is actually placed. Thus, chapter 2, “The Ordered Universe,” races through thedevelopment of the currently accepted heliocentric model of our planetary system, and attributesto Ptolemy “the first plausible explanation for complex celestial motions.” Similarly, Galileo’s andNewton’s contributions are accorded far fewer pages than are found in a college physics text,although essentially the same formulas appear, in the same order, with many of the same workedexamples.

Another example is provided by the treatment of the structure of the atom and the nucleus. Daltonis credited with reintroducing the concept of atomism into an account of the ultimate structure ofmatter, yet no justification is given, nor is there any presentation of the kinds of phenomena thatwere ultimately included in this account. The idea that the atom itself is divisible is properlyconnected with Thomson’s identification of the electron, but how he came to this realization ismissing. Rutherford’s scattering experiment is described in terms of subatomic “bullets,” whichhave properties appropriate to the experiment, but their origins are omitted. And the rational

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“failure” of Rutherford’s atom is described in three short paragraphs, which quickly refer to orbitalmotion of charged particles caused by central forces that produce acceleration that dissipate energy.This was as true by yesterday’s standards as it is today but, without discussing the subsequentexperimental work that justified the Bohr atom, this argument is not compelling. In adopting it, onehopes that instructors realize that finding a text is only half the battle, and that they will then moveon to the harder job of finding ways to adapt it to the learning styles of their particular studentpopulations.

This approach is not limited to the areas of the text devoted to physics. A similar result followsfrom the speed with which the discussion of cells proceeds. While Hooke and Leeuwenhoek arecredited with the original discovery of cells, the generalization of the “cell theory” usually creditedto Schleiden and Schwann is not mentioned. Indeed, Hooke’s structures were really cell walls, andhad none of the living properties described in the next few pages of text. The structure and discussionof properties of cell membranes has all the material usually presented in the complete introductorytexts, including the false-colored schematic diagrams, but not a hint of how any of this informationwas obtained. Individual instructors are of course at liberty to distribute any manner of supplemen-tary material, and might be pressed to do so if they wish to convey an impression of science in themaking that goes beyond the marked paragraphs.

Whether or not this lack of historical context is crucial depends on the goals of any particularcourse. The choice of topics clearly overlaps both the AAAS’s Science for All Americans and theNAS’s National Science Education Standards. Both of these sets of guidelines, however, weredeveloped for an entire precollege science curriculum to be covered over many years, and both alsoexplicitly include a historical perspective as a major goal of these several years’ study. From thisperspective The Sciences seems to be more appropriate as a remedial text for those students whohave missed the approach that is now being forged rather than as the basis of a solid college-levelcourse.

The content covered and the approach imply something about how student achievement is to bedetermined. Not surprisingly, each chapter has a closing section of assessment exercises including“Review Questions,” “Discussion Questions,” “Problems,” and “Investigations,” as well as sug-gestions for “Additional Reading.” Examination of these questions reveals the expectation that thestudent should master a solid vocabulary and retell certain critical stories in the development of thesubject. These refer to both the main text and to the special themes that have been identified above,and they thus reinforce the message that these themes are not just extras but are integral parts ofthe whole story. A good sample of this is the chapter on “The Nucleus of the Atom.” The expectedvocabulary includes such typical words as isotope, half-life, and alpha decay and the distinctionbetween fission and fusion. And it is asked that the student be able to say how the strong force isdifferent from gravity and electromagnetism, as well as to describe the major achievement of MarieCurie (the text suggests that it was the isolation of 22 milligrams of pure radium chloride). Theproblems are straightforward, including an interesting interpretation of a detailed decay chain ofuranium 238. The discussion questions and the investigations are not based solely on the text, andseem to demand additional resources. “Would you say that Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivitywas good science or a lucky break? Explain.” (I have read different descriptions of the event thanthat given in the text.) Also, “What are the potential benefits and risks in using nuclear tracers inmedical diagnoses?” (The material in the text is weak on this one.); “Discuss the pros and cons ofnuclear power”; and “Read an historical account of the Manhattan Project.”

Despite the proposals of such documents as Science for All Americans, students currently in theirsenior of high school and early college years will miss the rich curriculum such reform movementspropose. And for the foreseeable future, students entering colleges and universities may not havethe benefit of a science preparation that provides them with a full appreciation of how science“hangs together” and how we come to know. Increasingly, college courses will be expected to

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provide this account for nonscience majors, and to do so in one or two semesters, frequently withoutlab experiences. So, for many students in the majority of today’s American colleges, The Sciences:An Integrated Approach may well become the book of choice.

EZRA SHAHNDepartment of Biological SciencesHunter College of the City University of New YorkNew York, NY, USA

Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology, edited byA. Irwin and B. Wynne, 1996. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 244 pp. ISBN0-521-43268-5.

This is an odd book that mixes gloom and despair with chance moments of insight and solace.The driving theme throughout each of the contributions is that members of the general public arenot (as so often portrayed) bereft of understanding about science, but are active constructors ofmeaning in an increasingly scientistic world. There are several subthemes within this major theme.The first is that the public is not general, but is an agglomerate of many constituent groups, all ofwhom have particular requirements of science. So, for example, the various chapters of the bookdescribe the preoccupations of sheep farmers in the hills of northern England, prenatal mothers infertility clinics, museum-goers in London, resident and nonresident nuclear experts on the Isle ofMan, and neighbourly objectors to a chemical industrial complex in the UK’s midlands. A secondsubtheme is that science is not a single homogeneous entity, but rather a composite brew of insti-tutions, hospital professionals, government pundits, environmental critics, industrial representatives,and medical officials, all of whom have strongly vested interests and very particular interpretationsof science.

The book is the outcome of a collaborative venture to research the public understanding ofscience, financed through central government funding in the UK. The result is that all of the ex-amples have a tendency to parochialism, which has, in turns, both advantages and disadvantages.For example, the opening case by Brian Wynne (one of the book’s coeditors) is an account of thestruggles of sheep farmers to come to terms with nuclear fallout in the aftermath of the Chernobylaccident in 1986. In point of fact, the farmers are coming to terms with “men-from-the-ministry”scientists who have both the legal power and the scientific domination to belittle and quash theirprotests and counteranalyses. It is a case of “just who knows best” about the effects of radioactivefallout on the local conditions on traditional homesteads in the Cumbrian hills. This account ofWynne’s is not new and has been published in other forms, but it still manages to conjure theconflict between the earthy, dour yet resilient farmers and the arrogant, control-minded, other-worldly scientists. While the local conditions may leave readers from outside the UK puzzled bythe details, it does not take too much imagination to pick up the plot and transport it to many otherscience-vs.-society conflicts around the world.

The first chapter sets the mood of the book, which recites a litany of the public’s worst encounterswith science—confrontational and/or disaster-based—where manifestations of science are oftenin the guise of official, industrial, or institutional science and scientists. Throughout the other eightchapters, the scientific community seldom emerges with any credit as ambassadors of science;scientists fail to acquit themselves very well and, consequently, often seem to render the public

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understandably hostile. In this vein, medical experts are pictured as guarded and closed, industrialscientists as circumspect and manipulative, nutritionists as vague and superficial, and environmentalscientists as problematized and partisan.

If the goodwill of the public seems to be sorely tested throughout these skirmishes, the publicremains, nevertheless, caught in the flame. Where the chapters do shine is in charting some of thecollective ambivalence toward both knowing and not knowing. The public’s drive for scientificknowledge comes from both need and curiosity, with the first often being the stronger but thesecond more evocative. Francis Price writes of mothers who struggle to recognize and interpretultrascan fetal images, appealing for reassurances that their pregnancies are developing healthily.The tension here is with just exactly how much mothers want to know should there be problemsor a risk of not one child but triplets. Alan Irwin, Alison Dale, and Denis Smith describe localresidents who demand scientific data that will enable them to unpack bland assurances from achemical works, while they remain skeptical, cynical, and dismissive of the technical informationthey eventually receive. Helen Lambert and Hilary Rose illustrate attempts by potential sufferersof heart disease to contemplate an hereditary disorder that has no overt symptoms, a diagnosissimply based upon a “disembodied” genetic risk factor and a seemingly arcane cholesterol count.Again, the ambivalence lies in giving any credence at all to authoritative knowledge about “lipids,”“triglycerides,” and “poly-” and “monounsaturates,” while at the same time confronting the vagariesof dietary cures, clinical advice, remedial treatments, and breakfast bran advertisements.

Michael Mikes goes further. He suggests that the “construction of ignorance” is an active mech-anism for blocking unsavory ideas and information, for denying any responsibility that the act ofknowing might confer, and for rendering scientific arguments irrelevant. That is, people deliberatelyconstruct ignorance. Thus, ignorance is not a passive abstinence toward knowledge in order torefuse any engagement with issues or dealings with their consequences. Those who construct ig-norance make a virtue of not being “scientifically minded” as a resource against invasions byscientific knowledge that threaten their personal and social identity.

The message of this book resonates clearly with current trends in formal science education. Thepublic understanding of science does not entail a simple one-way transmission of knowledge fromscientific virtuoso to lay novitiate. Not only do members of the public differ in their levels ofinterest in and concern with scientific matters, in their interpretations and particularizations oftechnical information, but scientific knowledge itself can also be seen to be contested, provisional,and situated. While scientists will choose, by circumstance and context, to first decontextualize and“disembody” their assertions, and then later to shade and relativize them, so people will variously“weave a cloth of meaning” of science, denigrate its status, deny its existence, or collude in itsdisappearance. The relationship between science and public is complex, tangled, and vested withmultifarious interests.

Through all this, what are the issues for science education? Here the book is disappointing. It isprincipally a sociological analysis, with little consideration of educational implications. The onlypracticalities come in the last few pages in the form of a mild rebuke to the scientific communityto worry about its dogmatic tendencies and to consider its audience more. Perhaps the authors restcontent, having laid bare some of the dynamics of the relationship between “knowers,” “known,”and “knowing-in-action.” Indeed this is the power of the book, leaving clarion questions on edu-cating the general public to the science education community. For example, to what extent is schooland college science designed to eventually equip citizens in their understanding of science? Is thiseven a realistic goal for science education? What theories within science education, if any, aretransferable from the ordered domain of formal instruction to the unstructured tumult of informallearning? Why are the theories of science education so uniformly entranced by the cognitive whenlearning in situ is so evidently intertwined with emotions and feelings, with relevance, trust, con-fidence, personal significance, and self-esteem? What instructional mechanisms and devices arethere to inhibit the “construction of ignorance,” to tackle the blocks and barriers people build as

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bulwarks against unpalatable science? What vehicles are there for scientists and scientific institu-tions to improve their communicative skills so as not, as Sharon Macdonald’s chapter notes, totreat their audience as “largely fun-loving and techno-phobic, choice-making but easily bored andchild-like”?

There are even more intractable questions concerning the ways in which members of the publicconstruct their images of science: Is there such a thing as science per se, or is there only that whichscientists do and say? And, given that scientists come in so many shapes and flavors, are there asmany sciences as there are scientists? Can there ever be a ready-reckoner that allows people tojudge the worth of one set of assertions over another? Without embracing notions of trust, confi-dence, patronage, and presumption, the public face of science will continue to risk being irrelevant,dismissed, foreign, and a reason to celebrate ignorance. Is it not the role of science educators tomend the image(s) of science? The chapters of the book are not all easy reading. They are fairlycompact and demanding, although the book is worth the read if only for the human light that shinesthrough. It is written for sociologists of knowledge by their kin and, while the messages for scienceeducators are there to divine, they are often obscured by the density of the prose. They becomeprompts for reflection and contemplation rather than a spur to urgency and action, but they areimportant all the same.

MIKE WATTSRoehampton InstituteLondon, UK

Local Leadership for Science Education Reform, by R. D. Anderson and H. Pratt, 1995. Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, IA. 208 pp. ISBN 0-8403-9947-2.

Local Leadership for Science Education Reform contains a rich storehouse of suggestions, ex-amples, data, reform efforts, elaboration of standards, and a chapter-based outline for facilitatingchange. Specific guidelines are provided for setting long-term goals and assessing needs. Attentionis given to quantity, quality, and appropriateness as characteristics of a school science program thatrequires consideration in the reform process. Many visions for science education are presented,along with useful pointers on how to achieve local visions through systemic change.

A section on acquiring teaching materials examines the role of curricular materials and thencompares the options of purchasing, adapting, or developing materials to meet goals and fit one’svision. The authors emphasize the fact that new materials do not always improve teaching. Theyargue that facilitative leadership fosters quality teaching. Many research-based approaches to fa-cilitating staff development and changes in instruction are then provided.

Anderson and Pratt explore the change process in an enlightening chapter on how to implementand maintain an innovative program. A concerns-based model is advocated as an ideal scenario,and basic assumptions are presented and discussed. For example, change is characterized as aprocess, not an event. In the authors’ view, individuals, not institutions, accomplish change, andchange is a highly personal experience.

Student assessment and program evaluation are examined from technical and issues-orientedperspectives. The focus on authentic assessment is both informative and compelling. The emphasisfor local leaders is placed on changing assessment at the classroom level. General guidelines aregiven to effect science education change through various approaches to assessment. The authorstreat program evaluation as a tool for addressing questions about program change from a descriptive

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perspective as well as from an assessment perspective. The authors suggest valuable techniques forcollecting evaluation information and they also discuss formative and summative evaluation andways to report to various audiences.

A research-based section focuses on what leaders do when they facilitate change, how goodleaders help a system develop a capacity for change, and how initiators differ from responders.After describing an approach based on positive results and successful experiences, barriers andpitfalls are discussed. Each is analyzed, and suggestions for avoiding the difficulties are discussed.

Whether one is a local leader, a national leader, a leader-in-waiting, or a student of changeprocesses, one will find this book informative and useful. The authors organize each chapter in away that stimulates, challenges, and enables one to be a more effective facilitator of change. LocalLeadership for Science Education Reform can serve as a handbook for every science supervisor,department chair, and school administrator. It is also an excellent text for those preparing for careersin science education.

RUSSELL H. YEANYUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA, USA

environmental studies: an annotated bibliography

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