I like science, and every time the sun completes another turn around the earth I resolve to learn more about it. “More than 80% of Americans believe that science and technology make their lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable,” reports the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, but “fewer than half of American adults understand that the Earth orbits the sun yearly. Only 9% can explain a molecule” (Nature’s Notes, Fall).
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Good news considering where we started. According to a recent press release from the Metro Chicago Information Center, the percentage of area households getting all the child support they’re entitled to has risen in the last two years from 29 to 42 percent.
“As a nonbeliever, I crave religious students,” says professor Alan Wolfe, quoted in Martin Marty’s Chicago-based newsletter Context (September 15). “At least they have something in their backgrounds to which I can appeal that was not the subject of last night’s prime-time programming. Teaching classes on abortion and AIDS to students who simply cannot understand that there really are people who think about such issues in other than utilitarian ways is incredibly frustrating.”
