You can stick your bloody opera up your arse!

I apologise in advance for my rant.
I am getting increasingly worried about the middle classes attitudes towards science. It seems as though they see it as a childhood pursuit that one can and should grow out of. The science museum is full of wonder but it seems like it is full of children. During my first few weeks of teaching I have realised that young people lose interest in science pretty mush as soon as they hit 14.

I think this is the parents fault, encouraging them, pretentiously to go to the opera or the ballet or an art gallery as soon as they are old enough to understand. Students of the arts outnumber studnets of science at every English university. I just cant seem to understand why.

Scientists seem to have atatched to them a geeky stereotype, floundering over goggles and bunson burners in thier white lab coats. It seems that it is high culture that is killing science, not just religion.

At a young age children are full of wonder to find out that dinosaus ruled the earth many years ago. They are facinated with animals and always want to go to the zoo. This is brilliant but the thirst for knowledge about how the world works diminishes with age. People start looking towards art for understanding and cocktail party discussions. It is quite flabbergasting that people (with honours degrees) cannot tell me what electricity is, or what is contained in our DNA, or just how small and empty an atom is.

I don't really know what to suggest to fix this, maybe if we all start holding science in higher esteem than it is now, more youngsters will want to become scientists. More scientist may accelerate a cure for cancer, may get us in touch with other lifeforms or even put an end to world hunger.

I think it is every parent and teachers job to keep young people interested in science. It is far more beautifull than art as it is natural. Keats once told Issac Newton that he destroyed the wonder of the rainbow by explaing it, this is preposterous. The science of how a rainbow works is more full of wonder than the rainbow itself. (See Dawkins book, Unweaving the Rainbow)