Gazing Inward in Support of Critical Scientific Literacy

Abstract

The end of the year 2019 and the dawn of a new decade were heralded by the devastating impact of COVID-19. This insidious and deadly virus continues to unmask two intertwined and dreadful truths worldwide: 1. The abundant lack of scientific literacy among politicians and the general public, and 2. How systemic racism (and its intersections with class, gender, and other sociopolitical barriers) continues to fuel social injustice and violence against Afrodescendants, Latinos/as, Indigenous Peoples and other Peoples of Color. We argue that these truths are intertwined because opportunities for an equitable education—and for equitable science education, specifically—are essential for producing a scientifically literate population. To be clear, herein, we do not subscribe to neoliberal and economics-oriented notions of scientific literacy. On the contrary, we argue against these dangerous views of perceiving human beings merely as a skilled workforce to serve the greed of the few. We maintain that critical scientific literacy provides individuals with the knowledge and agency to not only enact well-informed everyday actions but to expect (demand) that others do the same. For example, scientifically literate individuals seek to elect and demand that their public officials take sound and defensible action to protect the collective (cultural and physical) welfare of their families, their local communities, and the global community at large. In short, scientifically literate individuals are deeply aware of our interdependence and the need to work together to protect our shared planet. More specifically, a scientifically literate population is critically cognizant of how science has been (and is being) used and abused to oppress marginalized populations, including communities of color, especially those living in or near poverty. This critical awareness enables individuals to acknowledge, for example, how the power of science has been used to falsely construct race as a biological construct, as opposed to a social one. Therefore, scientifically literate individuals know that through science, race and racism have been used throughout history as it is being used today–as a tool for subjugating the Other and for entrenching power and privilege by those with the political and social power to do so. For instance, clinical trials in science are stained by the racist history of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in the US (Brandt, 1978). This era in scientific history remains insufficiently addressed in classrooms and society at large, as we can still observe in the level of mistrust among Peoples of Color who refused to participate in clinical trials or take freely available vaccines against COVID-19. In the same light, a scientifically literate person has the historical knowledge and cultural awareness to reject altruistic and romantic notions of science as a pure profession devoid of all of the shortcomings of the very human beings that