Wierd Science

I was watching ITV the other day – there is an unsubstantiated rumour that the programme I was watching was the ‘Xtra-factor’. And that is just what it is, a rumour and an unsubstantiated one at that! Anyway, I digress I was watching ITV and an advertisement, probably funded by some government agency, trying to boost the number students choosing to study science came on. On its own this piece of news is as unremarkable as an unremarkable object sitting in a grey room surrounded by other unremarkable things.

But when this is taken with the news (I was watching BBC Breakfast the following morning) that health and safety fears are forcing science teachers to stop children participating in experiments - urging them to watch experiments on the internet instead, then the news suddenly became as ridiculous as Tom Hank’s hair in ‘The Da Vinci Code’!

So the best way of getting children interested in science is to remove as much hands on experience as you can from their lessons and bore them with endless theory? Quick, someone catch me, I think I’m about to faint from the thought of all that excitement. Now this kind of gets my goat on a few levels...
God isn't it lucky that the Health & Safety experts are here to ensure the survival of the human race. I mean it’s not like humans managed to exist for millions of years before they began helpfully pointing out every potential harmful chemical, situation or routine for us. Seriously, I read a report the other day that said children shouldn't be allowed to play in parks because there is lead in the soil. LEAD IN THE SOIL!!!! That’s the whole reason? When I was a kid I’m pretty sure I ate a lot of mud, and guess what I’m still here and I don’t have a foot where my ear should be!

I mean why try to eliminate the practical element of learning when surely it’s one of the best methods of teaching; not only by engaging students but by also teaching them the basics of handling laboratory equipment? That’s an important skill that will be required if they decide to continue in their scientific studies or careers – surely Lab Technicians started somewhere?

I remember when I was studying A-Level Chemistry and even at GCSE Chemistry, we were encouraged to develop a respect for the laboratory and its chemicals, something this ruling would rob from budding scientists. Any really dangerous experiments were done by our teacher or the lab assistant behind a screen – but we still got to experience them!

Honestly, I find it difficult to fathom why we as a society have become so afraid of everything causing us damage. Obviously there are risks to everything we do but if we all lived our lives according to those risks, none of us would leave the bloody house – simply sitting in our padded living rooms, slurping liquidised meals through ergonomically designed straws that disintegrate upon with anything other than our exact genetic material.

Don’t worry though; they would have been designed by scientists that learnt how to do it from the internet!

Change is underrated...

You know what I’m tired. As I sit at my computer, the noise of the keyboard beneath my hands creating a symphony of words that translate into the sentences you read - I am tired. Not physically tired. Not even emotionally tired; tired of the ever apparent stagnation that surrounds me. Why is it that so many things have changed in recent months, yet so much seems to have stayed the same. Obama gets into the White House on the promise of change and bipartisanship, yet nearly every Republican in the house objected his economic stimulus plan. HBOS just recently received £17 million from tax payers to ensure the bank’s survival but suddenly, due to their merger with the Lloyds Banking Group, another tax payer funded bail out is probably going to be needed. There's even another Friday the 13th movie being released (we've already had Halloween and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre)!

Seriously am I living in the Tardis where time and space continually repeat themselves in some annoying Central Perk feedback loop? Honestly, I liked Friends when it was on the first, second or even fifth time around but did that show not end like over four years ago – why is it still on TV? Wouldn’t any one who wanted to watch episodes for the 19th time already have the DVDs... why punish the rest of us with Monica and the rest running around like it's 1994 and no one of even the remotest hint of ethnicity lives in New York city? "Could it BE any more tiresome?"

Anyway, back to my point... I guess the big things don't change until you address the little things. Sick of Friends reruns - change the channel. Hate sloppy remakes of classic 70's slasher movies - don't buy a ticket. Sick of the banks getting tax payer's money - demand something is done differently. They say that one man (or woman) can make a difference. I don't agree with that and not just as it was said in reference to a guy who had been bitten by a radioactive spider, could walk up walls and shoot webbing from his wrists. I think it takes more than one person to make a difference, but it doesn't take more than one person to inspire the chain reaction that ultimately leads to a new path. The thing about change, real change, is it's a personal journey that can start with the most innocuous of choices. All it takes is the smallest decision to do something. A single action, reaction or moment of inaction can start us on a path to success, failure or indifference. For example a teenage Barack Obama decided to go to Chicago after college and become a community organiser, a small decision that has ultimately lead him to the White House.

So instead of bemoaning the current predicament, like I've been doing for the entirety of this piece, maybe we should be looking to effect positive change in our lives and the lives of those closest to us. In our attitudes, our shared experiences and our communities. Starting with an alternative ingredient to bring about a new end product... because change is progress and progress is truly living. Without progress we might as well all be seated in front of another Friends rerun for the 20th, 21st, 22nd time... Are they on a break, aren't they on a break - oh the suspense!