I would like to start by congratulating all finalists for the awards
on behalf of Australian Skeptics Inc. You might wonder what
the connection is between skepticism and science, but they
both have the same objective – it’s to ask questions and find the
answers. Science is skepticism put into practice.
One of my greatest disappointments during 2015 was that
I was unable to attend the memorial service for Professor Harry
Messel, head of the Physics Department at the University of
Sydney for many years. I actually had one of the rare tickets for
a seat inside the Great Hall, which doubled the disappoint-
ment that I couldn’t get to the function. Professor Messel was
my ultimate boss when I had my first job as computer
programmer, working in the Physics Department, and while I
have occasionally been accused of being around since the Stone
Age I can assure you that the computers we had there were the
very latest ones and were made of bronze.
Professor Messel is relevant for two reasons to do with
tonight.
One of the things he noticed shortly after arrival in Australia
from Canada was that there appeared to be no girls’ high school
in Sydney (or maybe even in the state) that taught physics.
Apparently it was quite common then to hold the nonsensical
opinion that girls are incapable of understanding complicated
science.
Don’t think, however, that the boys got everything and the
girls got nothing. Biology was not taught in boys’ schools. I
went to a rather pretentious boys-only high school in Sydney’s
North Shore, and our choice of science subjects were Physics,
Chemistry, Mathematics I (the symbolic stuff – algebra,
calculus), Mathematics II (spatial – geometry, trigonometry),
and because at least one mathematics subject was required to
graduate from high school there was Mathematics III, which
seemed to be targeted at students who had to take their shoes
off to count beyond ten. (As a computer person, I can of course
count to 1023 on my fingers.)
To remedy this problem of what was taught where and to
whom, Professor Messel started a project that resulted in the
first ever integrated science syllabus for secondary education
anywhere in the world. This meant that at least the subjects of
physics, chemistry, biology and geology would be available to
all students in the state.
The manifestation of this was the famous “blue book”. First
published in 1964, this still stands out for its clarity of writing
and explanation. Certainly, there have been amazing advances
in science in the half century since, but the principles remain
the same for effective communication.
I mentioned the restricted range of science subjects at my high
school, and I am very proud to note that Mr Ron Hull, who was
Science Master at the school and taught me physics and chem-
istry for several years, was on the advisory board for the produc-
tion of the blue book. He obviously knew what should be taught
even if he didn’t have the facilities to do it.
The change would almost certainly have happened eventu-
ally, but all the girls and most of the boys (and many of their
parents) can thank Professor Messel for the fact that they are
here tonight.
Another thing that Professor Messel did was to set up what
was then called the Summer Science School (now the Inter-
national Science School), with students in the final years of
high school being brought together and accommodated at
Sydney University to hear lectures from and interact with
famous scientists.One of the people he brought out regularly was not a scien-
tist in the sense that he had extensive publications or had made
a major breakthrough. He was instead an educator. His name
was Professor Julius Sumner Miller, and what he did was to
perform small experiments and then follow-up with his catch-
phrase: “Why is it so?”.
If you want to see the sort of experiments that he did you can
find many of them on YouTube. A warning, however – don’t
start watching just before you’re about to leave the school or
about to go to bed because typing his name in the search box
at YouTube returns 27,500 videos.
The question “Why is it so?” is the fundamental question of
science. It is all very well to do experiments and record the
results, but unless you know why those results are meaningful
you have learnt nothing.
I encourage you to find something new every day that causes
you to ask yourself the question, because that’s what science
and being a scientist is all about.JAN/FEB 2016|| 47Peter Bowditch is a former President of Australian Skeptics Inc. (www.skeptics.com.au).THE NAKED SKEPTIC Peter Bowditch
A History Lesson for Smart Kids
Harry Messel was the inspiration for a talk Peter Bowditch gave at the 2015 Young Scientist
Awards organised by the Science Teachers’ Association of NSW.Professor Messel started a project
that resulted in the first ever
integrated science syllabus for
secondary education anywhere in
the world.