Doug's Internship Experience!

"In one of our first meeting in Peg’s Molecular Evolution class last year, she commented on the need for cohesion among scientific ideas. She was speaking of a collection of papers she assigned us that discussed various principles and methods of inferring phylogenies. Beyond the monotonous studies on computer programs, neighbor-joining, and tree building, she was trying to teach her flock that we need a solid foundation in the material before we pressed on. She said, almost as an afterthought, that “science in a vacuum is just an indulgence”. She was referring to the papers specifically, but the quote caught me as having a broader appeal; hearing one scientific idea or theory without a sense of its place or importance is insipid and pointless.

This introduction to science is what makes the MAS so important. Beyond providing a website and school visit, the Academy is taking strides in the expansion of science education, a priority in a changing world. My internship was a positive learning experience for me because it not only showed me how much professional educators care about their material, it also offered first hand experience in informal education, outreach, and organization. Working with the MAS was an illuminating experience, to be sure.

I have to admire Peg’s commitment to the Academy, a long overdue organization in one of the great bastions of Western knowledge. The oldest constitution still in use in the world today is that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, penned by John Adams in 1778, a decade before our national constitution. While serving as a rough draft for the later US Constitution, Adams included a few words on education that he privately thought were too radical to pass. He wrote: “Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people [are] necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties. And as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people [that is, everyone], it shall be the duty [not something they might consider, but the duty] of legislatures and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests and literature and the sciences…”. Here, we have to applaud Adam’s vision and thank Peg and her industrious interns for their work. 1778 was a long time ago, but better late then never, eh?"

-Doug Taylor