RADIOACTIVITY IN GEOLOGY: A MUCH NEGLECTED BUT UNIFYING CONCEPT IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

Irrational fear of anything radioactive, largely unchallenged by intellectuals, academics, and educators, is a principal fallacy of current thought and opinion. Nuclear processes, their outcomes, and their effects in nature and on humans need to be understood, integrated, and taught as objectively and rationally as other physical and chemical phenomena. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons of anthropogenic ionizing radiation with the large variability (at least two orders of magnitude) of natural background radiation through geologic time and space must be key elements of high-school and college science curricula. Unless we incorporate in our classroom teaching a comprehensive treatment of the nuclear nexus between all aspects of science, our claims to detached scientific objectivity remain mere pretensions.