I'd love it we put these stickers in all our textbooks, including the economics texts, and even in the arithmetic books, (but let's save non-standard models of Peano's axiom for some time after junior high). More generally, I wish the classroom atmosphere and textbook writing rendered this unnecessary.
You're right that there's a problem in that any number of crackpot theories can be saved if we want desperately enought to do so. And there's a practical limitation in that we can't consider all of them. But if 45% of the students in my class accepted Aristotelean biology (http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/US/724_public_view_of_creationism_and_11_19_2004.asp) then I think I would bring it up as an alternative theory. I wasn't trying to argue that creationism should be given equal time as much as I was trying to argue that we should avoid rigid dogmatism in science.
Well, this is scary, using religious texts as a source of contemporary knowledge is no less moronic than using any scientifically invalidated ancient text. The trouble is not that belief relies on outdated sources but that it relies on non scientific ones. So, I would make sure to address this issue and then get serious
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I wasn't clear enough. I think there is an ambiguity in when Human beings appeared. Whether previous species in the evolutionary chain were human being of sort or not if you wish.
I'm not trying to address your pedagigical dilemma of course, i'm just toying with the concepts delivered to the pollee...
I'm sure that the sticker was motivated by commitments to things other than open-mindedness, critical thinking and the avoidance of scientific dogmatism. To be sure, the creators of the sticker are likely trying to play on an ambiguity in the meaning of "theory". But, so what? It's a wonderful "teachable moment" as my education instructors used to say. The teachers should use the opportunity to explain what science is, what theories are and why they're not all equally legitimate and why, if understood correctly, the sticker is accurate and brimming with excellent advice.
That's a nice piece of dialectical rhetoric, mvf. But I'm lying with ldd on this one. You can't just make the assumption that the record will be straighten by an enlightened teacher...
1) The question is too loaded to be left to a disclamer on a disclamer (I guess you'd need a sticker on the sticker saying: to know what a scientific theory is look on page 12).
2) The term 'theory', like 'anthrax', has two meanings. (Now this brings me back to some discussion with an italian mason about whether and how to reify the concept of theory in a certain KB.) It is indeed used as meaning guess or even just belief in the public. Compare to the sparkles it lit a few years ago when it came to the Kyoto treaty and the 'theory' of global warming. Eventually, W declared 'the science is there' or something and 'I believe in it'. All of this was a bit confusing... ff.
Suppose y'all are arguing against this sticker in court, which of the following arguments are you going to use? a) the sticker makes false claims. b) the general public is not smart enough to understand the sense in which the sticker makes sense and educators are incapable of explaining it to them. (BTW, I think I should clarify my earlier comment, I don't that the sticker creators are trading on am ambiguity in 'theory', but trading on a lack of understanding that the whole of science is made up of theories.) c) It doesn't go far enough, if we're going to put stickers on the biology texts we should also place them on other texts.
... but it's not like Paul Feyerabend had very good arguments for that claim, is it?
I also believe that you are underestimating the role that argument from authority by necessity has to play. It's not like any of us read Aristotle in the Greek and wrote our own dictionary; no, we learned from our predecessors how to read the Greek and we used their dictionaries and then tried to read Aristotle basically in their way. So I don't see any reason to assume that science education is not, for a large and significant part, the process of telling students what a lot of really smart, respected people believe was the outcome of their experiments.
Well, when the opponents of the sticker make claims like "saying that evolution is a theory and telling students to have open minds is like saying that everything in the book is false" or listening to Dawkin's ex cathedra pronouncements about scientific orthodoxy make Feyerabend's position pretty tenable
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What you wish the school board migth be noble, but it's not what they said. They said something clearly false by implying (as clearly as one can) that it is "not a fact." Now, you might want to engage the youth in edifying tales of critically evaluating theories, but if you are suggesting to them that those "theories" are necessarily less reliable than some other thing you call "fact," then I think you are in the wrong
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I know we've probably done this one to death, but anyone still following this thread may be interested in couple of the op-ed letters in today's WP (sorry, subscription required apparently):
I'll post the shorter one, the other is also quite good:
The article on the challenges to evolution cited a disclaimer affixed to ninth-grade textbooks in Georgia's Cobb County that states, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact."
The word "theory," however, is not the antonym of "fact." Evolution is a theory, as is creationism -- i.e., a schema of explanation. The validity of any theory is a function of how completely it accommodates the greatest number of pertinent facts. In this respect, evolution has more than proven itself. Indeed, to reject evolution is to reject modern science and all the technological goodies it has brought about.
Probably no one here anymore, but...splinter9February 9 2005, 15:52:05 UTC
The proper place for a discussion of scientific method and the definitions of theories, laws and evidence is a chapter at the beginning of the text, not a sensationalist cover sticker picking out one culturally-charged area of science. The medium participates dramatically in the message in this case, and that is that everything else in this book is solid fact except for the question-worthy theory of evolution. I am against the attitude of Dawkins, et. al. that we don't need to question science (I don't think Dawkins actually believes that, but he gets nice and worked up about those God-fearers, and frequently says things he oughtn't). However, I don't think that the religious right gets privileged access to question one particular element of science on the front cover of public school books.
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You're right that there's a problem in that any number of crackpot theories can be saved if we want desperately enought to do so. And there's a practical limitation in that we can't consider all of them. But if 45% of the students in my class accepted Aristotelean biology (http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/US/724_public_view_of_creationism_and_11_19_2004.asp) then I think I would bring it up as an alternative theory. I wasn't trying to argue that creationism should be given equal time as much as I was trying to argue that we should avoid rigid dogmatism in science.
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I'm not trying to address your pedagigical dilemma of course, i'm just toying with the concepts delivered to the pollee...
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(The comment has been removed)
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1) The question is too loaded to be left to a disclamer on a disclamer (I guess you'd need a sticker on the sticker saying: to know what a scientific theory is look on page 12).
2) The term 'theory', like 'anthrax', has two meanings. (Now this brings me back to some discussion with an italian mason about whether and how to reify the concept of theory in a certain KB.) It is indeed used as meaning guess or even just belief in the public.
Compare to the sparkles it lit a few years ago when it came to the Kyoto treaty and the 'theory' of global warming. Eventually, W declared 'the science is there' or something and 'I believe in it'. All of this was a bit confusing...
ff.
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a) the sticker makes false claims.
b) the general public is not smart enough to understand the sense in which the sticker makes sense and educators are incapable of explaining it to them. (BTW, I think I should clarify my earlier comment, I don't that the sticker creators are trading on am ambiguity in 'theory', but trading on a lack of understanding that the whole of science is made up of theories.)
c) It doesn't go far enough, if we're going to put stickers on the biology texts we should also place them on other texts.
d) something else?
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I also believe that you are underestimating the role that argument from authority by necessity has to play. It's not like any of us read Aristotle in the Greek and wrote our own dictionary; no, we learned from our predecessors how to read the Greek and we used their dictionaries and then tried to read Aristotle basically in their way. So I don't see any reason to assume that science education is not, for a large and significant part, the process of telling students what a lot of really smart, respected people believe was the outcome of their experiments.
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PB
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I'll post the shorter one, the other is also quite good:
The article on the challenges to evolution cited a disclaimer affixed to ninth-grade textbooks in Georgia's Cobb County that states, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact."
The word "theory," however, is not the antonym of "fact." Evolution is a theory, as is creationism -- i.e., a schema of explanation. The validity of any theory is a function of how completely it accommodates the greatest number of pertinent facts. In this respect, evolution has more than proven itself. Indeed, to reject evolution is to reject modern science and all the technological goodies it has brought about.
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