Thinking Into Dead-Ends

It’s an abuse of the term, skepticism, and a demonstration why journalists should not teach. John Horgan demonstrates the limits of teaching about “science” without knowing about science. And, this is what happened:

Steve, a physics major, was so inspired by the notion that correlation does not equal causation—a major theme of the Taubes article on epidemiology—that he questioned the foundations of scientific reasoning. “How do we know there is a cause for anything?” Steve asked. He quoted “a famous philosopher, Hume, who believed that there is no cause of anything, but that everything in life is just a correlation.”

In a similar vein, some students echoed the claim of radical postmodernists that we can never really know anything for certain; that almost all our current theories will probably be overturned. Aristotle’s physics gave way to Newton’s, which in turn yielded to Einstein’s. Our current theories of physics will surely be replaced by radically different ones, won’t they? Who knows! Maybe even heliocentrism, which was established by astronomy pioneers like Copernicus and Kep­ler, will be shown to be wrong.

After an especially doubt-riddled crop of papers, I responded, “Whoa!” (or words to that effect). Science, I lectured sternly, has established many facts about reality beyond a reasonable doubt, embodied by quantum mechanics, general relativity, the theory of evolution, the genetic code. This scientific knowledge has yielded applications—from vaccines to computer chips—that have transformed our world in countless ways. It is precisely because science is such a powerful mode of knowledge, I said, that you must treat new pronouncements skeptically, carefully distinguishing the genuine from the spurious. But you shouldn’t be so skeptical that you deny the possibility of achieving any knowledge at all.

My students listened politely, but I could see the doubt in their eyes.

High school Honors Chemistry at least taught me this much – science involves experiments and the most anal book-keeping I’ve ever had to do in my life. Beliefs are like anuses – we all have them. But, very few of us test our hypotheses. And then, very few conclusions reached through testing are re-tested. Horgan, for a professor, has done little better than the mean American student. (via SGU #289)

Just 34 percent of fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders, and 21 percent of 12th-graders are performing at or above “proficient” in the most recent snapshot from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which gives science scores from 2009. A very small number – just 1 or 2 percent at each grade level – scored at the “advanced” level, and relatively large numbers of students didn’t even meet the most basic level.

“The results released today show that our nation’s students aren’t learning at a rate that will maintain America’s role as an international leader in the sciences,” said Arne Duncan, the US secretary of Education, in a statement. “When only 1 or 2 percent of children score at the advanced levels on NAEP, the next generation will not be ready to be world-class inventors, doctors, and engineers.”

The NAEP science test was revised considerably since the last time students were tested, and the results can’t be compared with previous years. The new framework takes into account scientific advances, science educators say, and does a better job of measuring higher-level scientific thinking. Many questions are open-ended and ask students to design or evaluate experiments, for instance.

“The good news is that this is a really great test,” says Alan Friedman, a member of the National Assessment Governing Board and a former director of the New York Hall of Science. But Dr. Friedman says he is especially concerned by the results at the two extremes: the tiny number of students who score at the advanced level and the large number scoring below basic. In fourth grade, 28 percent of students failed to meet the basic level. In eighth grade, the number rose to 37 percent, and at 12th grade, a whopping 47 percent of students didn’t meet the basic score.

“That is distressing,” Friedman says. “These challenges are very serious for all of us who are into science education and who want our kids to be prepared for living a full life.”

It’s the part where students couldn’t design experiments that I think underscores the real danger in Horgan’s lesson. Horgan’s students should have pointed to experiments testing these various theories, not just spun wildly around in the oddity of the notions. But then, neither Horgan nor his students could do that. I wonder if information-cramming South Korean students would catch the trap, either. It’s only an intellectual parlor game, both theorizing and comparing national test scores.

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Filed under: Academia, bhtv, Education, Korea, Science, USA Tagged: john horgan, postmodernism, skepticism, teaching