#+title: Science Minus Science 

 #+author: Dylan Holmes

 #+email: ocsenave@gmail.com

 #+description: The debate between teaching scientific facts and the scientific way to think.

 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org

 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org

 

 I'm worried that science classes are becoming unscientific.

 Typically, science classes are supposed to teach not only how the world works, but also how

 to think scientifically. Lately, however, our mentality has been

 marginalized to make time for teaching students all the theory that

 eventual college students should know.

 #I've noticed that classrooms

 #have been heavily emphasizing our information, rather than our

 #mentality. They haven't forgotten about teaching ways to think, but

 #they insist that teachers familiarize their students

 #with theories that every college student should know. 

 Because our theories are complex,

 with intricacies that would be cruel and unusual to

 inflict upon unsuspecting pupils, such a curriculum requires teachers to be frugal with the facts: they must prune tangential

 subjects and pare whatever's left, watering down complicated results

 into simplified half-truths. They must avoid the imperfect boundaries

 of our knowledge, instead concentrating on an idealized and sanitized

 account of what we know. But what's the result of such abbreviation?

 

 #Needs must when the devil drives, of

 #course--but what is the end result?

 

 #As a result of this shift, they have been saddled with the

 #difficult task of disseminating complex scientific theories in a short

 #period of time 

 

 # and it is less important to teach

 #the empirical mindset than to impart our accumulated scientific

 #knowledge. Thus, because the field is so vast nowadays, teachers are

 #obliged to be frugal with the facts: they must prune tangential

 #subjects and pare whatever's left, watering down complicated results

 #into simplified half-truths. Needs must when the devil drives, of

 #course--but what is the end result?

 

 In modern science classrooms, students must still swallow a deluge of

 unfamiliar scientific dogma in time to regurgitate it onto an

 exam. In their forced hurry, they cannot stop to ponder various

 alternatives which scientists have methodically eliminated over the

 course of centuries; instead, they must simply trust that science has

 done what it purports to have done--or, faster, simply stamp out their

 own conjectural, critical instincts.

 

 Facility with

 scientific concepts and language is  

 not such a bad skill to have.

 By the end of such a course, students might be able to recite the

 tenets of our current scientific creed and might employ those tenets

 when answering carefully formulated questions.  I am worried, though, because even if

 our students get their facts straight, they will still have acquired at most

 only our pre-processed truths, and nothing of the empirical machinery

 that produced them. 

 

 In my opinion, this shortchanges our students, and we ought to re-evaluate our priorities. Surely the essential mark of the

 scientist is not his ability to recount the latest model of reality,

 but rather his pervasive inquiry and methodical, empirical

 approach to obtaining answers? Instead of canonizing the latest

 theories, shouldn't we be stimulating a zeal for scrutinizing 

 them? Might we even want to /postpone/ handing our

 students canned knowledge, at the very least until we've taught them enough

 about how to be curious, how to acquire knowledge for themselves, how

 to be analytical---in short, how to live like scientists? 

 

 

 

 #Surely the shibboleth of the

 #scientist is not his ability to recount the bleeding-edge depiction of

 #reality--after all, theories are transient and revolutions expected--but

 #rather his pervasive inquiries about the world and his methodical,

 #empirical approach to answering them? Indeed, don't we recognize the

 #scientist by his lack of allegiance to the status quo, by the way he

 #scrutinizes even his own theories with utmost irreverence?

 

 When we value data absorption over methodical reason, we give our

 students a fragmentary and moreover inexplicable impression of

 nature, one which will probably evaporate outside the classroom. That's an approach to science which  hardly sounds like science.

 Instead, let's teach students how to think, so they can build a

 framework that will house the rest of their knowledge. Let's stop

 rushing to teach students everything we know, and let them grapple

 with Nature themselves for a while. Let's train them to be curious rather than

 complacent learners. The results will be worth our effort.

 

 #I ask you: how much of science is left in that?