1.1 --- a/org/science.org	Fri Oct 28 04:56:15 2011 -0700
     1.2 +++ b/org/science.org	Fri Oct 28 04:56:48 2011 -0700
     1.3 @@ -6,8 +6,8 @@
     1.4  #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
     1.5  
     1.6  
     1.7 -From what I've seen, today's science classrooms are remarkably
     1.8 -unscientific. Someone has decided that it is less important to teach
     1.9 +Today's science classrooms are remarkably
    1.10 +unscientific. According to prevailing wisdom, it is less important to teach
    1.11  the empirical mindset than to impart our accumulated scientific
    1.12  knowledge. Thus, because the field is so vast nowadays, teachers are
    1.13  obliged to be frugal with the facts: they must prune tangential
    1.14 @@ -15,13 +15,13 @@
    1.15  into simplified half-truths. Needs must when the devil drives, of
    1.16  course--but what is the end result?
    1.17  
    1.18 -In modern science classrooms, we force-feed students a deluge of
    1.19 -unfamiliar scientific dogma which they must swallow in time to
    1.20 -regurgitate onto an exam. To accomplish this daunting task, they
    1.21 +In modern science classrooms, students must swallow a 
    1.22 +deluge of unfamiliar scientific dogma in time to
    1.23 +regurgitate it onto an exam. To accomplish this daunting task, they
    1.24  cannot possibly stop to consider various alternatives which scientists
    1.25  have methodically eliminated over the course of centuries; instead,
    1.26  they must simply trust that science has done what it purports to have
    1.27 -done--or, faster, simply stamp out their conjectural, critical
    1.28 +done--or, faster, simply stamp out their own conjectural, critical
    1.29  instincts.
    1.30  
    1.31  By the end of such a course, students might be able to recite the
    1.32 @@ -29,15 +29,24 @@
    1.33  when answering carefully formulated questions. But even if, by chance,
    1.34  our students get their facts straight, they will have acquired at most
    1.35  only our pre-processed truths, and nothing of the empirical machinery
    1.36 -that produced them. In my opinion, such a lackluster result demands
    1.37 -that we re-evaluate our priorities. Surely the shibboleth of the
    1.38 -scientist is not his ability to recount the bleeding-edge depiction of
    1.39 -reality--after all, theories are transient and revolutions expected--but
    1.40 -rather his pervasive inquiries about the world and his methodical,
    1.41 -empirical approach to answering them? Indeed, don't we recognize the
    1.42 -scientist by his lack of allegiance to the status quo, by the way he
    1.43 -scrutinizes even his own theories with utmost irreverence?
    1.44 +that produced them. 
    1.45  
    1.46 +In my opinion, such a lackluster result demands
    1.47 +that we re-evaluate our priorities. Surely the essential mark of the
    1.48 +scientist is not her ability to recount the latest model of reality,
    1.49 +but rather her pervasive inquiry and her methodical, empirical
    1.50 +approach to obtaining answers? Instead of canonizing the latest
    1.51 +theories, shouldn't we be stimulating a zeal for scrutinizing the
    1.52 +them?
    1.53 +
    1.54 +#Surely the shibboleth of the
    1.55 +#scientist is not his ability to recount the bleeding-edge depiction of
    1.56 +#reality--after all, theories are transient and revolutions expected--but
    1.57 +#rather his pervasive inquiries about the world and his methodical,
    1.58 +#empirical approach to answering them? Indeed, don't we recognize the
    1.59 +#scientist by his lack of allegiance to the status quo, by the way he
    1.60 +#scrutinizes even his own theories with utmost irreverence?
    1.61 + 
    1.62  In valuing data absorption over methodical reason, we give our
    1.63  students a fragmentary and moreover inexplicable impression of
    1.64  reality. We must ask ourselves: how much of science is left in that?