CATEGORY:
How Should Humanity Steer the Future? Essay Contest (2014)
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TOPIC:
Back to the Future: Crowdsourcing Innovation by Refocusing Science Education by Travis Ty Norsen
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Author Travis Ty Norsen wrote on Apr. 15, 2014 @ 20:31 GMT
Essay AbstractTraditional science education has an unfortunately dogmatic character: students are taught scientific conclusions, but they learn very little about the chronological steps by which those conclusions were established. In particular, science education does not give future scientists an adequate understanding of the fact that the fundamental scientific principles which support modern technology began life as controversial hypotheses. But if we want a future in which further liberating innovations are the norm, we must find a way to produce scientists and engineers who are comfortable with controversy and have sound judgment about which controversial issues and hypotheses are fruitful to engage with. A natural way to achieve this goal -- and to help science education better capture the true nature of science in the process -- is to refocus science education around historical scientific controversies and their eventual resolutions.
Author BioTravis Norsen has taught physics at Marlboro, Smith, and Mount Holyoke Colleges as well as Bridgewater State University. He has a long-standing interest in alternative, especially history-based, science curricula. He also works on foundational questions in quantum theory and has published widely on, for example, Bell's theorem and Bohmian mechanics.
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John Brodix Merryman wrote on Apr. 16, 2014 @ 02:23 GMT
Travis,
That is a very interesting and informative essay. Though I don't know that it might have better been focused on the contest question of 2012, 'Questioning the Foundations: Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?'
Personally I'm not a professional scientist, but have much natural experience with the laws of basic physics. To that end, I keep pointing out in the...
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Travis,
That is a very interesting and informative essay. Though I don't know that it might have better been focused on the contest question of 2012, 'Questioning the Foundations: Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?'
Personally I'm not a professional scientist, but have much natural experience with the laws of basic physics. To that end, I keep pointing out in the FQXI forums that we are looking at time backwards. It isn't the point of the present moving from past to future, which physics distills to measures of duration, to use in its 'calculations,' but the process by which future becomes past. For example, the earth doesn't travel either Newton's absolute flow, or Einstein's fourth dimension, from yesterday to tomorrow, but rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Suffice to say, this runs up against that brick wall of academic inertia you are describing, because it seriously undermines some cardinal assumptions, such as spacetime and therefore all the projections arising from it. In fact, it makes time similar to temperature. Time is to temperature what frequency is to amplitude. The rate of change and the level of activity. We think of temperature as a cumulative effect, but it is based on lots of particular actions of specific velocity or amplitude. On the other hand, we think of time as a universal process, but we cannot deduce the absolute measure, only the cumulative effect of lots of particular changes. So we are looking at them from conceptually opposite directions. Like watching the sun move across the sky, the sequencing of events is a function of our singular point of view, when in fact we are just a human molecule, bouncing around the medium.
It was the topic of my
entry in that 2012 contest. As for this contest, I also feel there are a lot of conceptual fallacies we have to clear up, before any hope of controlling our worldwide context, so Good Luck!
Regards,
John M
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Wilhelmus de Wilde de Wilde wrote on Apr. 16, 2014 @ 14:50 GMT
Dear Travis,
Indeed the education of our children is THE important thing for any future , and not only the scientific education, no it begins already when our children are watching television and see what a mess we made of the world.
The parents (if they are aware of what they are watching !!!) could then explain what is behind this mess and how it could have been prevented , so it is the totality of mentality that has to be changed from the short view to the wide view including ALL abilities of humanity, starting indeed with the total change of egoistic economy.
I appreciated your essay and maybe you may be able to read
my essay "Steering the Future of Consciousness"[:link] and leave there a post on my thread, eventually when you have an overview of the entrances give me a rating.
best regards
Wilhelmus
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 18:27 GMT
Thanks for your comments. I definitely agree that eduction is "THE" important thing for the future, and that although my essay focused more on what science education at the college (or maybe advanced high school) level should look like, I would apply the same principles all the way back to the beginnings of science education in pre-school and kindergarten: it shouldn't be about memorizing facts, but instead about how things can be figured out. There should be more of an emphasis on puzzles, hypothetical answers/solutions, and the process of finding and creating *evidence*. The driving question should be "How do you know?" rather than "What do you know?"
I'm not sure we agree, though, about the overall state of the world today, which you describe as a "mess". Undoubtedly there are a number of things I'd like to see changed. But overall, the state of the world seems quite good to me, and the trend is in the right direction. All the prophets of doom from Malthus on have been flatly refuted, by human ingenuity and progress. More people live longer and happier and more fulfilling lives today than the prophets would have thought possible in their wildest fantasies (or would they be, for such people, nightmares??). And I see every reason to think this kind of progress will continue... I just want to see it continue faster and better, and I think improving science education is the most effective way to accomplish that.
Travis
Eckard Blumschein wrote on Apr. 16, 2014 @ 17:11 GMT
Dear Travis,
While the title was deterring to me, the abstract seems to indicate a truly interesting essay. I personally avoided teaching controversies. A well known expert in physiology of hearing admitted using each year the same questions in exams. This was possible because the correct answers were different ones each year.
I wonder if your readiness to deal with the most decisive question didn't result in your insight that even the seemingly settled one are strictly speaking perhaps rather open. See the references of 2021.
Regards,
Eckard
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 18:36 GMT
That's a funny story about the exams being the same every year, but with different "correct answers"...
In my opinion, the best kind of exam question is one where there is no single unambiguously "right answer", but instead lots of different valid approaches one could take to make progress. Of course, that's the kind of question that often drives students mad, even if teachers enjoy the show. But I'd say that signals a problem with how we teach science. Of course students don't like these sorts of "ambiguous" exam questions, when what they've been exposed to, what they've come to expect and depend on, through their whole educational lives, is a kind of dogmatic unambiguous (pseudo-) certainty. My vision is of an approach to science education in which these sorts of "ambiguous exam questions" would feel completely normal, proper, unsurprising, and fun to students -- because they've learned, from studying science, that this is how science really works!
As to your last remark, yes. =) There are a number of things that are widely considered as "settled" that I think are, in fact, anything but. The so-called "interpretation of quantum mechanics" (where there is a pretty clear neo-Copenhagen-ish orthodoxy) is the biggest example, as I discuss briefly in my essay.
Travis
George Gantz wrote on Apr. 17, 2014 @ 01:53 GMT
Travis -
Thanks for the great essay – all students, and especially science students, would benefit from a good experience of how science had historically evolved from “West” to “East”. One of the concerns with only teaching from the East is that it tends to give a sense of perfection to science – science becomes “dogma” as you put it. More humility would be welcome in science. This is an issue I touch on in my essay,
The Tip of the Spear.
I wonder, however, about your theme that what is now West will eventually become East. As you put it, “We should expect all of this, that is, if we can resist the impulse to dismiss the controversy as “metaphysical” or otherwise meaningless and unscientific.” However, some of the frontiers science we are confronting are probing at the issues of what we cannot know. Quantum physics is not the only area dealing with paradox. Mathematics and logic have similar struggles with self-reference. Complexity theory confounds our intuitions about the predictability of nature, and unsolvable problems are a critical limit in computational science. Maybe science students also need a dose of metaphysics?
Many thanks - George
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 18:46 GMT
Hi George, Thanks for your comments. I will check out your essay, as I'm very interested in others' "outside-the-box" ideas on science education.
I'm 100% in support of the idea that science students should learn some metaphysics. But "metaphysics" is one of those words that can mean a lot of different things, so it's not actually clear to me whether we agree much here or not. For example, I don't have the sense that we are bumping up against some kind of fundamental limits to knowledge (having to do with self-reference paradoxes, or anything else) in the case of quantum mechanics. Instead, to put it bluntly, Bohr sold everybody a bill of goods: it was his wacky (partly metaphysical) ideas that convinced people -- quite wrongly -- that there was something uniquely and desperately paradoxical going on. Part of my motivation for thinking that science education should include more focus on historical controversies is precisely that people who had been educated in that way would be far less likely to just accept Bohr's type of philosophical nonsense as the final word on the subject.
Or, to return to the East/West metaphor that you recalled from my essay, I think Bohr (and Heisenberg and others) put up a sign saying "nothing to see here, turn your car around and return from whence you came" in front of a beautiful, rich, unexplored western territory. I want more students who will see such things and say "forget that", kick the sign down, and go explore.
George Gantz replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 19:14 GMT
Ty -
I agree, in part. Bohr is a good example of running away from something important by slapping on a "metaphysical" band-aid. But I do have the sense that we are, and will continue, bumping into ineluctable limits, for which we need an open metaphysical inquiry. For, example, in
my essay I followed the findings of evolutionary, complexity and emergence theories to a conclusion that cooperation is fundamental to survival at all levels in this universe. That is a metaphysical proposition - it is not something that can be proven, but it is "pointed to" by the science. Significantly, it is a conclusion that is also "pointed to" by religious teachings.
Stretching the compass metaphor further, I think it is the case that as we keep exploring to the West, we eventually find ourselves in the East - but this time it is the far East (symbolic of mysticism - the unknowable). There may be wisdom there that transcends that of the East you are referring to.
Cheers - George
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Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Apr. 17, 2014 @ 03:11 GMT
I enjoyed your essay greatly Travis...
I think you would enjoy
mine as well, since I also talk about reforming Education - by focusing on the value of play. There is a lot to be said for teaching Science via the history of scientific controversies, and I would not have believed the linkage was so strong, before reading your essay. You did a masterful job of drawing me in to the story behind some of the developments we have all learned about.
I absolutely agree that teaching any scientific subject as a collection of facts and formulas is a waste of time, because the real practice of a pursuit like Physics involves wrestling with the possible applicability of several competing models - and wanting to know what is behind the observable reality, despite the temptation to just shut up and calculate. I have always been more interested in understanding quantum mechanics' foundations, than how to find solutions to specific equations, for example, but I know there is a place for that too.
I think we need to bring back the Wild West, to use the analogy in your intro, but even moreso; we need to inspire a generation of frontier explorers with ingenuity and innovativeness to spare. We need more adventurers, rather than people who learn a bunch of facts. The most important fact is that Science keeps advancing; it does not remain the same. So you are right to imagine we should teach the contentious and tumultuous birth of scientific knowledge, from a perspective informed by history.
All the Best,
Jonathan
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Turil Sweden Cronburg wrote on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 14:10 GMT
Travis, I agree with your idea of bringing real problems into the way we learn. A while back I got some funding to create an open-ended global (online) school that was sort of an encyclopedia of solutions, wiki-style, where the goal was to have a database of all the categories of things we humans care about, and allow people to share their own solutions for attaining better versions of these things, similar to Instructibles, but truly well organized and open to wiki-editing (and without the corporate/profiteering annoyances). The idea was to use this as a platform for educators and informal learners to research, share, test, and explore a world of ideas. Unfortunately, my funding ran out before anyone ever showed up to contribute (other than me), and I don’t even have enough money to live, myself (so I can’t fund it personally) so it’s a defunct project at the moment. But it was such a glaringly obviously good idea that I imagine that someone else will make it, and make it popular!
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 18:47 GMT
I hope you're right -- it indeed sounds like the kind of thing that would be a valuable resource.
Travis
James Dunn wrote on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 14:59 GMT
Consider creating crowd-sourcing as relativistic social networks based upon enterprise. By creating a business model where a large collection of social groups create a shared sub-group, the potential for diverse opportunities to leverage under-utilized resources becomes feasible.
Example:
Interns in Industry Program
http://jamesbdunn2.blogspot.com/2013/02/national-prog
ram-interns-in-industry-iii.htmlAny good intention without a business model is without merit.
By creating a diverse pool of businesses that share a system of common goals, they can both get a return on their investments AND promote diversity in education.
James Dunn
FQXi Submission:
Graduated Certification for Certification of Common Sensehttp://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2045
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Joe Fisher wrote on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 16:13 GMT
Dear Mr. Norsen,
Your excellently written essay was one of the most compelling essays of the ones I have read so far, and I do hope that it does well in the competition. May I humbly make a suggestion? Only perfect abstraction is taught in all of academia. Please do not take this as a personal attack upon you because you only teach abstraction perfection. This is how the real Universe is...
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Dear Mr. Norsen,
Your excellently written essay was one of the most compelling essays of the ones I have read so far, and I do hope that it does well in the competition. May I humbly make a suggestion? Only perfect abstraction is taught in all of academia. Please do not take this as a personal attack upon you because you only teach abstraction perfection. This is how the real Universe is occurring, once.
Based only on my observation, I have concluded that all of the stars, all of the planets, all of the asteroids, all of the comets, all of the meteors, all of the specks of astral dust and all real things have one and only one thing in common. Each real thing has a material surface and an attached material sub-surface. A material surface can be internal or external. All material surfaces must travel at the constant “speed” of light. All material sub-surfaces must travel at an inconsistent “speed” that is less than the “speed” of light. It would be physically impossible for light to move as it does not have a surface or a sub-surface. Abstract theory cannot ever have unification. Only reality is unified because there is only one reality.
I use the term “speed” of light merely to make it easier for the reader to understand my theory. Actually light cannot move because it does not have a surface. Light is the only stationary substance in the real Universe. The proof of this is easy to establish. When one looks at an active electrical light, one must notice that all of the light remains inside of the bulb. What does move from the bulb is some form of radiant. The radiant must move at a rate of speed that is less than the “speed” of light, however, when the radiant strikes a surface it achieves the “speed” of light because all surfaces can only travel at the “speed” of light. When it strikes a surface, the radiant resumes being a light, albeit of a lesser magnitude. While it is true that searchlights, spotlights and car headlights seem to cast a beam of light, this might be because the beams strike naturally formed sub-atomic particles prevalent in the atmosphere that actually form a surface.
In the Thomas Young Double Slit Experiment, it was not direct sunlight that passed through the slits. Light from the sun is stationary and it cannot move because light does not have a surface. Radiants emitted from the sun went through the slits and behaved like wave radiants.
Einstein was completely wrong. His abstract theory about how abstract observers “see” abstract events differently is wrong. This is what every real observer sees when they look at a real light. They see that all of the light remains near the source. The reason for that is because light does not have a surface, therefore it cannot move. This happens to real observers whether they are looking at real fabricated lights such as neon, incandescent or LED. This also happens when real observers observe real natural light such as from the real sun or reflected from the real moon, or from a real lightning bolt, or from a real firelight, real candle light, or light from out of a real lightning bug’s bottom.
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 18, 2014 @ 18:55 GMT
Thanks for your nice comments on my essay. Unfortunately, though, I can't make any sense of your ideas about what is and isn't moving, and how fast. If surfaces travel at a different speed than the sub-surface material, won't the two become separated? And anyway what is the nature of the evidence for this idea that every surface moves at the speed of light? Obviously that's the kind of claim that, on its face, sounds preposterous -- so you would have a significant burden of proof to overcome in arguing for it.
I don't want to discuss this here. Perhaps I will read your submission and comment there. Here I'll just note that this seems like a good example of something that comes up tangentially in my essay: not every alleged controversy is a *legitimate* controversy. One of the values, for students, of being exposed to more examples of (legitimate) historical scientific controversies, is that they'll then be in a better position to recognize the difference between legitimate controversies and pseudo-controversies. I'm always open to new evidence, but it sure seems like the "controversy" about whether (for example) the surface of the table my feet are propped up on right now is (in my frame of reference) at rest, or instead moving at the speed of light, is of the "pseudo-" variety.
Travis
Gordon Watson wrote on Apr. 19, 2014 @ 20:13 GMT
Dear Travis,
Nice essay; to which I'll be returning. On a first reading, can see little reason not to be 100% with you!
For now, this question comes to mind: How would that famous Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPR) paper of 1935 be treated under your proposal?
For, in my experience, there still tend to be categories -- like "winners" and "losers" -- in discussions of historical controversies.
And: I suspect that you and I might differ on this one?
Thanks, and best regards; Gordon
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 19, 2014 @ 21:14 GMT
Hi Gordon. Re: EPR, I guess I'd just say that when students learn quantum physics, they should learn about the EPR-Bohr controversy. Of course, some people would say they already learn about that -- by reading the footnote in the textbook where it says (paraphrasing) "Some senile old idiots, like Einstein, couldn't accept the brilliant new theory, but Bohr completely and totally refuted their arguments. Just trust us on this".
I'd say that instead of this kind of absurd indoctrination, students should actually learn what Einstein was really worried about. I don't think education should be in the business of picking winners and losers; it should be in the business of clearly explaining the arguments and evidence on all sides. This would have the effect of leaving people more free to decide on such issues for themselves, which is a good thing -- but of course the important thing is that science is, by definition, evidence- (not authority-) based. So if science is going to be taught scientifically, it simply *has* to be done this way.
Travis
Gordon Watson replied on Apr. 20, 2014 @ 00:50 GMT
Travis:
Re EPR-Bohr, students would learn that Bell wrote (without paraphrasing): "While imagining that I understand the position of Einstein ..., as regards the EPR correlations, I have very little understanding of his principal opponent, Bohr," Bell (2004:155).
And I'm with Bell here, 100%.
But I'm against Bell (100%) when he cites Einstein (from Schilpp 1949) and writes (Bell 2004: 86): "If nature follows quantum mechanics in these correlations, then Einstein's conception of the world is untenable."
So, in developing your (let's say, 100% agreed) proposal; what are you, as Department Head, to do with me: A teacher that takes a strong stand on issues [as above] so that students have a very firm position against which to test and hone their arguments?
PS: Trying to be helpful; is this where you might confront me with some experimental results? If so, which, please? For you have a very enthusiastic teacher on your hands here; one that's keen to learn!
Gordon
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Georgina Woodward wrote on Apr. 20, 2014 @ 10:38 GMT
Hi Travis,
an interesting approach to the question, limiting the interpretation of it to the teaching /learning of physics. Your's seems to me quite an optimistic and achievable plan. There does also need to be a culture in which it is not considered nutty to find controversy and attempt to resolve it, rather than just accepting what is taught.
Good luck, Georgina
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on Apr. 21, 2014 @ 15:06 GMT
Hi Georgina, thanks for your comments. I definitely attempted to answer the question in a way that was realistic and achievable (and closely related to fqxi's focus areas) as opposed to highly speculative and pie-in-the-sky. It's of course good and important to think outside the box and imagine speculative possibilities. But if we really want to steer the future in a positive direction, it's also pretty important that the steering wheel be something that we can actually grasp and control!
So, yeah, I appreciate your phrase "optimistic and achievable" very much. =)
Best,
Travis
James Lee Hoover wrote on May. 1, 2014 @ 02:33 GMT
Travis,
I agree that the chronological steps leading to scientific conclusions are quite important and perhaps illuminating for the impressionable science student, but I can't help but feel that failing is more recent in methodology for teaching science. Too much focus of late in American education, beset by competition in global tests, is on teaching to the test. Certainly historical perspective is lost when the emphasis is on scientific conclusion and not the discovery nuance.
By "traditional science education," do you mean a test-based focus? Not dealing with a lot of physics and chemistry in my work, in retirement I have worked on this deficiency by reviewing my understanding of physics and chemistry through "The Great Courses," DVD of instruction which certainly look at steps of discovery concerning relativity, particle physics and such.
The Common Core program pushed by the federal government doesn't have this approach, seeming to push instead testing and privatization of education.
Your essay is well-written and focused on needed "a back to the future" perspective, but I wonder how we accomplish that in the current climate that demonizes public education?
Jim
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on May. 1, 2014 @ 14:30 GMT
Hi Jim, Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I certainly agree that there are more (and arguably bigger) problems in education generally, than just the problem of science being taught too un-historically / too dogmatically. In particular, I agree that all the testing -- and the "teaching to the test" that inevitably results -- is a big problem. You also bring up the private vs. public distinction, but in a way I don't really understand: top down mandates from the government (e.g., "Common Core") seem to me to be an inherent aspect of *public* education. So I'm confused about why you suggest that such things "seem to push ... privatization". I'd actually like to see something much closer to a free market in education, where people could vote with their dollars and legs and innovation and success would win out (instead of being stifled by entrenched and self-serving bureaucracies, unions, etc.). But this is an argument for a different day. =) My goal in this essay was not to try to solve all the world's problems in one fell swoop, because that is frankly pretentious and unrealistic, but instead to point to one thing that I think could realistically be improved in a reasonable amount of time and which would have a significant and positive impact on future generations.
Best,
Travis
James Lee Hoover replied on May. 29, 2014 @ 18:26 GMT
Travis,
Having had problems with my browser and rating, I am returning to essays I have read and checking if I rated them. I find that I rated yours on 5/13.
Regarding privatization, I am disturbed that forces with a lot of money are pushing charter schools w/o consulting with parents, like Zuckerburg (Facebook) with several hundred million in Newark and like Gates. They mean well but have prejudice against public education and don't consider higher cost of privatized schools and lack of accountability. That's what I meant.
Have you had the chance to look at my essay: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2008?
Jim
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Mohammed M. Khalil wrote on May. 1, 2014 @ 15:23 GMT
Hi Travis,
Great essay! I agree with you; science education is very important for the progress of science. In your essay, you raised some interesting reasons for improving education. I like how you linked the history of science with the present and the future.
In my essay
Improving Science for a Better Future, I touched upon the importance of improving education to accelerate the progress of science. I would be glad to receive your opinion.
Best regards,
Mohammed
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on May. 2, 2014 @ 13:32 GMT
Hi Mohammed, I will definitely check out your essay -- I'm very interested in what others have to say about how to improve science education. Thanks for the tip!
Travis
Vladimir Rogozhin wrote on May. 12, 2014 @ 21:03 GMT
Dear Travis,
Wonderful deep essay on the very important issue for the future of Humanity! I totally agree with you:
«Science education thus inadvertantly tends to make science appear authoritarian and dogmatic.»
«Why not bring" real science "into the classroom, from the beginning, so that everyone can learn it, benefit from it, and apply it to the puzzles whose resolutions...
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Dear Travis,
Wonderful deep essay on the very important issue for the future of Humanity! I totally agree with you:
«Science education thus inadvertantly tends to make science appear authoritarian and dogmatic.»
«Why not bring" real science "into the classroom, from the beginning, so that everyone can learn it, benefit from it, and apply it to the puzzles whose resolutions (or lack thereof) will shape humanity's future? One possible way of doing this is to radically revise not just how we teach, but what we teach - in particular to fuse scientific content with scientific method by explicitly teaching the historical discovery process of major scientific conclusions. Such an approach to science education is not a new idea.»
«... we can and should speed and smooth our path to the future by refocusing science education around historical scientific controversies and their resolutions. This would, in effect, crowdsource innovation by putting a greater number of individuals in a much greater position to make the kinds of revolutionary discoveries that will uplift and liberate our descendants.»
«In a world where science education focused on historical controversies, the road to the future would become a freshly-paved multi-lane super-highway, headed West. But to prepare ourselves to travel down that road, we need to do a better job of looking back and learning from the part of the road already traveled. That's why I say: back ... to the future!»
Quite right, the education system should be geared to the training and education of creative individuals. In basic science now "crisis of representation and interpretation", "crisis understanding", deep methodological crisis. And not only in physics, but also mathematics - "the loss of certainty " (Morris Kline). Can also be reduced, as an example, the article Alexander Zenkin
SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS.
That search for buried primordial meanings, "return to origins" (Husserl "Origin of Geometry"), can give a solid foundation of basic science. In education needs a large Revolution corresponding to the Information era, but not "reform". So, right : «back ... to the future!»
It's time.
We start the path. The New Era and a New Generation demanded action.
I invite you to my essay
"Protogeometer: Falling Into Future".
I wish you good luck!
All the Best,
Vladimir
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Anonymous wrote on May. 20, 2014 @ 00:03 GMT
Travis,
Having a master's degree in History of Science, and having taught introductory astrophysics with a strong historical approach over the past 20 years, I found your essay particularly interesting. The two case studies that you present, Ptolemy vs Copernicus and Dalton vs Avogadro, are well chosen, and well explained.
To teach a controversy well, to go beyond just saying "there...
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Travis,
Having a master's degree in History of Science, and having taught introductory astrophysics with a strong historical approach over the past 20 years, I found your essay particularly interesting. The two case studies that you present, Ptolemy vs Copernicus and Dalton vs Avogadro, are well chosen, and well explained.
To teach a controversy well, to go beyond just saying "there was a controversy and it was resolved", you need to go into the details: for example, as you indicate, you need to appreciate the fact that, in Ptolemy's theory, the motion of each planet on its major epicycle is "locked" to the Sun, a fact that was "pointing" toward Copernicus' solution that the planets revolve around the Sun.
And that's where it gets... challenging. Even though I teach to fairly bright and motivated students that want to pursue careers in science, I have found that it is difficult to motivate them to care about the subtle nuances that are critical to fully appreciate scientific controversies. Most students want ready made answers, so they can "pass the test" and get their diploma. They believe it is already so much work to get "up to date" with current science, that they shouldn't have to be forced to ponder the meanders of history.
Of course, it doesn't mean we must give up on using history of science as a way to teach science, but it explains why this approach is not more widespread. On the bright side, there is a tendency in the teaching world to shift the focus from "rote" knowledge to "learning how to learn", and the teaching of science through scientific controversies fits well with this new way of doing things.
In my essay, I have taken a "complementary" approach to yours. I propose that we can teach science better by "projecting into the future" -- by focusing on the issues that are the most important to the future of humanity: I call this approach the Futurocentric Education Initiative. But, as I say in my essay, it does not mean that history is eliminated: if you can motivate a student to acquire skills and knowledge that is important to the future, you can then explain the importance of knowing about the past aspects of this subject -- and I think that scientific controversies offer invaluable learning opportunities in that respect.
I have looked at all the essays, and read more than half of them from start to finish. Your essay is part of the short list that I hope will make it to the finals, and I have rated it accordingly. If you have time to look at my essay, rate it and comment on it, it would be quite appreciated.
Good luck in the contest!
Marc
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Member Marc Séguin replied on May. 20, 2014 @ 00:04 GMT
I was de-logged... I wrote the previous post. :)
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on May. 24, 2014 @ 20:48 GMT
Marc, thanks, I enjoyed your essay as well!
Travis
Anonymous wrote on May. 23, 2014 @ 14:50 GMT
Hi Travis,
Nice work! The examples were very helpful, and I learned some things about history of science from them.
While I agree that science education and scientific approaches to work are important, I wonder if you could elaborate on why this is among the most important factors in shaping the future? If there were more room in the essay, this is what I'd most have liked to see.
Best of luck,
Daniel Dewey
Crucial Phenomena
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Ajay Bhatla wrote on May. 24, 2014 @ 19:36 GMT
Travis,
Excellent essay. I am in total agreement that Science Education is the key to humanity's future well-being.
In addition, I think we are like-minded on history. In fact, if you get a chance to read my essay (
here) you will see many historical references - Ptolemy, Copernicus also make the same point in my essay: the need to cbe open to new or different thinking".
I totally enjoyed your essay. I look forward to your comments on mine.
-- Ajay
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Author Travis Ty Norsen replied on May. 24, 2014 @ 20:49 GMT
Thanks Ajay, I will check out your essay!
Travis
Anonymous wrote on May. 25, 2014 @ 06:28 GMT
Hi Travis, I enjoyed reading your essay.
I was subjected to Nuffield physics as a child. Quote: "learning for understanding in a course of practical exploration, leading to class discussion, leading in turn to more experimenting and so on, with a constant interplay between class and teacher, maintained by a sense of purpose and curiosity'. The revisers of the course identified three main...
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Hi Travis, I enjoyed reading your essay.
I was subjected to Nuffield physics as a child. Quote: "learning for understanding in a course of practical exploration, leading to class discussion, leading in turn to more experimenting and so on, with a constant interplay between class and teacher, maintained by a sense of purpose and curiosity'. The revisers of the course identified three main components of teaching for understanding: * Experiments - pupils' own experimenting to give them experience of scientific work;* Questions - essential learning aids to encourage thinking;* Models and theory - a progressive discussion to give intellectual satisfaction."National STEM centre, Nuffield physics
It sounds much better on paper than in the classroom.I couldn't really see the point of getting apparatus out or finding a bench of apparatus, spending a lesson assembling it- not knowing what we were supposed to be doing with it because we were meant to be constructing our own experiment, then packing it all away again. Followed by writing up a table of numbers, often from someone else's experiment or the teacher's if no one had got numbers from their apparatus. I would much rather have been told what it was all about.
I think your suggestion of learning about the historical discoveries sounds more exciting in an essay than having to endure it as a compulsory lesson. I think what is required is engaging teachers who can impart the passion of exploration and the excitement of discovery, which might encourage students to pursue science or retain a lifelong interest. Crowd-sourcing is a good idea but you may be overstating matters when you say "In a world where science education focused on historical controversies, the road to the future would become a freshly-paved multi-lane super-highway, headed West.
Unfortunately to head west also has another meaning, Quote "If something goes west, it is lost, damaged, or spoiled in some way:"Cambridge Dictionaries online.
Good luck, Georgina
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Georgina Woodward replied on May. 25, 2014 @ 06:31 GMT
That anonymous was me,
May. 25, 2014 @ 06:28 GMT
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Don Limuti wrote on May. 25, 2014 @ 06:52 GMT
Hi Travis,
Your essay which could have been titled "Back to the Future" is excellent. In last years essay I made the case that we got stuck with the uncertainty principle because of an historical accident. Now everyone accepts the uncertainty principle without question. Unraveling this knot will require education that reviews the history of uncertainty. Eventually we may say "Did we really do that!"
High Marks,
Don Limuti
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Lawrence B Crowell wrote on May. 25, 2014 @ 18:35 GMT
Travis,
In teaching physics I occasionally mention some of these historical elements. I also mention in even elementary courses some of the issues with modern developments. Elementary courses of course cover basic things, which within their domain of observation are battle hardened theories. No matter how advanced physics becomes F = ma will still work with standard problems such as the block on an inclined plane. It sometimes is a little hard to make those topics fresh.
I also in elementary physics give a bit of history about gunpowder and cannons with respect to Galileo's equations of motion. It is sometimes interesting to include aspects of what was happening in society at the time of certain scientific developments.
LC
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Peter Jackson wrote on May. 26, 2014 @ 16:38 GMT
Travis,
That was a truly great essay which was a great relief to read having long been browbeaten for taking that view of QM by those who insist they 'know' precisely how it works.
I also commend and have long argued similar views to yours on teaching. It was a pleasure and privelege to meet your views on the way past in the 5.9's and have the opportunity to help the essay on it's way up.
I could write at length on QM but instead I just hope you'll carefully read the classical reproduction of it's predictions in my essay, circumventing Bell's theorem by employing a different and 'real' starting assumption, though still satisfying Neils Bohr. For; 'collapse to single states etc' substitute; 'only one hemisphere of a rotating body can be interacted with at a time', and geometric derivation of the cosine distribution on the surface of a Bloch sphere as Malus law.
The subjective classroom experiment in the end notes modelling the process has been reproduced. (I have a 'kit' to do so if you'd like it). The model predicts the anomalous data found by both Aspect and Weihs (see also my last years essay). There was much more which had to be excluded but I hope you may anyway think mine of similar value to yours. I greatly look forward to your comments and advice in any event.
Best wishes.
Peter
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KoGuan Leo wrote on May. 27, 2014 @ 13:00 GMT
Dear Travis,
I share your idea. Your essay is wonderful. I like these sentences: "The idea of incorporating historical material and perspectives into the science curriculum – so that students focus more on “interesting puzzles and how they were resolved” and less on “truths to be accepted”"
And, "We should expect all of this, that is, if we can resist the impulse to dismiss the controversy as “metaphysical” or otherwise meaningless and unscientific. Unfortunately, though, the standard pedagogical orthodoxy on this particular controversy remains “shut up and calculate”. [11] Students, that is, are deliberately shielded from the existence of a controversy, and advised against wasting time thinking about it (should they somehow learn of its existence)." Unfortunately Feynman's "shut up and calculate" philosophy has become an orthodox philosophy ironically mocking other new theories as "philosophy".
If you have time please read mine and I advance KQID theory that reveals and explains the what, how and why Existence.
I rated your wisdom essay a ten (10).
I wish you the best,
Leo KoGuan
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