@Os Trigonum posted this op-ed in the Critical Race Theory thread and I think it deserves it's own thread. So much of our problems are due to a lack of basic understanding of science even among those who say we should follow the science. Too many people look at science either demanding certainty or claiming that it is all about certainty. Science doesn't do that but deals with likelihoods. This is why it's so problematic when people claim things like that "vaccines will stop infection" or "vaccines don't work because someone who was vaccinated got infected." The science behind vaccines doesn't state that vaccine are 100% effective and nothing in science is considered 100% true or false. What it does say is that there are strong likelihoods that something is such so there is a strong likelihood that the vaccines agaisnt COVID-19 work. And as we saw with the original variant the vaccines did work largely as expected and even against the new variants still works to prevent serious illness. That doesn't stop that we daily hear arguments that because vaccinated people are getting infected that somehow the vaccines are bunk and those pushing the "science" on vaccines are wrong. The "science" never promised that only that there was a strong likelihood that the vaccines would protect people. This problem isn't just with vaccines but in many other fields such as Climate Change where deniers claim that since we haven't seen things turnout the way Al Gore predicted that means the science is bunk. First off Al Gore isn't a scientist and his predictions also were a misunderstanding of the science. Second is that we are seeing things turn out within the range of what most climate scientist predicted. That there is discrepancy and disagreement among scientist just shows that this is less about certainty but that about likelihoods. Many people who don't follow scientist might be surprised at how little certainty there is among scientists and far from scientists having a consensus they defend there is much disagreement on such basic things as "what is matter?" and "how do genes affect development." This brings up the next big misunderstanding of science. Science is inherently based on skepticism yet so many perceive it as being about consensus and orthodoxy. That is why we frequently see arguments that "we should question the science" and also that because something isn't supported by the majority of scientist is more valid because it's a minority viewpoint. For example, "Ivermectin should be taken to prevent COVID because the CDC doesn't want you to take treatments they don't approve of." Those are rhetorical statements but not in themselves scientific statements. Ivermectin might be effective preventing COVID but just because the CDC doesn't encourage it is not proof of it's effectiveness or ineffectiveness. The only way to scientifically know is subject it to trials just like the vaccines were subjected to trials. It's these type of basic misunderstandings why we need to teach the history and philosophy of science in addition to teaching physics, chemistry and biology. High school students should be learning about Leibniz, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper regarding how science works and how scientific ideas gain acceptance or fall out of favor. Given how important science is to our society and only will get more so to me this is vital as teaching things like economic literacy. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-...SibxbTmMDI8lrBbzghkpQe0yxUuuWRCnIgrQSRWNEIFDg Opinion: Teach Philosophy of Science in High School The pandemic has revealed the importance of preparing students to critically evaluate the conceptual foundations and real-world impact of science. "Little attention has been given, however, to expanding access to philosophy of science education. Philosophy of science examines how the scientific process works, when and why we should accept new scientific findings, and how scientific knowledge progresses over time. The discipline also explores the role of different stakeholders in science, how biases and values can influence the process, and how ethical considerations figure into research. These issues—not how to balance chemical equations or how to calculate the trajectory of a projectile—are what Americans are asked to grapple with every day as we are confronted with news on the pandemic. And recent studies suggest that knowledge about the nature of science may improve trust and acceptance of its findings." More at link.
Unfortunately kids in school today are taught by the State Test... Teachers teach to prepare kids for that dumb test so all of the critical thinking is thrown out the window... T_Man
We decided at the beginning of our public education system that the value to society was to teach people how to follow orders (manufacturing, soldiers) as opposed to thinking critically, which they do teach in private schools... ... And here we are now.
Philo is great but rather deep. Bible thumpers probably hate it even though you need to understand many core parts of religion to understand what some great writer's are thinking about. Building up critical thinking skills is a worthwhile endeavor but me only care about overpriced stadiums Priorities....
I agree to an extent. Specifically philosophy related to civics is best, and should be prioritized, so we could just start teaching civics again. This type of thing is great for students and may help prevent extremism by bonding us to our country instead of teaching us to hate it and our fellow countrymen. I think history needs to be taught better as well without a racist bent (CRT pushers are looking to create false narratives and that's not OK) I would also be happy to then see other elective philosophy courses added which dive into more advanced stuff. That would be rewarding for students and it could help employ all of our philosophy grads.
I lost faith in a large portion of the general population when the majority of people on facebook can't solve a basic order of operations math problem and the took math for 11-12 years if they completed highschool. Not only can they not solve it, they will argue tooth and nail on why they are correct when they can get the correct answer by doing a simple Google search. Most people are just dumb AF. These are the same people who think they are constitutional lawyers and etymologist after taking a semester of government and 1 year of biology where they received a C grade.
I'm not sure I agree... We do teach the scientific process... it even starts very early around 3rd grade or so. I don't think it's the lack of understanding of how scientific process work that is the issue. With so much information in reach almost a real-time pace, we enable each student with the toolset to think critically, detect misinformation, detect disinformation, understand one own thinking, biases, and perception. Those are skills that were great but weren't fundamental a decade ago. I think it's now fundamental. On the covid vaccines, what's so sad is it's probably the greatest human achievement in the history of vaccine medicine.
It's one thing to teach how the scientific process works and to understand why you are doing that. Certainly understanding the basics of things like chemistry is important and how to conduct a simple experiment but I think what is more is about why you take that method and more importantly why negative results are sometimes as important as positive results. And yes we have access to a lot of information. As another poster noted it's pretty easy to google order of operation (PEMDAS) in mathematics yet we still see a lot of misunderstanding and disagreement regarding such things. The world we live in now isn't lack of information but understanding how we and why we use that information.
Yes. I agree we should be teaching more civic philosophy and have long argued that we need more study of things like the Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention to understand both what is in the Constitution and why it is written the way it is.
I also get that it's difficult to keep on adding subjects as students are already required to learn a lot. This is where I think we need to reconsider what we are teaching. I don't think there is any need to memorize the Periodic Table as such information is easily available but it's important to know how the periodic table is organized.
Great post and thread. I love the idea but I'm troubled by the practicality. What from the current curriculum will Philosophy replace? There is scant time to teach the required courses, now. Just fitting another course in to the school day might be a difficult ask.
I agree it’s about the information. That’s what changed. Before, it was in limited hand and you just trust “experts”. Now, if not already, you have access to the same info experts have access to and it’s a huge amount of data. People that get themselves in trouble are those that think they understand it when they are easily mislead. You can never ever understand the details compared to experts but you could know enough to not get misinformed and I would said being able to see clearly is much more in the realm of critical thinking and understanding how your mind and brain works than any particular process or technical details.
