science education

To hear it from Steven Novella at Neurologica Blog: The fight over science in public education continues, and if anything picked up considerably in 2017. Earlier in the year Nature reported on various state laws designed to water down science education or allow for equal time to be given to unscientific views. … A new Florida bill also includes this problematic language: Controversial theories and concepts must be taught in a factual, objective, and balanced manner. This is part of the latest strategy. First, don’t mention any one theory (like evolution) by name. That is likely to trigger a constitutional challenge. Second, make the bill sound like it is promoting something positive, like academic freedom, democracy, or just being fair Read More ›

In the What is knowledge thread, this has come up now, and I think it should be headlined: ____________________ KF, 201: >> Can we regard scientific theories as factual knowledge? This is a deep challenge, especially on the so-called pessimistic induction that historically theories in effect have hidden sell-by dates. That is, theories show more of a track record of replacement (sometimes presented as refinement) than we are comfortable with. A first answer is that a theory, from the abductive angle, is a “best current explanatory framework,” often involving dynamics which may be deterministic or stochastic (or tempered by stochastic factors), and may be empirically reliable in a known or unknown range of circumstances. The turn of C20 surprises faced Read More ›

We wondered when Jerry Coyne, a longtime Darwin stalwart, would take time to diss J. Scott Turner’s Purpose and Desire:What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It, given that his disapproval is becoming a sort of imprimatur. We hope he can still do this sort of thing emeritus forever: Well, no, we don’t have a well-supported Darwinian explanation for the origin of life, but we do have Darwinian explanations that good people are working on (see Nick Lane, Addy Prosser, Gerald Joyce, Jack Szostak et al.), so the claim that there are “no Darwinian explanations for the origin of life (or of the gene)” are simply false. And our lack of understanding, which is due Read More ›

Not in sub-Saharan Africa? Remains from Morocco dated to 315,000 years ago push back our species’ origins by 100,000 years — and suggest we didn’t evolve only in East Africa. … “Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a ‘Garden of Eden’ that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Jean-Jacques Hublin, an author of the study and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Now, “I would say the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africa — and it’s a big, big garden.” Hublin was one of the leaders of the decade-long excavation at the Moroccan site, called Jebel Irhoud. Ewen Callaway, Nature Read More ›

Good chance. While science boffins obsess about “creationism in the schools,” your local teachers’ union could be selling out to no-standards post-modernism. From Conrad Black at The National Post: In response to falling test results, teachers’ federation proposes ending testing The obfuscation of the teachers’ union publication continued: “Soon, a perceived crisis in Ontario education began to emerge when our students began scoring lower on mathematics standardized tests … First politicians placed the blame for these low test scores on educators.” What an outrageous act of scapegoating that was — what would deteriorating academic performance have to do with the quality and competence of teaching? “Money was poured into boosting the math proficiency of teachers … but the curriculum remained Read More ›

From Toni Airaksinen at Campus Reform: “On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Gutierrez argued. Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.” Math also helps actively perpetuate white privilege too, since the way our economy places a premium on math skills gives math a form of “unearned privilege” for math professors, who are disproportionately white. … Further, she also worries that evaluations of math skills can Read More ›

  From Stephen Sawchuk at Education Week: A standard dealing with the process of evolution deletes that word entirely, replacing it with a standard that asks students to construct an explanation based on evidence that biological diversity is “influenced by” things like competition for limited resources, the proliferation of organisms that are better equipped to survive, and genetic variations in species. … The proposed changes have brought a groundswell of criticism, both locally and throughout the country. Over 60 scientists associated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory took out a full-page ad in the Santa Fe paper of record, the New Mexican. “There is absolutely no scientific rationale for weakening the treatment of these subjects in New Mexico K-12 education,” Read More ›

At Classical Conversations: There has been a growing trend to say that Americans need less algebra education. In The Math Myth, Andrew Hacker argues that algebra and other upper-level high school mathematics like geometry and trigonometry are largely unnecessary for students and can even get in the way of students preparing for the life ahead of them. Hacker is not alone in his assessment. The chancellor of the California community college system, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, is trying to remove algebra as a requirement for non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors. This idea has been getting play in outlets from the Huffington Post to the New York Times. I don’t disagree that there are problems in mathematics and the way Read More ›

From the Babylon Bee: ENCINO, CA—Speaking to reporters Tuesday, television personality Bill Nye announced his plans to spend the evening of Halloween roaming his upscale Los Angeles neighborhood dressed as an actual scientist. “I’ve always wanted to be a real scientist, and I have the perfect costume,” said Nye, best known for playing the title role on the 1990’s Saturday morning children’s program Bill Nye The Science Guy. “I already have a lab coat and bow tie that make me look super science-y.” … “I’ll have to be careful what I say that night,” he added. “My costume is so convincing, people might believe that my personal opinions about a multitude of topics are actual scientific facts.” More. Sure. When Onions Read More ›

One after whom an informal logical fallacy is named, too. From Glenn Branch at National Center for Science Education: At a recent meeting of NCSE’s board of directors, Kenneth R. Miller was elected as president, replacing Francisco J. Ayala, whose term on the board expired. Miller is Professor of Biology and Royce Family Professor for Teaching Excellence at Brown University; his honors include the AAAS’s Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology as well as NCSE’s Friend of Darwin award. He testified for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover. His books include Finding Darwin’s God (1999) and Only a Theory (2008). More. A friend wrote to ask, But wait, isn’t Miller a creationist? [?] Oh yes, of course, the Read More ›

A friend drew our attention to this: From a 2012 letter to Nature: Among egalitarian communitarians, science literacy and numeracy (as reflected in the composite scale Science literacy/numeracy) showed a small positive correlation with concern about climate change risks(r = 0.08, P = 0.03). In contrast, among hierarchical individualists, Science literacy/numeracy is negatively correlated with concern(r = −0.12, P = 0.03). Hence, polarization actually becomes larger,not smaller, as science literacy and numeracy increase (Fig. 2and Supplementary Table S4 and Fig. S3). As the contribution that culture makes to disagreement grows as science literacy and numeracy increase, it is not plausible to view cultural cognition as a heuristic substitute for the knowledge or capacities that SCT [Science Comprehension Thesis] views the Read More ›

From Caitlin Drummond and Baruch Fischhoff, Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics at PNAS: Prior research has found that political and religious polarization over science and technology issues in the United States can be greater among individuals with more education and science knowledge. We examine that potential pattern in responses to two waves of the nationally representative GSS (31), with respect to six issues: stem cell research, the Big Bang, human evolution, climate change, nanotechnology, and genetically modified foods. Overall, we found that where religious or political polarization existed, it was greater among individuals with more general education and among individuals with greater scientific knowledge, as measured by both whether they Read More ›

Fuller, author of Dissent over Descent, is a sociologist who studies, among other things, the ID community. In a recent paper in European Management Journal, he reflects on the relationship between expert opinion in a field and the evaluations by educated outsiders. He opposes Brexit, but says, First, I consider Brexit in relation to my own long-standing anti-expertist approach to social epistemology, which in many ways makes me a kindred spirit to the Brexiteers. Next, I turn to the struggle of parliamentary elites which eventuated in the win for Brexit, focussing on the Brexiteers’ distinctive epistemic and ethical strategy with regard to public opinion. Finally, I consider the unforeseen emergence of a Rousseau-style ‘general will’ with regard to Brexit, which is where Read More ›

From Ian Miles Cheong at Daily Caller: Evergreen State College has settled a tort claim with professor Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying for $500,000 in connection to the 2017 “Day of Absence” protests, which saw anarchy spread throughout the campus earlier this year. “Through a series of decisions made at the highest levels, including to officially support a day of racial segregation, the college has refused to protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence,” their claim stated. Weinstein alleges that he was frequently called a “racist” by his peers for his refusal to support the so-called “Day of Absence,” which demanded white students Read More ›

What pre-extinguished boffin said that? From Fern Elsdon-Baker at Guardian: We clearly need to be careful not to assume that when people say they are rejecting “evolutionary science”, they are rejecting all scientific research or indeed all of what we might think of as evolutionary science. ‘Evolution’ as a term has gained a mishmash of cultural baggage over the years, not least a strong association with ‘New Atheist’ movements. Some may just reject it out of hand because they assume you have to be an atheist to accept evolutionary science. Our data suggests that ‘genetics’ doesn’t appear to have this baggage. Furthermore, doubts about evolutionary science frequently appear to be related to the perceived limitations of evolutionary science-based explanations for Read More ›