science teaching methods and goals

[Caracal]

The standard news outlets couldn't write the overly credulous minor rewrites of press releases if they asked just the mechanism type questions that a good k-12 education should provide.

I think that is a misdiagnosis of the problem. Most of the bad articles I've seen about studies are bad because they assume that the latest study is the best and final word on the issue. This isn't really about scientific literacy, it is about the need to explain why the most recent study changes everything. The problem is that most studies don't change everything, because they are one piece of evidence. I find following epi people on twitter helpful because they tend to respond pretty cautiously to most new studies.

I'm not even sure how much of this is really about "scientific literacy" versus basic critical thinking.

[Wahoo Redux]

The last two posts still miss the point of science education as part of general critical thinking for everyone and not anything to do with being on the path to becoming a professional scientist. 

I am not thinking of professional scientists at all.  I am thinking about average everyday citizens who have nothing to do with science in their daily lives but who contradict climate scientists and virologists.

I'd love to see science education which instills respect for science among the populace so that the next time a politician throws a snowball on the Senate floor he is immediately voted out for being an idiot. 

There are lots of ways to learn to problem solve and investigate, science is just one way.  I'd just like us to trust our scientists. 

[quasihumanist]

The last two posts still miss the point of science education as part of general critical thinking for everyone and not anything to do with being on the path to becoming a professional scientist. 

I am not thinking of professional scientists at all.  I am thinking about average everyday citizens who have nothing to do with science in their daily lives but who contradict climate scientists and virologists.

I'd love to see science education which instills respect for science among the populace so that the next time a politician throws a snowball on the Senate floor he is immediately voted out for being an idiot. 

There are lots of ways to learn to problem solve and investigate, science is just one way.  I'd just like us to trust our scientists.

I'd like people to trust scientists, but I would like this to be well-founded trust.  They shouldn't be believing in science just like our bad caricatures of how people believe in bad religion.

That means having some understanding of how scientists come to their conclusions, and why, in what circumstances, and for what purposes those methods are useful.

[Wahoo Redux]

The last two posts still miss the point of science education as part of general critical thinking for everyone and not anything to do with being on the path to becoming a professional scientist. 

I am not thinking of professional scientists at all.  I am thinking about average everyday citizens who have nothing to do with science in their daily lives but who contradict climate scientists and virologists.

I'd love to see science education which instills respect for science among the populace so that the next time a politician throws a snowball on the Senate floor he is immediately voted out for being an idiot. 

There are lots of ways to learn to problem solve and investigate, science is just one way.  I'd just like us to trust our scientists.

I'd like people to trust scientists, but I would like this to be well-founded trust.  They shouldn't be believing in science just like our bad caricatures of how people believe in bad religion.

That means having some understanding of how scientists come to their conclusions, and why, in what circumstances, and for what purposes those methods are useful.

Sure.  Seems to me that goes hand in hand.   Not sure there's any way around that. I don't think people do understand science, and that's why they mistrust it.

Anybody seen Behind the Curve documentary about flat-earthers?  The main flat-earth argument is that, hey, these scientists keep "throwing math at us," and I can look right over there and see that the Earth is flat.

[Parasaurolophus]

Anybody seen Behind the Curve documentary about flat-earthers?  The main flat-earth argument is that, hey, these scientists keep "throwing math at us," and I can look right over there and see that the Earth is flat.

I believe I did (at any rate, I saw some sort of flat earth documentary recently). I was surprised to learn, actually, that they're not all illiterate, innumerate imbeciles. In fact, they're quite clever. What struck me is that what's missing is meta-level reflection: they haven't really given much thought to what counts as an explanation, or what makes some explanations better than others. So when they conduct their own (ingenious!) experiments, and find that the data don't support the hypothesis, they start drawing the wrong conclusions.

They're rather like the kooks who write treatises on physics and send them to the Cal Poly physics department (and others, I'm sure!). They're not stupid, and some of them are very fine engineers, great crunchers of numbers. Their theories are extraordinary achievements. The problem is just that they only ever had to take Physics I, and Physics II is where the answers to their questions are to be found.

[MarathonRunner]

I would pick something more modern and more conversational than Kuhn or Popper for general audiences.

Agreed. Despite having two undergraduate degrees in STEM fields (I had do a second undergraduate degree to qualify for my chosen profession as there is no master/PhD entry possible) I didn't read Kuhn until the first semester of my doctoral program.