Scientific literacy course for non-scientists

[Wahoo Redux]

I guess.  My experience with primary and secondary education was that actual introduction to these subjects was, eh, okay but fairly meager and not always taught by people with a depth of knowledge.  That is the difference between secondary and high ed: higher ed is more rigorous than the lower levels and taught by experts. 

I don't know why one couldn't incorporate the fallibility of the scientific method into a course like the one I suggested.  I suppose it could be a bad idea.  Maybe I misunderstand what is meant by a scientific literacy course.

[spork]

It's not what should be in a college scientific literacy course, it's why such a course should be needed in college.

I see the same problem with, for example, being able to communicate minimally effectively in writing.

[Wahoo Redux]

Okay.  Fair enough.  Sometime like ergative suggested on page one then.

It's a great idea.  I'd love to take a course like that.

[polly_mer]

I don't know why one couldn't incorporate the fallibility of the scientific method into a course like the one I suggested.

Because the premise is flat out wrong both for the course and the single statement.

The scientific method is asking questions about the world.  Period. 

Different disciplines approach the questions different ways and some questions are more clearly answered using one discipline than another.  Biology answers generally different questions than physics or psychology, yet there are questions that overlap all three fields.


The types of answers one can get vary by discipline and question under consideration. For example, the answers in physics are often a single number with some uncertainty while some social sciences are all about describing a distribution of a given population.  Both have scientific approaches, often confounding factors, and existing knowledge frameworks to guide both question construction and standard ways for the process of running an experiment, but the questions are different and interpreting the answers is a different mindset.

The scientific method never fails, but:

* Data can be corrupted and/or confounded so you're not measuring what you think you are.  Identifying all the possible confounding factors to design an experiment that isolates or controls the relevant factors is often the hardest part.

* All models are wrong; some models are useful.  Just doing the math correctly guarantees nothing.  I spend the majority of my technical time evaluating how much we can trust a given model under specific conditions.  All the scientific laws are models and many have known areas of inapplicability.  For example, using Newton's laws of motion works great for many things.  Failure to include relativity in the GPS calculation means GPS is so far off as to be worthless.

* Disconnected facts becoming connected is not at all the same as constructing a predictive model for phenomena.  Being descriptive is a good first step, but science really relies on if...then...constructions to be useful.  That's why the astronomy science course has almost nothing to do with identifying constellations and a lot to do with physics and chemistry.

Science is asking questions to be able to build a model for future predictions.  p-hacking is egregious in large part because it distracts from the science, which may be "none of these factors matter in isolation or expected combinations under the conditions we studied".  That's possibly useful science, but isn't likely to be published.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=882:_Significant for those who haven't seen it.

[polly_mer]

I'm also going to address

My experience with primary and secondary education was that actual introduction to these subjects was, eh, okay but fairly meager and not always taught by people with a depth of knowledge.  That is the difference between secondary and high ed: higher ed is more rigorous than the lower levels and taught by experts.  .

Elementary teachers should be experts in teaching elementary science since that's nothing like being a professional scientist.  The course I have taught the most is science for k-8 teachers.  It does not require PhD level science knowledge to roll balls down ramps at different angles to talk about force, momentum, and energy with kindergarteners.  It does not require PhD level science knowledge to talk about Earth processes and show why earthquakes happen, volcanoes happen, and why the Appalachian mountains are much less high than the Rocky Mountains with second graders.

Much of elementary science is easier to teach than other topics because of the opportunities for direct observation with cheap materials.  Just a rubber playground ball and a slide is a lot of physics observations.

If you want to explore the science observations as an adult, most major cities have something like Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center.  Three weeks of more classroom !earning is much less useful for knowing the science than regular attendance at public outreach events and regular play with interactive exhibits with explanations

[marshwiggle]

I guess.  My experience with primary and secondary education was that actual introduction to these subjects was, eh, okay but fairly meager and not always taught by people with a depth of knowledge.  That is the difference between secondary and high ed: higher ed is more rigorous than the lower levels and taught by experts. 

I don't know why one couldn't incorporate the fallibility of the scientific method into a course like the one I suggested.  I suppose it could be a bad idea.  Maybe I misunderstand what is meant by a scientific literacy course.

In the media, you get statements like "Biological sex is a spectrum" presented as though it is scientific fact. Educated people should be familiar enough with how science works to figure out whether that is a scientifically meaningful statement, and if so, whether the supposed basis for the statement is rational.

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets. Having individuals understand how to evaluate claims, and examine the basis on which the claims are made, it the vastly superior solution.

[dismalist]

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets.

Nah, truth is a social construct, determined by power relations. :-)

[polly_mer]

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets.

Nah, truth is a social construct, determined by power relations. :-)

A mental model of the world that works great until it doesn't!

[dismalist]

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets.

Nah, truth is a social construct, determined by power relations. :-)

A mental model of the world that works great until it doesn't!

Yes. In the end, Charlie Darwin will take care of all of us.

[Ruralguy]

I think we've officially gone off the culture war deep end again, so I'm out....

[polly_mer]

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets.

Nah, truth is a social construct, determined by power relations. :-)

A mental model of the world that works great until it doesn't!

Yes. In the end, Charlie Darwin will take care of all of us.

Good one.

I was thinking more that:

* much of the natural world doesn't care about human truth,

* one way to lose power is to have people realize they need to act because current "truth" is literally going to kill them in the foreseeable future,

* there's a lot of calls for truth and yet Cassandra (thank you, monks, for preserving knowledge!) has many things to say about being the truth teller.

[polly_mer]

I think we've officially gone off the culture war deep end again, so I'm out....

Wasn't there something just recently about not hanging up the phone?  I'm sure I saw that in a place of honor.

[Parasaurolophus]

I guess.  My experience with primary and secondary education was that actual introduction to these subjects was, eh, okay but fairly meager and not always taught by people with a depth of knowledge.  That is the difference between secondary and high ed: higher ed is more rigorous than the lower levels and taught by experts. 

I don't know why one couldn't incorporate the fallibility of the scientific method into a course like the one I suggested.  I suppose it could be a bad idea.  Maybe I misunderstand what is meant by a scientific literacy course.

In the media, you get statements like "Biological sex is a spectrum" presented as though it is scientific fact. Educated people should be familiar enough with how science works to figure out whether that is a scientifically meaningful statement, and if so, whether the supposed basis for the statement is rational.

A few months ago there was a suggestion to have a government "truth czar" to determine what news was fake and what was real, which is about as 1984ish as it gets. Having individuals understand how to evaluate claims, and examine the basis on which the claims are made, it the vastly superior solution.

I seem to recall that some forumites with the relevant credentials stepped in to explain some of the complexities of biological sex, and why thinking of it as a strict binary is actually wrong (or, at best, extremely misleading).

I hope educated people here were familiar enough with how science works to figure out whether the experts or the armchair pontificators were correct.


As for truth... no doubt some.of you will try to make gleeful hay of this, but entire classes are taught on just what truth is (e.g. is it a correspondence relation, coherence, a redundancy, etc.). We all have an intuitive understanding f what it means, but we suck at actually articulating it.

[polly_mer]

As for truth... no doubt some.of you will try to make gleeful hay of this, but entire classes are taught on just what truth is (e.g. is it a correspondence relation, coherence, a redundancy, etc.). We all have an intuitive understanding f what it means, but we suck at actually articulating it.

I loved those classes in college!  None of them were required and we all were prepared with the readings, unlike most gen ed requirements.

The problems I observe are generally related to operational definitions of truth that should guide observable actions by rational actors.  Yet 2+2 could be 17 for large values of 2 and people who insist on numbers don't even believe 99.99% as being close enough to 100% for most purposes.  After all, 0.01% of 7 billion is 0.7M people!

[FishProf]

The posted schedule of topics bears an uncanny resemblance to the course I teach on Research Methods and Experimental Design.  That course if for STEM majors who are already 2 years into college science and a year into college math (including stats).  They still struggle with the concepts.

I can't imagine the typical pop'n of non-stem majors handling that well in a semester.