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Pseudoscience
of Animals and Plants
A Teacher's Guide to Non-Scientific Beliefs
by
John Richard Schrock
PSEUDOSCIENCE
OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS
A
Teacher's Guide to Non-Scientific Beliefs
by
John Richard Schrock
Nearly
every grocery check-out counter in the United States now
displays tabloid newspapers that purvey as entertainment
a wide array of assertions about movie stars, aliens from
other planets, cancer cures. Therefore it is common for
a teacher who maintains an open and intellectually exciting
classroom atmosphere to hear a wide range of questions from
students: “Is such-and-such really true?” And in many cases
where the tabloids cite “scientists,” students will want
to know: “Do scientists really say that?”
Since
it may take considerable coursework and experience to develop
a scientific viewpoint toward life, the teacher faces a
difficult task providing students with a brief but correct
glimpse of how "science" would approach such varied
and specific items. A proper response depends on knowing
both how scientists operate in general and on some knowledge
of the science involved. This issue of the Kansas School
Naturalist strives to help the public school teacher
clarify some recent pseudoscience in the fields of zoology
and botany.
IS
IT SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE?
When
responding to a student’s question, “Is this really science?”
or “Do scientists really say this?,” it is wise to consider
placing claims in one of three groups. This will
not come naturally to most people, because (thanks to Aristotle)
our Western tradition and language is set up to classify
things as good or bad, up or down, and “science” and “non-science.”
First,
there are claims that simply cannot be true if the
world operates according to our current experiences and
the rules as we have found present in the past (i.e. objects
do not fall upward on the earth). If such claims do not
stand up to scrutiny and test, a teacher can feel fairly
confident stating they are definitely not science.
On
the other side are observations that do fit well with our
present understanding; they have been observed and they
are repeatable in lab or field situations. This is solidly
science. of course it will take some science knowledge
on the part of the teacher and student, and an ability to
search out the current literature, to determine both of
these cases.
┌──────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
-
Definitely "outside science" as we understand
it now
- "Unproven"
but not impossible pending further evidence
- Definitely
"within science"
└──────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘
The
middle category is for problem phenomena that are rare or
for which the evidence is not conclusive that "could"
exist according to natural laws as we currently understand
them; we just have to wait for enough instances to amass,
or for a successful demonstration to occur, or for
a conclusive test, to exclude these claims.
WHAT
ABOUT THE "SCIENTIFIC METHOD?"
A science
teacher has a complex task in helping students understand
how a scientist operates. Although there is a “method”
described in textbooks as the “scientific method” composed
of some formulation of observation-hypothesis-test-results-new
hypothesis . . . etc., real science breakthroughs rarely
conform to this formula and the teaching of this formula
simply does not accelerate research. If school students
read detailed accounts of Fleming’s “discovery” of penicillin,
Pasteur’s work with rabies, Watson and Crick’s DNA work,
or most of the scientists profiled in past Scientific
American articles, they would discover that it takes
some stretching to make many of these ventures fit the “scientific
method” formula. On the other hand, these scientists did
work with a general attitude toward the world, a complex
attitude that is summarized on pages 8 and 9.
Next
Section:
- look at real science research and
how it was done
- use reality in everyday teaching
- require "reasoning"
in coursework
- general classroom strategies
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