The Sweet Mystery of Science 259
Hugh Pickens writes "Biologist David P. Barash writes in the LA Times that as a scientist he has been participating in a deception for more than four decades — a benevolent and well intentioned deception — but a deception nonetheless. 'When scientists speak to the public or to students, we talk about what we know, what science has discovered,' writes Barash. 'After all, we work hard deciphering nature's secrets and we're proud whenever we succeed. But it gives the false impression that we know pretty much everything, whereas the reality is that there's a whole lot more that we don't know.' Teaching and writing only about what is known risks turning science into a mere catalog of established facts, suggesting that 'knowing' science is a matter of memorizing says Barash. 'It is time, therefore, to start teaching courses, giving lectures and writing books about what we don't know about biology, chemistry, geology, physics, mathematics.' Barash isn't talking about the obvious unknowns, such as 'Is there life on other planets?' Looking just at his field, evolutionary biology, the unknowns are immense: How widespread are nonadaptive traits? To what extent does evolution proceed by very small, gradual steps versus larger, quantum jumps? What is the purpose of all that 'junk DNA"? Did human beings evolve from a single lineage, or many times, independently? Why does homosexuality persist? According to Barash scientists need to keep celebrating and transmitting what they know but also need to keep their eyes on what science doesn't know if the scientific enterprise is to continue attracting new adherents who will keep pushing the envelope of our knowledge rather than resting satisfied within its cozy boundaries."
Sounds like he's doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Teaching and writing only about what is known risks turning science into a mere catalog of established facts,
Science is about explaining things, not cataloging facts. If the guy thinks that the facts are the important bit, he's lost his way somewhere. Facts are the questions, theories are their answer and "science" is really the process of creating theories and disproving them. Hopefully replacing old theories with better or more refined ones. It's not about being able to recite the properties of a given thing, person or animal (those can be looked up).
I can relate (Score:5, Insightful)
Beginning in undergraduate courses, it was somewhat better. Mainly the beginning undergraduate courses were all about getting one up to date on a few centuries of research, and there just wasn't time to discuss the frontiers of the field. Really good teachers made time for it, and stressed that there is much more to be learned. I don't think any graduate school science course, at least among the physics ones I've taken, have treated the field that way. The underlying assumption was that there is much more to be learned. But that's why there is graduate school.
Re:My College Experience Was Completely the Opposi (Score:1, Insightful)
The author is complaining about learning by rote but there's few other ways to accelerate young minds quickly up to the point of modern positions of each field.
But that's just it: you've done nothing for them if all they have done is learn by rote. They won't understand a thing, and everything you taught them will be easily forgettable. You do a disservice to people by making everything boring and assuming that they can't truly understand it.
Re:Not an issue for physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Why scientists keep certain topics hushed (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, that's the reason scientists don't emphasize certain aspects of science: the fear that certain people will take the wrong conclusions from that. (Note: I said they don't emphasize, not that they don't talk about it at all.)
For example, if scientists (such as Fred Hoyle) state that it is improbable that life was created by chance molecular interactions, some people will take that as evidence of divinity.
If scientists pose a specific genetic origin of homosexuality, that could lead to a gaydar-based homosexual genocide (feticide?).
If scientists admit differential IQ or other traits in various subspecies of humanity, that could lead to a basis for legalizing racial discrimination.
This would become even more powerful if it were discovered that humans had independently evolved in different areas (not the currently accepted theory).
Finally, sociobiology may lead to legalized sexism.
Lousy examples from the editor (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like the examples given of things we don't know are somewhat misleading. There is a great deal we don't know, but we have well researched theories on a lot of what is mentioned by the editor.
Looking just at his field, evolutionary biology, the unknowns are immense: How widespread are nonadaptive traits?
Obviously this is different by species, but we can quantify it within a range for many species.
What is the purpose of all that 'junk DNA"?
This is the implicit question fallacy. Why would junk DNA need a purpose? We understand where much of it originates and how it is inserted.
Did human beings evolve from a single lineage, or many times, independently?
Originally, all the research points to one line for life on earth. As for where we draw the distinction of the homo sapiens species, there seems to have been multiple lines of progenitors evolving in parallel sometimes isolated sometimes interbreeding. There have been quite a few articles on this in recent years.
Why does homosexuality persist?
Kin selection. What did you learn biology in the 20's or something?
And Your Suggestion? (Score:5, Insightful)
The author is complaining about learning by rote but there's few other ways to accelerate young minds quickly up to the point of modern positions of each field.
But that's just it: you've done nothing for them if all they have done is learn by rote. They won't understand a thing, and everything you taught them will be easily forgettable. You do a disservice to people by making everything boring and assuming that they can't truly understand it.
Okay well somebody modded you up so let's take the example from the article:
In my first college-level biology course, I was required to memorize all of the digestive enzymes and what they do. Even today, I can't stomach those darned chemicals, and I fear the situation is scarcely much better at most universities today.
I'm not a biologist but here's how I'd teach this: 1) here's the methodology and a brief history of how they found these enzymes 2) here are the list of the all the known enzymes and their functions 3) this is why we suspect there might be more we don't know about or why we suspect we have discovered all of them. (keep in mind I have no idea which of those is reality)
So you teach that to the class and you tell them that they will be expected to know the full list of enzymes from number two. Okay so how do you propose we teach them that? Give them a cow's stomach and tell them to get to work? I mean, at the end of the day you only have so much time and you cannot give the students the opportunity to discover in a class period what took some well funded researchers many man months. You're best off to give them these enzymes "by rote" and, should they want more information, be able to approach you about this outside of class.
I'm more comfortable speaking about computer science so a comparison of this might be telling students about the evolution of memory management systems in operating systems "by rote" instead of forcing them to code each iteration of what Unix, Minix, Solaris, Linux, Windows 1, etc did to manage memory or schedule threads. There's only so much time and while this information is valuable in some context, it's not as valuable as being able to move forward to get to more pragmatic fronts of the field in question.
I'm totally open to hear how you think biology is supposed to teach enzymes. A lot of memorizing and teaching by rote in biology has to do with just coming to agreement on what you're going to call the bones of the body or tissues in the body or fragments of the skull or whatever you want to agree on with your area of focus. How do you make naming the bones of the human body fun and then expect them to read a paper on metatarsals and expect the students to have come up with a better name from metatarsals and know that that's what the paper is talking about?
I'm no Einstein but he's not saying anything new. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a HS science teacher [bio and chem] and he seems out of touch. Sure, he's right about there is a tonne of shit we don't know. Great. We also know there is a tonne of stuff we DO know. I constantly attempt to draw attention to BOTH. My students are regularly attempting to verify the 'what we know' and investigate the 'what we don't'. The latter is always a challenge at the HS level. A constant difficulty is that science 'stands on the shoulders of giants' and therefore to move forward we need to appreciate the past. Again, there is nothing new here. Lastly, I attempt to focus on concepts I HOPE my students move towards mastering. The fact is, many concepts require years of scaffolding, spiraling and application to truly understand. You really think you knew Newton's laws in grade 8 or 9? Memorizing the statements is fine but applying the concepts to authentic scenarios is challenging. I don't only teach facts, I ATTEMPT to teach a way of thinking and problem solving and wondering and all the other more interesting stuff.
Re:My College Experience Was Completely the Opposi (Score:4, Insightful)
It is time, therefore, to start teaching courses, giving lectures and writing books about what we don't know about biology, chemistry, geology, physics, mathematics.
I think there's a healthy balance, if you're teaching about what you don't know about then what could the students possibly be learning? Instead, I think teaching by rote and example of what we do know while using what we don't know as a carrot is the best methodology.
I think problem solving and deductive reasoning should be the primary things taught in school. In Japan many lessons start with a question to answer or problem to solve, that the student is not yet knowledgeable of. Then the students are put to the task of coming up with a solution or finding an answer in whatever way they think best. Then the teacher presents the established known answer or solution, and discusses how the students own attempts compare and contrast with the known method. Doing so reveals things such as mathematic principals as obvious, not mysterious, and gives young minds the tools to go forth and explore.
I wish my schooling was like that in the USA. When I was 10 I was creating a 2D vector graphics space game in BASIC (moveto, lineto, rotate). I only understood linear equations, but I needed to find the angle from one ship to the other ship for the CPU player to turn towards the player's ship. I understood slopes, and made a drawing of line slopes and their corresponding angles. For the rest of the summer I spent inventing Trigonometry. There was a sin() and cos() function, but their documentation didn't explain what they were used for -- I ended up making my own slopeAngle() program.
The next school year was more long division, and ratios... When I presented my 3D distance equations and what I would soon learn were proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem to my mathematics teacher, she was unimpressed. "You'll learn about Trigonometry in high school", she said. That was the key word I needed to continue my education, I soon discovered calculus at my local library. When we did start learning Trig, I was just as unimpressed with the "Geniuses" of old as my math teacher had been of me. I found it odd that these old dead bastards were so highly praised for what would be obvious to any 10 year old.
I dropped out of Highschool as soon as was legally possible and started a career in software development. "School" was utterly useless to me, and college remains even moreso: It would cost so much for me just to be able to prove that I know what I know, and would waste so much time in the proving... I would be forever in debt. My customers like results, they could care less of my mental upbringing, only my experience and accomplishments. We should do away with "final exams" and instead place "entrance exams" at job entry points, thus freeing our minds to learn however we think best without punishing us for doing so.
YOU may not have been ready for P != NP or the Poincaré conjecture, but why should your slower development be a limiting factor to others?! I've been using Unit-Sphere Quaternions and Integration for NEAR Polynomial time Inverse Kinematics since Junior High School -- I'm not bragging, I don't feel superior at all. I'm just trying to drill it in that everyone develops at different rates, and the current establishment completely ignores this to the detriment of our race.
Re:Evolution of knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one reason I favor classical education for schools. Classical education cover the "great books" from the beginning of recorded human history to the modern era, in chronological order. Mortimer Adler, editor of Great Books of the Western World, called it the "Great Conversation".
A conversation that reveals the evolution of human knowledge is comprehensible, interesting in the way drama is, cross-disciplinary, and leads to holistic and lasting knowledge.
Thats pretty much my education, strongly recommend.
You missed mentioning the big problem with that strategy, which is the spectacular impedance jump when you go from modern translations of ancient foreign languages, which are pretty easy reads, to original but very old texts in your own native language (assuming native English reader). For example I know from personal experience a good modern translation of Herodotus makes a hell of a lot more sense than suddenly having a foot of Gibbon dropped in your lap. Gibbon's actually pretty modern compared to Shakespeare. A modern Herodotus is a fun easy read, but Gibbon is like a part time job. A modern english translation of Nietzsche is easy vs John Locke in his 17th century original glory. You get a twisted view of the past where everything made sense until 1600 or so, then its all incomprehensible until 1850 or so, very roughly.
Re:My College Experience Was Completely the Opposi (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't participate in the discussion unless you do the reading.
The Socratic Method actually requires a good bit of that "lowly rote learning" that people like to be so dismissive of around here. It's a necessary prerequisite so that you know what everyone is talking about.
It's not glamorous but you can't skip lifting your head, rolling over, learning how to crawl and then how to walk.
Re:The point is good but the examples are not (Score:4, Insightful)
While that's true, I think there's a scientific question in there; it's just difficult to word the question in a non-teleological way. I suppose you could say, "Does 'junk DNA' have a practical function (to either the individual organism or to the species) and if so, what is it?"
Re:And Your Suggestion? (Score:5, Insightful)
My problem with that is that we're still working on the assumption that you need to memorize those enzymes.
Why?
For the vast majority of people taking general biology classes, knowing those by heart won't be of any use. Furthermore, for just about everyone, they'll be forgotten hours after the test.
TFA is right for some courses: they're becoming memorization courses. Sciences where there is a lot of things to recall, like chemistry or biology, seem particularly affected, and I think it's the premise that's wrong, not merely the execution. To give an example, in one of my college chemistry courses we had to remember the orbitals of the hydrogen atom (1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 3d, etc.). Now this isn't a particularly hard thing to memorize, but you didn't have much context for it. It was merely "these are the orbitals" and you'd need to regurgitate them in a test. Later, I've gone through numerous physics courses and those orbitals naturally popped up. We were never asked to memorize them, but we did because we actually needed them. We understood what the symbols meant and had to use them to get the answer.
So I say, only get students to solve problems. If something needs to be memorized along the way, they will be, and probably far more efficiently and in a far more durable fashion than would be if the question was strictly about memorization.
Re:The unknown (Score:4, Insightful)
..except there were many centuries of 'anti-science' in there as well
Not really. This is a popular misconception, popularized by some authors in the 16th century and then again in the 18th, which entered the public consciousness and stuck. If you actually go and study the history of ideas over the period you'll see lots of quite interesting stuff happening all over the place during the whole period, specially in math and logic, but also in engineering, chemistry, metallurgy and many other fields, all of which became quite useful down the line and without which post-Galilean stuff wouldn't have been possible. On the other hand, it is quite accurate that a few decades, spread over the last 500 years or so, were difficult for scientists, but those periods were by far the exception, not the rule.
As for recent developments in the US, looking from afar (I'm in Brazil) it doesn't seem that bad. You guys still do most of the important research around. What happens in a few schools around is hardly enough to cause major impacts. Besides, these things come and go following the generations. If the current one moves one direction, the next one moves the other, if for no other reason than being rebellious. Provided the net result is positive, and so far it's been, the risk of things coming full stop is quite low.