Re: misconceptions in astronomy

["Donald E. Simanek" <dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu>]

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Margaret Mazzolini wrote:

> A few weeks ago, some strange soul  lifted a set of files from my office.  At the 
> time I couldn't remember exactly which ones were gone, but I had a 
> sinking feeling that there would be something important among them.  
> Now I know there was!
>
> I had a copy of a paper, taking from conference proceedings I found 
> on the Internet, discussing common misconceptions held by students 
> entering introductory astronomy classes.  I think that author was 
> an American male, but that's about it!  There was no testing data or 
> tables etc. - just a discussion of many common misconceptions.  
> I'm now desperately seeking the reference, because I used the paper 
> to form a list of astronomy misconceptions, and did some pre-testing 
> of my astro. students with them. Next week I am using the results in 
> a paper at an astro. conference here, and I want to be able to 
> attribute the paper!
>
> Does this ring a bell with anyone?

No, but you might take a look at these pages on the net.

<LI><a href="http://www.patriot.net/users/badastro/home.html";>
The Bad Astronomy Page.</a> Phil Plait's page.
<LI><a href="http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html";>
Bad Science</a> Alistair Frazer's page.

	-- Donald

......................................................................
Dr. Donald E. Simanek                            Office: 717-893-2079
Prof. of Physics                    Internet: dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745          CIS: 73147,2166 
Home page: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek            FAX: 717-893-2047
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