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Re: cathode rays - historical question



On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, I wrote:
>
>>If you're going to do history, do it right. Even
>>then, remember it is usually not a good guide to
>>teaching the facts and concepts of science as presently
>>understood. And it's not even a good guide to how
>>science should be done; past scientists have made
>>plenty of mistakes.

On 04/07/2003 12:49 PM, Joseph Bellina wrote:

Au contraire, this is precisely why historical content is so important
since it give the student entre into thinking, not just memorizing. It
gives students permission to take risks, to see that ideas do not just
spring fully developed out of some text book, but are the result of the
effort or real human being.

God help us if our students think that scientists don't make
mistakes...would you want to be judged by that standard? The conclusion
is to not be a scientist.

I endorse the stated objectives:
1) clear thinking, certainly not rote memorization
2) wise risk management
3) recognition of textbook fallibility
4) recognition of human fallibility in general
5) understanding the process of scientific discovery

I might add that there are other worthy objectives,
e.g.
*) using the best available evidence

I agree that a study of history sheds light on
item (4) and parts of item (5), but it seems quite
a stretch to think that it is necessary or even
helpful for advancing the other objectives.

Please keep in mind the distinction:
-- the _real_ history, which is full of twists and
turns and blind alleys, versus
-- the "just-so stories" that are so prevalent in
typical science texts.

The problem is that everybody loves to tell the
story the way they think it "should" have happened,
with little regard to how it actually happened. As
Kuhn pointed out, scientists are by no means immune
from this problem.

Suppose the question is, how do we know that
electrons can act as particles. The all-too-common
"just-so story" is that JJ Thomson discovered the
electron particle. But that's just bogus. It's
wrong history and wrong physics.

The real history is much more complicated, too
complicated to bother with in an introductory
course. To simplify it is to falsify it.

The history of science is an advanced topic, open
to those who already understand the science and
also understand the methods of historical inquiry.

My recommendation, especially for an introductory
course, is to present the best contemporary evidence.
Half a minute of googling turns up things like this:
http://www.eeel.nist.gov/811/femg/set.html