The "human error" thing is one of my pet peeves. =20
I ask my students, very sternly, "Exactly WHAT error did the human m=
ake, and couldn't you fix it?" Then I stand there while they squirm.=
The idea that being specific about citing the source of error is fo=
riegn to them. They also do not distinguish between the source of er=
ror and the error itself, which in science is a number.=20
The lessons we learn while very young are the ones that stick with us=
the longest. It is very difficult to get students to "unlearn" the "=
human error" directive. When I was considerably shorter than I am no=
w, I learned to ALWAYS put down "human error" from my grade school =
teacher. Unlike most teachers, she explained exactly what she meant b=
y it. Later I learned that what she meant was called "parallax error=
" in the context of reading a meter stick. In everyday speech, "erro=
r" means "mistake." In science, it means "a quantitative measurement=
of one's measurement uncertainty" - a more difficult concept. When =
I teach, I stress that scientific error is a _number_, and that the =
phrase "human error" is a grade-school thing that has NO place in pro=
fessional science. I make sure to use the phrase "measurement uncerta=
inty" interchangeably with the phrase "scientific error" to emphasize=
that these are the same thing, especially when I discuss them quanti=
tatively. Still, the only way to "cure" some students of citing "hum=
an error" is to continually take off points until they stop doing it.
Many of my students were taught to write "human error" in every lab r=
eport. Their lab summaries read go like this: "We followed the direc=
tions and got the numbers. Our numbers were wrong. This is due to hu=
man error. End of story." No WONDER many people don't like science!