[Phys-L] Re: Human Error?

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

Curious; I don't remember an instructor ever using it.  Partly because
early on error wasn't discussed (bad memory from the 40/50's?).  Looking
at the few lab note books in which we submitted the reports (along w/
original data and notes) I still have from college (55+), nowhere did I
use it -  As a TA I remember the first lab was measurement practice;
using a meter stick to measure the length of a table many times and
using crude statistics, measuring the diameter of ones hairs both by
water displacement and ruler and micrometer, again several times and
suggesting the cause of any discrepancy, bubbles, etc.

When the lab may not be redone, I'd accept something such as, The
experimenter (I) evidently incompetently collected the data and suggest
how.  This is after redoing the reduction and analysis of the data to
ensure that is not the cause.  BTW, parallax error was not an acceptable
excuse, either meter reading (all had mirrors) or a meter sticking.

bc, who eschews euphemisms.

p.s. I don't remember doing any lab. science 'till the tenth grade and
that was Bio. (52/53), which consisted only of observation (microscope,
dissection, drawing of a pea plant's growth, etc.  Curiously the teacher
taught a "sort of" punctuated equilibrium as crises.  e.g. tube with in
a tube, etc.  He was an avid reader of G. G. Simpson. and took students
to the Bad Lands to collect fossils for the school museum

Frohne, Vickie wrote:

> 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!
>
> Vickie
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