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Re: [Phys-l] Sometimes The Facts Don't Matter



On 7/14/2010 11:52 AM, Leon de Oliveira wrote:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874

This is a transcript of Talk of the Nation about people facing facts
and entrenching themselves in their beliefs and preconceptions. It is based in politics but wouldn't the same hold true for our Physics Students. I have experienced students who see some demonstration and explain it fairly accurately and then asked the next day to explain a similar situation and preconceptions win out again. Just thought it would be an interesting read for some.
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Sad to tell, the same has been found for judges' accounts of (staged) road accidents,
man in the street views of politically charged events, even (I dare say) physics professors' explanations. I recall that one of Clements' insights is that if people do not engage the body of observations at the time, with their own predictions and cogitations, they have "no skin in the game" in that charming free-enterprise financing phrase, and so they fall back quickly on prior expectations and constructions....

Brian W