My view of science and science teaching

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

> "Factoids", as Leigh calls them, are very important components of physics,
> I think. What would be the purpose of "real conceptual physics" without
> factoids? We learn some factoids, then we ask the "why" questions, we test
> the validity of explanations, etc. I am sure Leigh would not deny this.
> Perhaps the term "regurgitation of a received factoid" should be elaborated
> upon.

I'll be glad to do so.

The goal of science is reduction. I have little tolerence for the
viewpoint adopted by some that one must always take a "holistic"
view of Nature to understand it. My alternative is to view Nature
as being reducible to representation by some fundamental set of
principles (which are, indeed, themselves received* factoids). We
must acknowledge both our ignorance of the extent of a spanning
set of these principles and the tentative nature of the current
form in which any of them is presently cast. To fail to recognize
these limitations is to abandon the canons which have defined
science since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The road
to understanding Nature is not through adopting a holistic
viewpoint, but rather through the realization that such an
understanding is and may always be an intellectual goal rather
than an attainable state of grace.

With my philosophical frame of reference established explicitly,
let me state my belief that piling gratuitous factoids (those
which are not candidates for inclusion in a spanning set) onto
students' cognitive heaps *without distinguishing them as such*
does the students a great disservice. They will never gain a
sense of perspective from such an approach. A student who is not
taught by his teacher that there is a qualitative difference
between Ohm's Law and Gauss's Law is in deep conceptual trouble
immediately. Where, except from his teacher, is he supposed to
learn this important distinction?

Ludwik is correct; factoids are very important components of
physics. Exploration the implications of a few profound factoids,
rather than accretion of great lists of lesser factoids, should
be The Way toward understanding Nature conceptually.

Leigh

*I thought about using the words "revealed" and "discovered".
"Received" is intended to be an intermediate term.