Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: possibly OT: NYT article on GA creationism/evolution debate



From: cliff parker <cparker@CHARTER.NET>


You have a point. But I think there is more to consider
here. "those
folks" and most of the rest of the general public do
not understand the
sometimes subtle and sometimes inconsistently
used differences in words like
theory, hypothesis and guess. On the other hand
almost 100% of the students
taking science classes especially K-12 do not really
understand what science
is. They view their science class as a place to obtain
definitive

This is the very reason I begin every intro astro course
with a discussion of what science is. I use the AAPT's
"official" statement of the definition of *science* that
was published in AmJPhys in 1999 (don't have the
complete ref infront of me at the moment). We get two
or three days of good discussion from this. I also
emphasize the fuzzy use of the word *theory*.

It's been a long time since I learned the official
heirarchy of terms like "theory", "law", and "hypothesis",
but I wish someone would come up with something
better than "theory". No matter how many times we
explain that is shouldn't carry a connotation of
uncertainty, it always does.




Cheers,
Joe Heafner - Instructional Astronomy and Physics
Home Page http://users.vnet.net/heafnerj/index.html
I'll never be able to afford a Lexus, but I do have a Mac. Same thing.
DO NOT USE MY EMAIL ADDRESS ANYWHERE ON THE WEB!