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Re: Teaching science on the edge of knowledge

On Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004, at 11:22 America/New_York, Hugh Haskell wrote:

. . . New, and especially controversial or speculative, developments
almost never need to be discussed in a text. If it is appropriate,
the instructors can bring them up in class (this assumes that the
instructors are keeping up with the subjects they are teaching).

I agree with Hugh. It took me a while to find out that the word
MOND, used by Pamela, stands for the Modified Newtonian
Dynamics. Teaching traditional Newtonian Dynamics is
certainly a difficult enough task for a teacher in an introductory
physics course. What would the purpose of bringing the MOND
be in such a course?

On the other hand, Pamela refers to astronomy classes which,
I assume, are not requiring students to first take an introductory
physics course. Here I can see the dilemma. And I do not know
how to resolve it.