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Re: [Phys-L] Economist Kern Alexander Explains the Problem with School Choice



This is the only portion of JC's comments that I would take any issue with (see below).

I believe the opposite is true... It is not that teachers teach science as "truth"... it is that teachers teach science (if they do at all, but that's a topic separate from this reply) as what it is... messy and changeable. Students are brought up to regard things as "black and white" their religion is inalterable; politics nowadays is us or them. So how can science be understood when it changes every time some scientist discovers something that contradicts what was supposedly set in stone years ago? Listen to conversations in classrooms and on tv... "Why do you "believe" in evolution when Dr. X just found a fossil that goes against Dr. Y's theory?" "You scientists don't know what's true... so why should any of it be true?"
As if "truth" is inalterable and if anything is found not to have happened the way one scientist said it did then the whole thing is false.

On Feb 4, 2013, at 1:10 PM, John Clement wrote:

Part of the
anti-science attitude stems from how schools teach science and math as if it
were a received TRUTH, rather than something we designed based on
observation and logical thought.