I recently read an interesting article in Reason.com entitled "Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong". The article provides two interesting facts about science:
- Scientific data grows at 4.7% per year
- Scientific data has been doubling every 15 years since the 17th century (a mathematical derivative from annual growth of 4.7%)
Obviously back in the 17th century the addition to scientific data every 15 years was quite small, but today the additions are considerable and much information previously developed is being proven wrong every 15 years.?
A 15 year period closely approximates the time a child is in school in the U.S. prior to university. This child is learning scientific facts and scientific reasoning. Scientific reasoning is probably less affected by the growth in information although new methods are constantly evolving with the increased use of technology. However, the facts the child learns are outdated in large part by the doubling of scientific information and many facts learned will turn out to be wrong. The question is why we put so much emphasis in science education on memorizing facts. Perhaps we should be emphasizing scientific reasoning and leave the facts to Google or Wolfram Alpha. Of course, teaching scientific reasoning and critical thinking would probably be much more challenging and difficult to test in examinations, but it would be more valuable than examinations of facts that are outdated or wrong.
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