Just had to share this with someone. Who better than DU? Thanks for listening!!

[LAS14]

These are some thoughts I had over my oatmeal after hubby read me a bit from his article about what Darwin had to say in his first chapter of O of S. Then I composed this in my head. Then I didn't know what to do with it.

*********************

For much of my early life I thought of Columbus as a brave genius who had the incredibly smart hunch that the earth was round (because tall sales disappeared bit by bit over the horizon) and the incredible bravery to set out in a boat to prove it. A very inspirational and awe inspiring image.

Then, some time on, I learned that almost all educated people in Columbus' time believed/knew? that the earth was round.

This morning, at age 77, I again had the experience of adding a tiny bit of insight to what I thought was a common understanding. Darwin didn't have an Aha! experience of hypothesizing that life developed in a variety of ways in response to external conditions. No. People had been imposing conditions on different kinds of life forever. They'd been breeding pigs and pigeons to enhance certain qualities. Never mind dogs!! Darwin simply set out to demonstrate that nature provides external conditions just like breeders do.

The new idea for me this morning was this. Large numbers of people can share an idea that is just a tiny bit short of the truth. But that tiny bit can change one's whole emotional take on a person or event.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that great numbers of people shared my imperfect understanding of Columbus or Darwin. But for sure a bunch did and do. I suspect that there are places out there where understandings of people of color or immigrants or abortion might be tipped over the edge. A step to far for my little essay???? Maybe. Maybe not.

[Hekate]

1. Still have any coffee left in the pot?

Giving you this KnR just because.

[Poiuyt]

2. I wonder when Trump admirers will have their revelation?

[JT45242]

3. We teach a lot of final form science -- the end result only

So many times, we don't teach (or learn) that science happens incrementally and the ideas gradually change.

I know when I taught Plate tectonics, for example, we mention Wegener's Continental drift theory. Then we act like overnight the whole geologic world accepted plate tectonics. It took decades of incrementally learning a little more and adjusting previous understanding to get to where we are.

The only time that I, as a teacher, did a good job of getting students to see this incremental view of science was in teaching the atomic theory. Each scientist got a little closer to what the atom really is (or at least how we understand it today) but each was lmited by their preconceptions and the technology available to generate data to find the next piece.

There was a great project at Iowa State University the story behind the science that helps to see the incremental nature of science. [link:https://www.storybehindthescience.org/|

If we taught more this way -- maybe people would understand that the answers about Covid are changing so rapidly because that's what science has to do when facing new evidence and this disease and our world represents a giant agar petri dish for evolutionary responses of viruses.

Scientific literacy is critical -- and teaching final form science gives people the wrong idea that (a) science is fixed and (b) scientists never change their understanding

[LAS14]

4. Thanks! Very interesting! nt

[ShazamIam]

5. A mind that continues to explore new ideas is a mind to admire and thanks for the uplifting post.

[Claire Oh Nette]

6. Thanks for the insight into Darwin

Had my alternative high school students read about the different first cultures, and why Columbus missed his target. Kids decided he "stumbled across" the Americas. They even dug out maps of the Atlantic to show how the Equatorial/Gulf Stream currents in the Atlantic sucked him into the Caribbean. They read from Columbus' journals and reports to Isabella, and had to decide whom to charge for murder: Columbus, his men, The Queen of Spain...

If you start with the marginalized, you'll still get plenty of white history, too.