Evolution and reverence for Scientists

The other night while I was bathing my two small children my six year old little girl start telling her five year old little brother: "we were once monkeys." I chimed in with the typical parental correction "we were never monkeys, humans share a common ancestor with monkeys." Correcting any six year old is problematic, they are on the cusp of knowing everything and corrections just get in the way. A small intellectual scuffle ensues:

Girl6: Yes we were monkeys
Daddy: Its OK sweetheart lots of adults get that wrong, it is a tricky thing
Girl6: I'm not wrong!
Daddy: Everyone is wrong sometime, nobody knows everything...
Boy5: Scientists know everything!
Daddy: (in his best sweet Daddy voice), Oh no.... The first thing scientists have to do is figure out what they don't know so they will know what to research. And then when they think they know something they write papers and books and create experiments for their friends to check and see if they got it right.

I would have gone on here, but I have noticed that bath time lectures on the philosophy of science are best if kept short. I think it settled in a bit, won't know for sure until later. Meanwhile Jimmy Neutron and his cartoon ilk keeps confusing "science" with magic and technology. Don't know where we would be without Bill Nye the science guy.

I have a constant worry that we really should be teaching the philosophy of science first, and then facts and wonder and awe at what we have been able to learn using the method later (see my previous language rant post). Sort of like teaching children to admire calligraphy and bookbinding before teaching them to read.

:-Dan

Problem Solving and Memory

One of Nietzsche's Maxims has been in my notebook for a long while:

"Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good."

It is one of those sayings that means different things depending on recent history and what you are pondering at the moment (I think I originally captured this quote as a defense for a friend's poor long suffering husband's oft maligned memory).

For years (decades?) I have been accumulating plans and ideas for class on problem solving I will most likely never teach (I think it is the decades part that is most telling). As I accumulated articles on Scientific Method and lists of logical fallacies I gradually realized that all this thinking is not the way 99% of the problems in the world are solved. Most problems are solved by people with good memories. They don't need to think their way through a problem, they just remember how it was solved last time. And with the books and internet to give us access to what other people remember solving, bigger problems can be solved (there is another way for that thought to go, something about we don't have to think as much, but I like the bigger problems angle).

I don't think this is particularly profound, but it does point the way for future planning. Teach more of HOW to think and let the student decide WHAT to think about.

I'm starting to understand that I can think with my fingers, and the pressure of finishing up an entry can help crystallize an idea, but all that does not make it a gem.....

:-Dan