Why Science Education is Failing

Science education can effectively be described as an endeavor to correct preconceived misconceptions that students have about scientific ideas and replace them with scientifically accurate explanations while encouraging scientific thinking. Every student is informed by past experiences that relate to various scientific topics, but many of those experiences are intuitively interpreted in a manner that doesn't agree with a current scientific understanding of the subject. It's the educator's job to facilitate a transition between these intuitive models of the world to a scientific one. Frustratingly, however, it seems like the more informal past experience learners have in a particular area of study, the harder the misconceptions are to correct. This is evidenced in the fact that some of the most prevalent misconceptions that science learners have throughout their education relate to such things as seasons, vision and the properties of light, and photosynthesis (things we come into contact with on a regular basis). Most importantly, there is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that these misconceptions are, for the most part, going uncorrected throughout elementary, secondary, and higher education. Clearly, something is fundamentally wrong with how we are teaching science in this country.

Are we closer to the Sun in summer or winter? If you step back from a mirror, do you see more of yourself? (I couldn't believe the answer to this one until I tested it.) From where does a seed, weighing a few grams, gain the mass that it acquires to become a tree that weighs tons? These questions are answered incorrectly by a surprising number of Harvard graduates, not to mention the middle schoolers that are, according to curriculum content standards, supposed to know the answers (see resources linked below). This demonstrates a profound problem with science education in this country, and that is that teachers often fail to take the students' preconceived notions into account before they teach them. Traditional science education is taught like most other subjects are traditionally taught -- students are treated like empty vessels that teachers act as pitchers that fill the students with knowledge. But, students are not empty vessels. They have past experiences, and they have put together their own explanations of those past experiences. Obviously, those explanations are not necessarily based upon rational thought and scientific inquiry, but instead are more likely to be based upon intuition. Teaching learners as if they are blank slates is problematic because it is like trying to construct a building upon a bad foundation. The traditional approach fails in two key areas, first by not taking into account the students' prior knowledge and second by not taking into account how students learn. When you realize that science been taught like this in America for decades upon decades, it's rather unsurprising that scientific illiteracy is rampant in the US.

The problem is so ingrained in science education in America today that it seems that nothing short of radical reform will do the trick. Future science teachers need to essentially teach in the opposite manner that traditional teachers teach. We've all experienced a traditional science classroom. You're lectured at for several class periods, and then you (ideally) perform a lab that seeks to confirm what you've already "learned" during lecture. Not only does this obviously not work, but it is actually counter-productive, robbing students of actually learning through hands-on experience. If a student is told what result they ought to get in an experiment, laboratory exercises become little more than following a recipe. When someone follows a recipe, the only thing they learn how to do is get the correct end result. Little to no higher order thinking or problem solving is going on in the heads of learners. The traditional "confirmatory" approach does little but encourage students to practice their rote memorization skills and follow directions properly, which is not even close to learning actual science.

Instead, the curriculum should be structured in a manner that encourages students to actually involve themselves in active inquiry about the content. Lessons should be taught in a way that enables the instructor to diagnose misconceptions in order to address them in a direct manner later on. Students should always have access to hands-on activities that not only give them meaningful experiential input but guide them in a way that keeps their minds on the task of learning the concepts ("hands-on/minds-on" as opposed to just "hands-on"). And, most importantly, teachers should, as much as possible without causing undue frustration, confusion, or time-management problems, step back into a facilitating role and let the students learn themselves instead of feeding them the answers. This constructivist approach to science education is radically different than the traditional approach to teaching, but it seems to me to be absolutely necessary given the problems we have seen arise within the education system. I'm skeptical that any real solutions can come from the top-down (every attempt made in the past has largely been a failure and have tended to make things worse), but this is the sort of thing that can easily come from the bottom-up, from teachers and professors of education.


Important Resources:

• A Private Universe (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1987) - A video documentary on education research for grade 5-12.
• Minds of Our Own (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1997) - A video documentary on education and learning for K-12 educators and parents.
• Private Universe Project in Science (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 2011) - A nine-part workshop derived from work pioneered in Project STAR and is an extension of its award winning video, A Private Universe, complete with full bibliography and research citations.

What Is the Root of All Evil?

Whether it's Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or Dan Barker, most prominent atheists portray themselves in a very anti-theistic manner. That is, not only do they disagree with the various claims made by theists, but they see theism itself as something dangerous and worth opposing directly. They see religion as a primary producer of evil in the world, and something that the world would obviously be better without. But, I think this view is a bit myopic. It demonstrates an obvious failure to peel back the layers and investigate the true root of the problem.

Now, let me be clear -- people do do evil things in the name of religion, and I believe that, as a global civilization, we would do better without it. But, getting rid of religion wouldn't be the panacea that many claim it to be, because religion, especially organized religion, is but a mere manifestation of the real problem. Organized religion is just a product of dogmatic, orthodox thinking, and that's the real root of most evil in this world.

Anywhere where people don't think for themselves, but instead rely on authoritarian or populist viewpoints to draw their thoughts for them, mass ignorance and injustice are likely to follow. This has been demonstrated throughout history time and time again, manifesting itself as a maxim in both secular and sectarian forms. When the Church had an authoritarian influence over much of medieval Europe, there were witch-hunts, inquisitions, crusades, serfdom, oppression, perpetual ignorance, and wide-spread superstition. The typical life was short, miserable, and terrifying. When the various totalitarian regimes asserted their authority over Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, China, and Cambodia, among others, in the 20th Century, much the same happened. The people of those countries were extraordinary unlucky that they were under such authoritarian rule in a time when technology was available that made it relatively easy to kill and oppress millions and wage war on a grand scale.

Clearly, if we can learn anything from what happened under the rule of ardent secularists like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot, it's that the belief in God isn't really the problem. It goes deeper than that. It's not really the beliefs themselves that cause the danger, it's the belief that said beliefs cannot and should not be questioned. How much of a problem would the belief in witchcraft or communism be, if they could be actively questioned by individuals without fear of reprisal? The answer to that question is simple -- look at Western society today. No one is being burned at the stake; no one is promoting the collectivization of business and agriculture (at least no one that is being taken seriously). Why? Because not only do we know that witches don't pose any threat, and that communism simply doesn't work well, but we can also express those truths with no fear. It's the simple fact that we have the ability assess the evidence for ourselves and the freedom to express our honest opinion of them that protects us from the evils of dogmatism and orthodoxy.

This is not to say that we can now relax and let our guard down. On the contrary, we should certainly continue to push the limits of free expression. Freedom requires vigilance and an active participation in being free. It's not out of the question that we can sink back down to the depths of a thoughtless devotion to an idea. You must at least tread to keep afloat, having a thought of your own from time to time, but why not swim with fervency to the shore, walk out of the water, and don't look back?

The Logical Implications of "God as Being Itself."

The conceptualization of God as 'Being Itself' was, to my knowledge, first proposed by theologian Paul Tillich in the early 20th Century. It has been brought to my knowledge by a thoughtful blogger, discussant, and professional theologian with the pseudonym Metacrock (metacrock.blogspot.com). If you can get through his posts (sorry, Meta, your writing style is a bit... difficult), you'll find that they are extremely intelligent in nature and they actually pose even greater challenges to non-believers than the arguments of more well-known Christian apologists. His conception of God is fairly unique and has required substantial thought for me to comprehend it in a manner that enables me to write about it.

When it is said that God is defined as "Being Itself," it is meant in opposition to the idea that God is actually a being, that is a distinct entity that is what Metacrock refers to as "the big man in the sky" concept of God. So, according to Tillich and by extension Meta, God is not a being. But, if God is not a being, what exactly is He? How can a definition of God be meaningful without being a being? These questions seem to me to be serious problems of this view, especially to professed Christians like Metacrock, who hold onto the idea of a personal God.

First, we must understand the difference between entities and properties. An entity is "a thing with a distinct and independent existence," whereas a property is "an attribute, quality, or characteristic of something" (New Oxford American Dictionary). They are related in the sense that entities have properties and if something has properties, it is an entity. Properties are not entities, and entities are not properties, although we are required to define entities by their properties. This is a very important concept to grasp, because many times the syntax of a sentence does not make this distinction for us. Take, for example, the sentence, "The sky is blue." Most every English speaking person would understand what is being conveyed by this sentence. What it truly means is that the sky has the property of being blue. But, it could be interpreted incorrectly as "The sky and blue are synonyms." This, of course, is incorrect, and there is a category error involved in the logic behind the statement. "The sky" is an entity, whereas "blue" is a property. They cannot be the same thing.

The distinction between the conceptualization of God as "a being" and God as "Being Itself" is that the former treats God as a specific entity and the latter treats God as a specific property. A being is a type of entity, namely an animate one. The concept of God as "a being" holds that God is an entity with whatever properties the conceptualizer claims God to have. It is worth mentioning that this concept is not limited to the view that God is a "big man in the sky," as God doesn't need to be thought of as a being with a physical body or even a spatial existence. It just requires us to view God as a thing with properties. The concept that God is "Being Itself," however, does just the opposite — requiring us to view God as a essential property of all things as opposed to a thing itself.

"Being Itself" is an essential property of all entities. It, to the best of my understanding, can be defined as the property of existing. All entities must exist, by definition, and therefore, all entities have the property of existing. This makes the logical necessity of God seem self-evident, as the following syllogism demonstrates:

1. God is the property of existing.
2. Entities exist.
3. Therefore, God is.

The very fact that anything exists is enough to demonstrate that this conceptualization of God is factually true. If God is "Being Itself," then God is, although I'd struggle to say that God exists, and I would also say that it's nothing more than defining God into being by removing any meaningfulness of the word, much like the concept that "God is love" does. 

First, there is an inherent confusion when declaring that a property exists. What is really more correct is to say that an entity exists that has that property. Thus, if God is Being Itself (the property of existing), then it's not really correct to say that God exists, but instead it is more correct to say that all things which exist share the property known as God. 

Second, the idea that God is a property as opposed to an entity leads one to realize that God cannot have properties. Only entities have properties. God cannot be conscious or personal any more than the property "blue" can be salty. Properties cannot have properties, but instead can only be or not be the case in relation to an entity. Therefore, despite the fact that "God as Being Itself" must be, it cannot do anything other than be, and thus any real meaning behind the word is eliminated. This concept of God ultimately leads one to hold that God nothing more than an impersonal, unconscious, purposeless, emotionless, uncaring, albeit necessary state of affairs. So, where the concept of "God as a being" is meaningful, but is not supported by either logical necessity or empirical evidence, the concept of "God as Being Itself" is supported by logical necessity, but is devoid of all relevant meaning. This seems to be a prevailing theme in theology — a complete inability to have your cake and eat it too. 

Questioning Self-Interest

As a skeptic, I often find myself questioning my own intuitions. It's a very healthy thing to do, in my opinion. Physicist Richard Feynman once mused, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool." Our intuitions are subject to all sorts of personal biases that have been ingrained in us by genetics and experience, mostly unbeknownst to us, and therefore don't necessarily have any truth behind them. Instead, they do little but serve our desire to pursue our own interests.

As a matter of fact, humans are self-interested. That's just the way it is. And, yes, to a large extent, most human behavior can be descriptively summed up as either a product or byproduct of adaptive evolution. I fully admit that this includes most moral behavior as well. People generally act according to the desires of others because it is within their interest to do so. The point of this post is not to deny this most basic fact, but instead it is to question whether bowing to self-interest is reasonably valid.

Acting in one's self-interest seems intuitively reasonable, but I believe that this is nothing more a product of a very strong bias. There is nothing reasonable about considering your own interests whilst not considering the interests of others. If this is correct, it at least puts a selfless person on equal rational footing with a selfish person. But, I think it can be demonstrated that being selfless is in fact more reasonable than being selfish.

A selfless person views the world in a more impartial manner. Where the selfish person only considers his own interests, the selfless person considers the whole scope of interests when choosing a course of action. He takes more variables into account, and sees himself as but one conscious being in an entire society of beings, all having interests of their own. He understands that, just as he values his own interests, others do the same, and that his own interests are no more intrinsically important than another's. 

This, to me, is a much more reasonable position to take. It is the difference between blindly bowing to the external and biological forces that forged you, and actually applying critical thought to how you ought to act. It's the difference between being little more than a dog tied to a cart and being a freethinking individual.

What is Happiness?

Happiness has been foundational to ethics all the way back to Socrates, who believed that virtue was the greatest good, and that virtue was necessary for true happiness. This was later emulated by the Stoics, such as Epictetus, who argued that virtue was sufficient for happiness. The Cyrenianics and Epicureans both bypassed virtue and embraced a truly hedonistic ethical philosophy, where pleasure is the only good and is sufficient for happiness. All these ethical perspectives assume one thing -- that happiness, for some reason, is good. They all seem to suggest that something else is good in that it is a means to happiness.

Every ethical philosophy since then has at least something to say about happiness. Agreed, many have become ascetic, but I know of no ethical philosophy embraced by any that embraces asceticism for any other reason than to preserve happiness in either this life or the next. The utilitarian philosophers are clearly the most obvious modern proponents of happiness as the foundation of ethics, whereas Kant and other deontologists are probably the most obvious objectors to the idea, and usually replace it with duty and a respect for dignity or another seemingly independent and altogether desirable state of being besides happiness. This issue of whether or not a state of being can be both desirable and separable from happiness is fully worthy of a discussion of its own, but right now I want to focus on what happiness is, and what makes it so important in terms of ethics.

We all know what it feels like to be happy, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily an easy thing to define. The biggest obstacle in defining the term is that different states are experienced as "happiness" by different people. One person may be happy whilst getting whipped, while I would certainly not find that a state with which to be happy. But, there does seem to be a couple of key characteristics of any state in which any person would claim to be happy -- and they are the satisfaction of desires and a sense of tranquility.

First and foremost, for someone to be happy, the indulgence in and satisfaction of at least some desires is necessary. It seems impossible for someone to be happy whilst their most basic needs are left unsatisfied for long periods of time. A starving person is miserable and cannot do anything to improve that state until he has adequate nourishment. The same goes for the thirsty and the freezing. If you are not content and satisfied, you are an unhappy person. Even the Stoic's recognized this, despite believing the contrary in theory. In his Discourses, Epictetus poses the question, "Who then is a Stoic?" He tells his audience to show him "a man moulded to the pattern of the judgements that he utters, ... who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy" (Discourses, Ch. XIX). He fully admits that you will find no one of the sort.

Something is still missing from the ingredients to happiness, as if one merely sought to satisfy each and every desire, one would likely be in a state that wasn't anything close to what one means by "happy." It would be the state in which the Cyrenianics pursued. But, happiness is almost certainly more complex than that, as a thoughtful reader should realize. People who seek satisfaction on a whim are often the least happy in that they are easily disturbed when their desires fail to be indulged. Instead, happiness is far more tempered and tranquil than that. It requires that one is relatively free from disturbances of any sort. Epicurus is perhaps the one ancient philosopher that I believe is closest to the concept of happiness that I am proposing. He taught that "pleasure is our first and kindred good," but that we "often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them" and "consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure" (Letter to Menoeceus). In other words, the satisfaction of desires is the foundation of happiness, but we will avoid certain pleasures because they inevitably cause disturbances that cause us to be unhappy in the long run. 

So, happiness requires that we feel both satisfied and tranquil at the same time, and is thus more or less the maintenance of a balance between a Stoic sense of calm and a hedonistic sense of indulgence. This is what happiness is, and as a matter of fact, it is deemed desirable by all those that have the even remotest ability to attain it. It is this very fact, that happiness is desirable (and, in fact, impossible not to desire), that makes it so ethically relevant.

The Problem of Sin

I've come to the conclusion that the Problem of Evil is far too open to interpretation by believers to make them realize the actual logical problem involved. They can merely say that atheists do not have a definitive definition of "evil," which seems to be a sufficient rationalization for many. Christians tend to think of the argument as something attune to, "God lets bad things happen, therefore he doesn't exist," which simply isn't the case. It's meant to demonstrate an inherent contradiction in the Christian concept of God without any non-Christian definition of "evil" being necessary. So, I've decided to couch the argument in terms of the Christian concept of sin. Sin is generally what Christians mean when they talk of evil, and it is what non-believers mean as well when they use the Problem of Evil correctly. My argument utilizes the idea that sin is an action that is against God's will. That's not to say that that's all sin is, but that it's a fundamental aspect of what sin is. To say that X is a sin, it is to say that God disapproves of X, or that God wills or desires not-X.

My argument also assumes a concept of God that at least incorporates basic ideas of omnipotence, omniscience, and intentionality. By saying that God is omnipotent, I simply mean that He can at least actualize that which He wills and prevent the actualization of that which He does not will. By saying that God is omniscient, I simply mean that He can at least fully understand what will be actualized by his action or inaction, as well as what will be actualized by the action or inaction of beings that he created. By saying that God is intentional, I simply mean that God acts deliberately to bring about that which He wills, and prevent that which he does not will. And, by "Christianity," I mean a construct that at least incorporates this concept of God as well as the concept of sin mentioned above.

That being said, here's my argument:

1. Sin is an action that is against God's will. [Premise]
2. God can actualize what he wills, and can prevent the actualization of that which he does not will. (IOW, God is omnipotent) [Premise]
3. God knows fully what will be actualized through His action or inaction, or through the action or inaction of a being that he created. (IOW, God is omniscient) [Premise]
4. God seeks to actualize what he wills, and prevent what he does not will. (IOW, God acts intentionally) [Premise]
5. Therefore, God will actualize that which he wills, and prevent that which he does not will. [2, 3, 4]
6. Corollary: Everything that is actualized is what God wills. [5]
7. If God exists, sin cannot exist. [1, 6]
8. Christianity incorporates the concept of God and sin. [Premise]
9. Therefore, Christianity is false. [7, 8]

God Did Not Inspire the Bible

Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert G. Ingersoll is one of my favorite books. It's a very interesting read given that it smacks of “New Atheism” but was first published in 1879 (it just goes to show you that there is nothing new and different about the New Atheism). I mention this because the logic behind this argument is from the book, although I've reworked it a little and put it into a more formal arrangement. It's an argument that attempts to demonstrate the extreme improbability, if not impossibility, of the Bible being divinely inspired. What’s especially great about this argument is that it should address both Biblical literalists and non-literalists alike. 

1. God is (a) omniscient, (b) omnipotent, (c) purposeful, and (d) honest.
2. If God inspired a book, (a) He would know how his words would be interpreted [1a], (b) He would be able to convey His will clearly [1b], and (c) His book would be interpreted in the exact manner he intended [1c].
3. The Bible is far from clear as to how it should be interpreted or even whether it is true, evidenced in the fact that throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity it has been interpreted by countless different sects in countless different ways, viewed by members of other religions to be void of inspiration, been met with skepticism by countless skeptics (and increasingly so since the rise of modern civilization and rational thought), and been used to both support and condemn slavery, polygamy, individual liberties, etc.
4. If God inspired the Bible, he meant for it to convey His Will in such an ambiguous manner. [2, 3]
5. Therefore, God would have intended to mislead countless people into believing falsehoods and disbelieving truths. [3, 4]
6. Therefore, God did not inspire the Bible. [1d, 5]

The Bible is obviously an imperfect means of conveying the will of a divine being, considering that in the centuries that it’s been around, you can barely find two people that agree completely on their interpretation of it. Most philosophers, who are mere mortals mind you, write in a manner that is far less open to personal interpretation than the Bible. They say what they mean, and the readers can understand what they say without much, if any, confusion or disagreement. If men and women can do this, why shouldn’t we expect the same from God? Why shouldn’t we just conclude that such a pitifully vague book is the work of primitive men as opposed to a perfect being?