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No, it isn't laborious when the teacher understands the why and wherefore of the scientific method. I know the Earth is round, because I have observed that w

by IncRnd 5y ago

No, it isn't laborious when the teacher understands the why and wherefore of the scientific method. I know the Earth is round, because I have observed that when a ship sails away from me, the top portion of the ship is the last to fade over the horizon. When flying, the shadow of the plane has a surrounding glory.

kiba 5y ago
You confuse your actual collection of knowledge, facts, and conceptual understanding from actual thinking. Actual thinking is hard, confusing, slow, and infinitely more painful. Your ability to know that the Earth is round is based on facts and knowledge acquired, not thinking from first principle. The ancient did all the hard work, we just co-opted it.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  > Your ability to know that the Earth is round is based on facts and knowledge acquired, not thinking from first principle. The ancient did all the hard work, we just co-opted it. That's simply made up. There are two examples in my comment. They are not from long dead ancient squabbling scientists of natural philosophy but from my own experience of setting experiments to prove empirically whether the Earth is round or flat.
Retric 5y ago
Teaching a single scientific fact based on supporting evidence is easy, teaching every single fact plus it’s associated evidence simply takes longer. Nobody questions that sugar contains C6H12O6, so it’s simply taught as a fact without showing the evidence used to derive it. This can even run into problems when people get taught a bunch on regurgitated nonsense around stuff like how wings work. In the end people get skeptical around a tiny number of scientific facts like climate change, evolution, and vaccination but they have no problem accepting everything from the MOS hardness scale, echos, buoyancy, etc etc. Why most people object to just those specific things has absolutely nothing to do with evidence, it’s completely part of a wider social phenomenon.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > In the end people get skeptical around a tiny number of scientific facts like climate change, evolution, and vaccination but they have no problem accepting everything from the MOS hardness scale, echos, buoyancy, etc etc. The Mohs scale is pretty easy to validate, and the exercises typically done when it is taught tend to serve to do that.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Just imaging if people showed similar levels of skepticism around the Mohs scale as the did global warming etc. The Mohs hardness scale is actually extremely difficult to demonstrate across a full range of natural materials. It’s intuitive that if A scratches B and B scratches C then A should scratch C, but testing a few samples is nowhere near enough to demonstrate across every natural mineral. It’s even more difficult to show this is a stable property that doesn’t very significantly over time. So, sure a teacher might hand out a few samples and show what the idea is, but that’s little more than hand waving.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The Mohs hardness scale is actually extremely difficult to demonstrate across a full range of natural materials Well, sure combinatorial explosion and the difficulty of gathering every possible natural material makes it impractical to show that: (1) the scale measures a real trait that exhibits the same consistent transitive behavior across all possible combinations of natural materials, and (2) every natural material with a rating on the scale is correctly rated. It's relatively easy to establish that the set of standard examplars for the integer ratings consistently show the relative properties the scale is supposed to measure. Of course, it trivial to then verify the same is true relative to the examplars for any other material with an established rating, or to establish (within the bounds of the ceiling/floor integers) the rating of any material for which one doesn't have a measure and confirm consistency against examplars and any manageable sample of other rated materials.

by IncRnd 5y ago

kiba 5y ago

You confuse your actual collection of knowledge, facts, and conceptual understanding from actual thinking. Actual thinking is hard, confusing, slow, and infinitely more painful. Your ability to know that the Earth is round is based on facts and knowledge acquired, not thinking from first principle. The ancient did all the hard work, we just co-opted it.

IncRnd 5y ago
> Your ability to know that the Earth is round is based on facts and knowledge acquired, not thinking from first principle. The ancient did all the hard work, we just co-opted it. That's simply made up. There are two examples in my comment. They are not from long dead ancient squabbling scientists of natural philosophy but from my own experience of setting experiments to prove empirically whether the Earth is round or flat.

Retric 5y ago

Teaching a single scientific fact based on supporting evidence is easy, teaching every single fact plus it’s associated evidence simply takes longer. Nobody questions that sugar contains C6H12O6, so it’s simply taught as a fact without showing the evidence used to derive it. This can even run into problems when people get taught a bunch on regurgitated nonsense around stuff like how wings work. In the end people get skeptical around a tiny number of scientific facts like climate change, evolution, and vaccination but they have no problem accepting everything from the MOS hardness scale, echos, buoyancy, etc etc. Why most people object to just those specific things has absolutely nothing to do with evidence, it’s completely part of a wider social phenomenon.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> In the end people get skeptical around a tiny number of scientific facts like climate change, evolution, and vaccination but they have no problem accepting everything from the MOS hardness scale, echos, buoyancy, etc etc. The Mohs scale is pretty easy to validate, and the exercises typically done when it is taught tend to serve to do that.
- Retric 5y ago
  Just imaging if people showed similar levels of skepticism around the Mohs scale as the did global warming etc. The Mohs hardness scale is actually extremely difficult to demonstrate across a full range of natural materials. It’s intuitive that if A scratches B and B scratches C then A should scratch C, but testing a few samples is nowhere near enough to demonstrate across every natural mineral. It’s even more difficult to show this is a stable property that doesn’t very significantly over time. So, sure a teacher might hand out a few samples and show what the idea is, but that’s little more than hand waving.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The Mohs hardness scale is actually extremely difficult to demonstrate across a full range of natural materials Well, sure combinatorial explosion and the difficulty of gathering every possible natural material makes it impractical to show that: (1) the scale measures a real trait that exhibits the same consistent transitive behavior across all possible combinations of natural materials, and (2) every natural material with a rating on the scale is correctly rated. It's relatively easy to establish that the set of standard examplars for the integer ratings consistently show the relative properties the scale is supposed to measure. Of course, it trivial to then verify the same is true relative to the examplars for any other material with an established rating, or to establish (within the bounds of the ceiling/floor integers) the rating of any material for which one doesn't have a measure and confirm consistency against examplars and any manageable sample of other rated materials.