I am a middle school science teacher looking for a lesson on bias in science. Does anyone know a good example?

Question

I need an article or experiment that is appropriate for 11 year olds to read and discuss.

Answer 1

i love this one i learned in anthropology class
there was a theory that the larger the skull capacity the smarter the "race" so all these european scientists started measuring. unfortunately, the inca brains were the largest capacity.
so the european scientists decided not to include them (because clearly europeans had to turn out to be the smartest people - that was an underlying assumption). My goodnes we cannot conclude that incan folks are smarter than the british!!

another one i love i think is call simbian something. european scientists decided that they could determine how far a population had evolved AWAY from primates by measuring the amount of shortening in their forearms - cuz chimps and gorillas have long forearms for how they locomote. Unfortunately the africans had shorter forearms, so of course the theory was abandoned. Becuase europeans were assumed to be the ones further evolved. Hilariously later it turned out that the theory was right and the folks they were measuring in africa actually had evolved further (DNA-wise) from primates.

sorry i can't give you specific references but i always love these examples.

Answer 2

Look no further than evolution, it claims to know for certain that events occurred but has no evidence to back it up. One class I was teaching for Time For Kids, state that the earth was 250 million years old. I asked the class how they knew, to make a long story short I told them it was guess work. Do an experiment on how fossils are formed. Evolution has taught until recently that changes in the earth and fossilization occurred in a uniformally, only recently have they changed to a view closely akin to catatrosphism. Take a leaf and some plastic of paris and place the leaf in the plastic and compress it and let it dry. Very quickly you will have an impression of the leaf. Then bury another leaf in loose dirt and see how long it takes to form an imoression.

Answer 3

This is an intereting and important subject. I'm sorry I can't give you something more detailed at the moment, but there are two famous examples, and both have to do with the science of biology.
The first involves Lysenko, Stalin's pet biologist, who convinced Stalin that heredity can behave according to Marxist-Leninist rules. The Soviet Union applied his methods in agriculture and hundreds of thousands of people perished of hunger. You'll find Lysenko mentioned in a few internet pages, for instance in
http://trofimlysenko.quickseek.com/
http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai131_folder/131_articles/131_genetics_stalin.html
The second is the so called science of Eugenics. Historically, Eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalised, and in some cases, genocide on races perceived as inferior. This movement is far from dead, and its followers strive to reshape current Bio-ethics. Here are a few of the links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/
http://www.eugenics.net/papers/3rdreich.html
http://www.eugenics-watch.com/#democracy
I hope that helps. Good luck!

Answer 4

I believe it was in the early half of the 1900s, a scientist (I don't remember the name) was trying to see if African Americans had smaller brains than Whites. So, he had skulls from both races. He filled each brain cavity of the skulls with fine seeds, then emptied them and weighed the seed amounts. His result claimed that African Americans had smaller brains. We now know this not to be true, by any means. The conclusion drawn is that the scientist was racist, and subconsciously packed the seeds tighter into the White person's skulls in order to give them an edge.

Answer 5

straightforward... discover yet another college! It does not take place in ny State public colleges because of actual undeniable fact that we've standardized, statewide assessments (Regents exams.) economic help from the state relies upon on each and each college's Regents checking out consequences. If it became being taught exterior of technological know-how, i does not have a topic with it... the colleges would desire to bear in mind what constitutes technological know-how and what falls in need of the standards of technological know-how.

Answer 6

The FDA's bias against the morning after pill.

Answer 7

Bias regarding what, specifically?

Answer 8

Nope, sure dont, you're the teacher.