Can you believe the theories that they are teaching in school now?

Question

School is supposed to be about teaching facts not theories! I know many of you agree, but how many of you realize just how insidious this practice of teaching theories has become?


Why today I learned that not only do they teach that silly theory of evolution, with all of its supporting data and support by real scientists, as fact.


It's worse than that. They also teach the theory of gravity. The cell theory. And the germ theory of disease. I mean seriously, who are these guys fooling? At the very least, they should be required to teach competing theories, regardless of the lack of proof or scientific merit of said theories. That's right, back to teaching spontaneous generation, disease as plagues from divine spirits and that the planet is held in place by Atlas.

Answer 1

I almost totally disagree.

In my opinion, science classes (especially in high school and college) should mostly be teaching theory, without a great deal of emphasis on the facts that support or vitiate the theories.

For example, I would wish for a class in elementary physics to put forth several theories of gravitation, such as:
1. Mass is greedy, and is always trying to get more.
2. Bodies move in space because angels push them.
3. Massive bodies follow geodesics in space-time.
4. The force "felt" by one body for another follows this formula:
|--: F = G*M1²/(R*t²)
5. The force "felt" by one body for another follows this formula:
|--: F = G*M1*M2/R²
6. The force "felt" by one body for another follows this formula:
|--: F = G*M1*M2/R² - K*|M1-M2|*v²
7. (Come up with your own theory.)

Then I'd like the class to devise various experiments to test the theories, and discuss as a group how and whether the proposed experiments would be able to demonstrate or falsify the theory. The goal would be to learn how to differentiate plausibility from certain kinds of absurdity and certain kinds of error.

Then, focusing on the remaining plausible theories and the initial experiments proposed, I'd like the class to anticipate sources of error in each experiment, and to come up with protocols for testing one plausible theory against another plausible theory such that the inevitable systemic errors might have less of a confounding contribution to the comparison.

Then, to the extent feasible, I'd like the class to perform some of the experiments, or to find published research that performed something very like the experiments, to see what the results were. This is the only place where facts would come in.

Finally, after various theories had been tested by various experiments, and the results disseminated and discussed, I'd like the class to discuss theory, experiment, and proof, and to draw their own conclusions about the relationship between scientific theory, belief, and truth.


Along the way, for more advanced classes, I might have part of of the class take responsibility for publishing the interim results and provisional conclusions in two different journals:

In the first journal, the reporters and editors would only check facts and suggest changes to language and presentation.

In the second, the writers and editors would decide in advance on the result they wanted to see, and would then consistently discard portions of the scientists' data sets or proposed explanations without informing readers that anything had been edited out.

At the end of the term, the two journals could be compared for persuasiveness and internal consistency, and a discussion could be held on the relationship between integrity, intentions, and trust.

Answer 2

Well, I've always been told that in science nothing can ever be proven, there are no facts. Theories are the closest to fact you can get in science, because that means there's been tons of experiments/research and everything supports the idea. But I do agree with you to some extent, I still learned about spontaneous generation in a Microbiology class that I took. And I think it's important to understand how the research evolved and how old theories were disproven. But with these "competing theories" it's not just the lack of proof, it's the amount of evidence against them. Therefore, people shouldn't be taught these things as if they were fact, they should make sure people realize they have been disproven. Otherwise, it's going to be really hard for research to progress if people are stuck believing things that aren't true!
Maybe evolution isn't true, maybe there's no such thing as gravity, but if you look around I personally think it's crazy to not believe it! I'm sure there are things that are taught today that one day we'll find out isn't true (just like how people thought the earth was flat!) but we can only teach what we know now!

Also, I found this on wikipedia (not always the best source, but true in this case)...
In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena

Answer 3

You are not understanding what "theory" means in the scientific sense. I think you are thinking that "theory" means a guess or a hunch, which is innacurate.

A theory is a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

The fact that you are saying "they should be required to teach competing theories, regardless of the lack of proof or scientific merit of said theories" sadly shows that you do not understand what a scientific theory is. I am not trying to provoke you or pick on you, but I really would like you to understand that there is a difference in a scientific theory and the way that you're using the word.

Since you mentioned gravity, here's something from The Onion to show how people don't use theory correctly. http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

Answer 4

Schools should ONLY teach on what they have documented facts on. Any other "teachings" would be nothing more than "beliefs" and that should be left to the churches.
If learning beliefs is more important to you than facts, then you should get out of the public schools and enroll in a private school.

Answer 5

on a similar note, i have thought it would be worth creating a round earth society - to go around and spread the good news that the earth is round, and make sure everyone is converted because it is very important.

Answer 6

Right!! I'm always aksing why medical school ignores the use of leeches, blood -letting and trepanning.

Answer 7

Hahaha I know right!!!!! They should also stop "teaching" about global warming