Teaching the Logic of Falsification: A Classroom Excercise

Every science teacher soon discovers that the intuitions students use to solve problems are frequently at variance with the critical thinking skills required by science. 1be exercise presented here focuses on the value of making scientific hypotheses and then attempting to falsify rather than confirm them. When challenged to test a hypothesis, intuitive thinkers tend to show a confirmation bias, i.e., they will propose a test in which the results will be a positive instance of the hypothesis (Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978; Wason, 1960). Scientists, on the other hand, know that tests are specific instances that cannot inductively \u27\u27prove the hypothesis. Instead, scientists follow the lead of Karl Popper (1959), who formulated the logic of falsification. Popper asserted that support for a hypothesis is always provisional. Hypotheses cannot ever be conclusively proven. They can, however, be disproved. A negative test in which the hypothesis is not supported should cause the scientist to discard the hypothesis and try another

The CREATE Approach to Primary Literature Shifts Undergraduates' Self-Assessed Ability to Read and Analyze Journal Articles, Attitudes about Science, and Epistemological Beliefs

The C. R. E. A. T. E. (Consider, Read, Elucidate hypotheses, Analyze and interpret data, Think of the next Experiment) method uses intensive analysis of primary literature in the undergraduate classroom to demystify and humanize science. We have reported previously that the method improves students' critical thinking and content integration abilities, while at the same time enhancing their self-reported understanding of "who does science, and why." We report here the results of an assessment that addressed C. R. E. A. T. E. students' attitudes about the nature of science, beliefs about learning, and confidence in their ability to read, analyze, and explain research articles. Using a Likert-style survey administered pre- and postcourse, we found significant changes in students' confidence in their ability to read and analyze primary literature, self-assessed understanding of the nature of science, and epistemological beliefs (e. g., their sense of whether knowledge is certain and scientific talent innate). Thus, within a single semester, the inexpensive C. R. E. A. T. E. method can shift not just students' analytical abilities and understanding of scientists as people, but can also positively affect students' confidence with analysis of primary literature, their insight into the processes of science, and their beliefs about learning.NSFNSF CCLI/TUES 0311117, 0618536, 1021443Molecular Bioscience

Book Review - The Unnatural Nature of Science: Why Science Does Not Make (Common) Sense

A distinguished psychologist once wrote that if you wished to understand the history of scientific thought you need a psychologist at your elbow. Lewis Wolpert, Professor of Biology at University College in London, has taken that sentiment further. It seems that if you wish to understand the difference between scientific and nonscientific thinking you should delve deeply into the literature of cognitive psychology. For natural thinking, ordinary, day-to-day common sense will never give an understanding about the nature of science. Instead, the trained scientist engages in unnatural (i.e., counterintuitive) thinking about a word that defies ordinary experience. In order to understand science, the teacher, the student, and the citizen need to understand the esoteric manner in which scientists gather knowledge

Book Review - The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge

The June, 1997 issue of Harper\u27s Magazine included a list of recently published books that have titles beginning with The End of . There are thirty-one titles on the list. Publishers have been rushing to cash in on the public\u27s emotional reaction to the coming end of the century. It is difficult to take some of these works seriously. Perhaps the hardest thesis to swallow is that science, including physics, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience, not to mention the social sciences and the philosophy of science, is coming to an end just as our somewhat arbitrary calendar ticks over to a new millennium. John Horgan, a science writer for Scientific American, draws on years of interviews with leading scientists and philosophers to support this thanatopic thesis in The End of Science