4,163 research outputs found
Report on a Boston University Conference December 7-8, 2012 on 'How Can the History and Philosophy of Science Contribute to Contemporary U.S. Science Teaching?'
This is an editorial report on the outcomes of an international conference
sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (REESE-1205273)
to the School of Education at Boston University and the Center for Philosophy
and History of Science at Boston University for a conference titled: How Can
the History and Philosophy of Science Contribute to Contemporary U.S. Science
Teaching? The presentations of the conference speakers and the reports of the
working groups are reviewed. Multiple themes emerged for K-16 education from
the perspective of the history and philosophy of science. Key ones were that:
students need to understand that central to science is argumentation,
criticism, and analysis; students should be educated to appreciate science as
part of our culture; students should be educated to be science literate; what
is meant by the nature of science as discussed in much of the science education
literature must be broadened to accommodate a science literacy that includes
preparation for socioscientific issues; teaching for science literacy requires
the development of new assessment tools; and, it is difficult to change what
science teachers do in their classrooms. The principal conclusions drawn by the
editors are that: to prepare students to be citizens in a participatory
democracy, science education must be embedded in a liberal arts education;
science teachers alone cannot be expected to prepare students to be
scientifically literate; and, to educate students for scientific literacy will
require a new curriculum that is coordinated across the humanities,
history/social studies, and science classrooms.Comment: Conference funded by NSF grant REESE-1205273. 31 page
Polynomial algorithms for p-dispersion problems in a 2d Pareto Front
Having many best compromise solutions for bi-objective optimization problems,
this paper studies p-dispersion problems to select
representative points in the Pareto Front(PF). Four standard variants of
p-dispersion are considered. A novel variant, denoted Max-Sum-Neighbor
p-dispersion, is introduced for the specific case of a 2d PF. Firstly, it is
proven that -dispersion and -dispersion problems are solvable in
time in a 2d PF. Secondly, dynamic programming algorithms are designed for
three p-dispersion variants, proving polynomial complexities in a 2d PF. The
Max-Min p-dispersion problem is proven solvable in time and
memory space. The Max-Sum-Min p-dispersion problem is proven solvable in
time and space. The Max-Sum-Neighbor p-dispersion problem
is proven solvable in time and space. Complexity results and
parallelization issues are discussed in regards to practical implementation
The Bayesian Who Knew Too Much
In several papers, John Norton has argued that Bayesianism cannot handle ignorance adequately due to its inability to distinguish between neutral and disconfirming evidence. He argued that this inability sows confusion in, e.g., anthropic reasoning in cosmology or the Doomsday argument, by allowing one to draw unwarranted conclusions from a
lack of knowledge. Norton has suggested criteria for a candidate for representation of neutral support. Imprecise credences (families of credal probability functions) constitute a Bayesian-friendly framework that allows us to avoid inadequate neutral priors and better handle ignorance. The imprecise model generally agrees with Norton's representation of ignorance but requires that his criterion of self-duality be reformulated or abandoned
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