me: > > But it helps to have a broader framework. Michael Smith: > Does it, though? That's what I wanted to know. Some concrete > detail would be useful. There are plenty of areas of life > in which theory provides little guidance and may in fact > make things worse -- where what passes for theory has much the > same epistemological status as phrenology. Theories of cognition, > it seems to me, are at about the same point nowadays that > theories of chemistry were when phlogiston was still a key > concept.
It is true that _some_ theories are bad. But that doesn't say that we should reject all theory in education psychology (or any other field). Please _tell me_ why you think that theories of cognition are as bad as phlogiston theory. Why, specifically, do you reject the idea of multiple intelligences? To me, _all_ theory (including in the blessed field of physics) is "bad" in the sense that no theory is the final word _on anything_. Each conclusion is merely a working hypothesis to be tested both empirically and logically, in practice and using methodology. -- Jim Devine / "The trick for radicals has been and will be to make of earth a heaven, but without blind faith." -- Mike Yates.
