I am not going to belabor the points I made in yesterday's post, but I do wish to explicate one point discussed by Marc Turner in his reply to my post. I wrote: >>Some apparently believe, however, that we are being equally dogmatic >>if we require that our students learn these time-tested norms. What >>these critics don't seem to realize is that we are left with no firm >>foundation for discourse if we blithely uproot these norms and substitute >>whatever new ones come along. The discord expressed in the recent thread >>on this list suggests to me that the central norms of our scientific culture >>are being shaken and perhaps driven to their knees. That is, some on this >>list are asserting that the central norms of our science have no privileged >>position. And Marc replied: >If by privileged position you mean they should not be questioned, then I >agree that they don't have that position. I think everything should be >questioned, and if we do not allow our norms to be questioned then how do >we know they are really necessary? Again, this is not an argument to get >rid of the norms or to put other "norms" on an equal footing. It is simply >a suggestion that we allow our norms to prove themselves rather than >expecting them to be accepted without challenged. Our norms DO have a privileged position in our scientific culture, but not in the sense that you are inferring. As the introduction to a basic philosophy textbook states: "Everything you believe is questionable." This philosophical norm is the most fundamental one of all. It is the beginning, middle, and end of all attempts to understand the universe. With this in mind, let's again look at the basic scientific norms of which I spoke: (1) attitudes of empiricism (knowledge must be based on observations), skepticism (most importantly, one must have evidence to support one's claims), and naturalism (the events we are trying to understand are the result of natural processes); (2) the avoidance of personal biases; (3) communicating one's ideas by stating the precise reasons for one's claims. These are standards of thought and action that we use in everyday life whenever we are trying to solve a complex practical problem. These standards have been used by our students (I do hope with all of my heart and soul they have, I do, I do) many times. If their car does not start, they make observations, they assume that the problem is due to a natural defect (not to demons inhabiting the glove compartment), they find evidence to support their belief about the source of the problem, they communicate this belief to the mechanic by stating as precisely as they can the reasons for their belief, they try to avoid personal biases when searching for the source of the problem (e.g., they don't assume it is the battery because they have had battery problems before). Students probably have never explicitly stated or questioned these standards, but they undoubtedly have found on their own that these standards work for solving practical everyday problems. And, they infer that these standards work because they help us to know reality. These standards do not have to be described and supported in some philosophically dense manner: they are relatively simple rules that most of us use often in our mundane affairs. We are not always (or maybe even often) perfect in applying them, but they are self-evident to the mass of students. Scientists have also found these standards to work for solving the practical problems with which they are concerned. These problems are not so mundane, and they require more care and reasoning when constructing one's answers, but logically I see no difference from the practical problems of everyday life. And this is how I present the standards to students. Thus, this is what I meant when I stated that these norms have a "priveleged position" in science: they have been tested again and again and again, and have been shown to be necessary to the successful solutions of the complex problems with which we deal. THESE NORMS (and others like them) ARE SCIENCE: if we are using other norms, we no longer are doing science. But how to communicate these ideas to students was not really the point of my post. My major point was that these self-evident norms central to science have been questioned and, apparently, found wanting by various psychologists. I have found these critiques fascinating and spent some time a few years back reading several of them. I love to have my most fundamental assumptions shaken up: it makes life much more exciting, and I don't find it such a chore when, say, I have to clean up after my daughter when she has the stomach flu or have to pay $2500 to have a new sewer pipe put in (no, the projectile vomiting of my daughter didn't break it). The recent discussion on this list--with regard to both the nature of education (the apparent claim by some that, basically, we are mass-producing "educated" drones) and the nature of the posts that should be appropriate for this list (should people be allowed to post banal and/or inane questions, unsupported claims, or incoherent ramblings because these represent "alternative forms of expression")--suggested to me (I could be wrong) that some TIPSters have also read these critiques (or been influenced in other ways by them) and agreed with them. This concerns me greatly, and that was what I was trying to communicate. In addition, I was trying to work out the various issues so that I could understand them (I am no philosopher, although often I wish I were). Jeff Ricker Scottsdale Community College Scottsdale AZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. By the way, I also am in Group #2
