Monday, February 8, 2010
Discussion Blog #2
Hello everyone. As we talked about the subjectivity of science in class last week, together with the article "We Are All Scientists" by T. H. Huxley, I want to discuss the science education in college today. Does science education today satisfy what the mass population's need? Is there any subjectivity we can find in science class? What do you think the science class should be?
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Learning the natural sciences (ie chemistry and math) teaches students to utilize the scientific method and rational thinking in their professional and everyday lives. So yes science education satisfies the mass population's needs.
ReplyDeleteMost science educators in the modern United States do avoid subjectivity in what they teach.
There is no doubt that science does become a little - "elite" would be the term to use here rather than "subjective" - as one progresses from elementary to high school to college to post-graduate to cutting-edge research in science. This is evident from our own experiences - we all remember learning about basic functions of the human body, the fundamental properties of nature and important chemical transformations in grade school. The main purpose of this very closely aligns with the objective of getting everyone to be a scientist, the way Huxley defines it: i.e. to remove superstitions and foster logical and rational thinking.
ReplyDeleteNow, in college we can clearly see that science education is a little more obscure... it is partitioned into various disciplines to be pursued according to area of interest. This is necessary because nobody can know everything about everything. Here the definition of science and scientist becomes narrower and more specific depending on the person's point of view. This continues as one progresses to grad school/doctorate.
In fact, if we look at the cutting-edge research taking place, not all of them are necessarily designed to "satisfy... ...the mass population's need" (need to get off the quoting habit after the first assignment). Ultimately it all comes down how you look at science education and research. If you're one of those myopic people who think the International Space Station is a waste of money when there are children starving in Africa, I really can't argue with you. I am fully convinced, based on my experience so far, that science education in the US is heavily driven towards the masses needs and requirements.
I don't believe that there can ever be "subjectivity" in a science class. Subjectivity is a product of interpretation and perspective, and science rarely offers opportunities to be biased. Yes, I know most science education is carried out by instructors who are human beings, but all this changes is the scope and breadth of the science being taught - not the science itself.
My ideal of a science class is one where there is heavy emphasis on experimentation, analysis, reasoning and research (i.e. questioning).
I recently had a conversation where we discussed if scientific classes were actually even needed anymore in the American culture, because most of our economy is based on businesses, and this I can agree too, I think that as colleges proggress there are fewer and fewer universities that can actually produce intelligent science students. This being said, it seems to me that the scientific community isn't meeting the populations needs because we are business based and therefore science is losing its spot from many companies who are now using other countries scientists to do their research. Also, science can never be completely objective because the only way in which somebody can do research is by using their own ideas, which are clouded by opinions and feelings, and because research and testing hypotheses is the main point behind science, that science in itself cannot ever be completely objective. Also, I agree with Hasan in saying that the ideal form of a science class is experimentation, analysis and reasoning, wherein we discover new things and create new ideas. Overall, science may eventually lose its place in our country and theres really nothing we can do about it.
ReplyDeleteI think that if a scientific law has been prove to be true and has been confirmed in many experiments, it is generally accepted as a truth by most of people. However, in the scientific education, we are generally requried to learn more knowlege to understand how the things actually work. Therefore, I think it is more important for us to learn how to learn than to learn the actual scientific knowlege.
ReplyDeleteZihao brings up an interesting point: 'how to learn' vs 'what to learn'. Both of these are highly debatable topics and both of them are subjective. Extensive research over the decades has confirmed that we all don't learn the same way. Similarly, what comprises an actual scientific education is also highly contentious as it depends on what a person defines as science (as Aaron mentions). If a certain set of information and ideas is not deemed significant by a majority of the population, it is inevitable that that subject would lose importance over time. It depends on what stimulates the national consciousness, and as of now science is not high on that list.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with Aaron in saying that science is not needed because we are mostly a business society. Because honestly most of the businesses would not exist if it weren't for scientists discovering and inventing new things. What would the businesses sell? They need aa product invented by the scientist to run their business and if they are selling a service instead of a product they still probably use things invented by scientist with out scientific knowledge or discovery it would be very difficult for society to progress. Therefore I believe science is still extremely necessary today. Anyway...that was a kind of off topic comment. I think the how to learn vs what to learn is an intresting concept as well. But I also feel that learning a certain subject can shape how a person learns like it goes hand in hand. Such as we learn English for communication we learn history to learn from our past and we learn science and math so we can learn how to solve problems. So therefore, scientific education fosters a certain way of logical thinking that can be beneficial for all to learn because it can be applied to a variety of things.
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