How one teacher deals with evolution
Though I don’t completely agree with her approach (I think we should let creationists be creationists and tell them they can succeed in science anyway), I...
Tag: Science literacy
The ‘belief-comprehension’ question on evolution
Here is an interesting post from one of Dan Kahan’s students (emphasis in original): I agree with Smith, however, that we should not go so far as to seek ...
What is science literacy? And what is it for?
As you know I’ve been on a science literacy and education kick the past couple weeks. I was considering transitioning to something else, but Dan Kahan ent...
Our democratic way of life is not threatened
In The Myth of Scientific Literacy, Morris Shamos has this gem of a quote from a former program director of the American Association for the Advancement of Scie...
Sheep farmers and science literacy
Bryan Wynne’s landmark paper on British sheep famers dealing with Chernobyl’s fallout suggested a more nuanced understanding of science literacy tha...
Why teach biology in public school?
Prolific commenter Robert Little asks: Praj, you asked why understanding biology should even be the goal. Let’s take it a step further. Why study biology in pub...
‘Scientific thinking’ as a barrier to diversity in science
A couple months ago my friend Kenny Gibbs wrote a great post about diversity and science for Scientific American. I want to reflect on this sentence (emphasis...
Your science is not important
In a talk titled ‘Your Religion is not Important’, the Dalai Lama once said: I am not interested, my friend, about your religion or if you are rel...
Dan Kahan brings some more data
Just a heads up…I’m on vacation starting this Thursday for 2 weeks. So expect lighter / nonexistent posting. With that…Dan Kahan yet again sho...
All sciences aren’t equally important
To continue with the meme from my last post, Jonathan Coppage explains why belief in evolution isn’t really that important (emphasis added): Yet when the ...