David Bercovici’s book on the “Origin of Everything” is a great book that brings great knowledge about our universe down to a compact item to be bought by consumers. While Bercovici kept reiterating that science is constantly changing and adapting and can be proved wrong, I couldn’t help but wonder if the public should be expected to keep up with this changing field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In early elementary school, I had to memorize and recite the planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and my beloved Pluto. In 2006, before I even left elementary school, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet. I had to remove part of the series from my memory and learn about how science changes. The hardest thing for me to grasp was how something that was taught to me as a “fact” could be wrong.<\/p>\n
Looking back in time, it’s hard to believe all that we’ve learned about our universe and beyond. Discovering tectonic plates, other planets, atoms, the origins of the universe, and so much more have completely changed our conceptions of life.\u00a0 On a societal level, the discovery of atoms created an entire field atomic physics. On a personal level, knowing that we are all made of matter that was once a star really changed my outlook on life. With each discovery that alters my preconceived notions of how everything works, I’m always a little hesitant. I’m sure each discovery was met with opposing view points.<\/p>\n
Some people completely refuse to believe that what they know for a fact, or think they know, is wrong. Most recently, B.o.B., a famous rapper, is crowd-sourcing for funds to prove that the Earth is actually flat. Although even Aristotle wrote of knowing that the Earth was round, there is a strong group of individuals who still believe the Earth is flat. I admit, I have my issues with believing some “facts” in mainstream science. I’m certainly not the only individual to question the validity of dark matter. By the time I have children, dark matter could be classified as something else entirely, or be replaced with another theory altogether.<\/p>\n
Is it right to force children to learn about science in schools when teachers don’t even know if what they are teaching is on the verge of being completely dismissed? Should classrooms be limited to facts, or are no “facts” secure enough to earn that title? In English class, facts are facts because grammar is a social construct to which we make our own rules. Science is trying to find explanations for things that already exist. Perhaps the answer lies in how the information is presented. Maybe science needs to be taught less as hard facts to be memorized and more as strings of theories that are tried on until the proper-fitting “truth” is found. Students definitely need to be informed that what is widely accepted science now may be completely disproven and ridiculed later in their lifetime. Students need to be taught to learn critically. Perhaps then some of them will grow to be the ones to help find the correct answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Bercovici’s book on the “Origin of Everything” is a great book that brings great knowledge about our universe down to a compact item to be bought by consumers. While Bercovici kept reiterating that science is constantly changing and adapting and can be proved wrong, I couldn’t help but wonder if the public should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7926,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377072],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}