If I believed what my high school teachers taught me, from them I received the distilled wisdom of the ages. The knowledge was compartmentalized and packaged; there was no need for history in science class, at least outside of snarky little asides like how foolish Lamarck must have been to think evolution involved the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Everything involved the bare minimum, disparate notions offered up for consumption and near-immediate regurgitation, but very little understanding. There was no context, no narrative, and no sense.
There is very little I remember from my high school science classes. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is that the mitochondria is the "power house of the cell," but other than that I draw a blank. I'm sure it's even worse for the present victims of the No Child Left Behind Act. In an age where the performance of schools depends on performance on a given test there is little reason to foster enlightenment when the gauge of intelligence is standardized. This trend is all too-often carried over into college where mastery of a course is defined as passing two multiple choice exams. We have succeeded in creating generations of test-takers but how many of them have we really thought to think?
Particularly in the case of science, history can be a way to engage and enlighten students. Up until I started devouring books on my own I had no idea that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was not immediately accepted, nor did I know that his adaptationist take on it was pitted against a formalist alternative in the arguments between Cuvier and Geoffrey. Up until a few months ago I had never heard of the stone tools found at Brixham Cave or how they spurred a consensus among geologists that humans had lived alongside extinct animals by 1859, nor was I ever taught about how our own evolutionary history begun to be understood until I looked it up myself. Even if there is no time to delve into obscure details surely public schools can do better than make students believe that science is a clean, neat, uncontroversial process through which we've explained just about everything.
As for those of us with a developed interest in science I think it's impossible to avoid the history of the disciplines we find most fascinating (even if it's only near history). It's important to know who hypothesized what and when, be it 150 years ago or 5 years ago. Although it may seem that different schools or individuals are in fierce competition, overall science is a collaborative process that requires knowledge of what other researchers are doing. Such understanding can run deep or be relatively shallow but I don't think it's too bold to say that every scientist must know the history of their own field of study if they are going to participate in it.
[This commentary brought to you by The Demon-Haunted World, which I re-read over the weekend, as well as the recent posts by Ben, John, Bora, and John.]
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Actually, it was Ben (not Dave) who posted at TWF.
I don't comment on your HoS posts anywhere near often enough (for the reasons I listed in my comment on the Stranger Fruit blog) so I'll comment here to say that your posts on the topic are appreciated and I hope you keep up with that area of your posting.
The Demon-Haunted World is all well and good, but you might do well to plow into books by, say, James Burke or Dava Sobel or Joseph Needham or S.J. Gould or ...
As for the kids, they're being perfectly well prepared for exciting careers as professional test-takers! (At least, the ones who figure out the most successful methods of cheating will be highly suited for advancement in America's Upper Echelons.)
John; Damn those co-bloggers! I mean, thanks for the correction. :)
Thomas; Thank you for the compliment. Those are some of my favorite ones to write and I hope to continue to do so.
Pierce; I've added some of those authors to my list, although I am a big Gould fan. As for test takers, I know I'm one that can successfully navigate multiple choice tests but not do well in the classes. I would baffle my teachers because on a standardized test I would score at least average in math but in class I was terrible at it.
Snap! I've just finished re-reading The demon-haunted world; just as good this time round. And I couldn't agree more with you about the need for people to learn about the history of the science they hear about. True whether or not they are going on to a career in the sciences - learning how we got to where we are now really does give a better appreciation of what science is & how it operates.
We're just implementing a new national science curriculum in NZ that places the nature of science squarely at the forefront of what students should be learning about. Which is great. But what concerns me is the current lack of any real resources to support teachers in achieving that.
And I too really appreciate what you write on the HoS; please do keep them coming :-)
This is something I very much agree with. I did little or no science history until uni, where, in my second year, I sat in on the HPS lectures (history and philosophy of science). What I learnt was mindblowing. Instead of seeing science as a sort of long tunnel leading towards the 'truth' it began to seem more like a series of constructions of paradigms, each one getting more and more refined (sometimes :D).
"I don't think it's too bold to say that every scientist must know the history of their own field of study if they are going to participate in it."
I very much agree with that. How can you understand things if you don't know where they're coming from? I always found it strange that the HPS course was so undersubscribed, I think because unfortunately now essay subjects are seen as 'soft' or 'easy' and certainly less meaninful that 'proper' science.