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Return to E-mail Discussion page Previous in threadNext in thread Hi, Just wanted to mention an article I came across today, which some of you may be interested in. It's "Guest Comment: Rather than scientific literacy, colleges should teach scientific awareness," by Keith Devlin, American Journal of Physics, July 1998, p. 559. Here's a key passage that caught my attention: "It is neither possible nor necessary for the general public to have detailed scientific knowledge across a range of disciplines. Instead, what is important is *scientific awareness* - an understanding of what the scientific enterprise is about, what a scientist means by the word 'theory,' and what it means to establish a 'scientific fact.' For instance, many people say 'evolution is just a theory,' assuming this means its basic principles are still debatable. They do not realize that gravity is also 'just a theory,' and that, to a scientist, a theory is an explanation of what has been observed. Todd |
