03 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
Schemata
Not only does background knowledge grow in the brains of our students through their experiences,
but the vocabulary words that are stored as a result of such experiences provide avenues
to comprehend the curriculum from the text, as well as lecture and discussion. We can look at the
work of Piaget (1970), who concluded that we organize information in our brains in the form of a
schema, a representation of concepts, ideas, and actions that are related.
Schemata (the plural of schema) are form... 1 
notes
notes24 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Better to Believe and Be Wrong Than Not Believe Anything
He who says “Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. . . . It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems ... 1 notes
notesIf you believe a thing and are wrong, you can improve your beliefs in light of new evidence.
31 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
The Difference in How the Public and Scientists Use "Theory"
The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence. Many scientific theories are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them substantially. For example, no new evidence will demonstrate that the Earth does not orbit around the sun (heliocentric theory), or that living things are not made of cells (cell theory), th...
1 In common usage, it is the equivalent of an educated guess, in science, it is nearly synonymous with the facts it is built on.
13 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Bayes' Theorem Means Scientific Consensus Should Converge
One property of Bayes’s theorem, in fact, is that our beliefs should converge toward one another—and toward the truth—as we are presented with more evidence over time. In figure 8-8, I’ve worked out an example wherein three investors are trying to determine whether they are in a bull market or a bear market. They start out with very different beliefs about this—one of them is optimistic, and believes there’s a 90 percent chance of a bull market from the outset, while another one is bearish an... 1 notes
notesAs more and more tests are carried out, scientific opinions should converge around the truth.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Changing Your Mind is a Virtue
All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again. Folksonomies: virtue hypotheses
Folksonomies: virtue hypotheses
1 It shows you're paying attentions and are flexible to new evidence.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
How Scientists Differ from Clerics
When more evidence is garnered, whether through the analysis of additional characters, through the discovery of new specimens, or by pointing out errors and problems with the original data sets, new trees can be calculated. If these new trees better explain the data (taking fewer evolutionary transformations), they supplant the previous trees. You might not always like what comes out, but you have to accept it.
Any real systematist (or scientist in general) has to be ready to heave all that... 1 notes
notesThey must discard incorrect beliefs when facing new evidence.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Babies are Scientists
Babies start out believing that there are profound similarities between their own mind and the minds of others. That belief gives them a jump start in solving the Other Minds problem. But during the first three years they also observe the differences in what people do and say. Those differences stem from the fact that all minds aren't actually entirely alike. Babies and young children watch and listen with careful focused interest as their mother refuses to let them touch the lamp cord or as ... 1 notes
notesTheir drive to play is a drive to explore, they are equipped with the cognitive and physical tools to explore their world and feed their curiosity about it.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
People Freed by DNA Evidence
...there is a distressingly long list of people
who have been wrongly convicted on eye-witness testimony and subsequently freed - sometimes
after many years - because of new evidence from DNA. In Texas alone, thirty-five condemned
people have been exonerated since DNA evidence became admissible in court. And that's just the
ones who are still alive. Given the gusto with which the State of Texas enforces the death penalty
(during his six years as Governor, George W. Bush signed a death warrant... 1 notes
notesIt's shocking how many people have been falsely imprisoned.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Ann Druyan on the Humility of Science
I think that science tolerates the unknown in a way that religion doesn't. My argument is not with people who search for god. My argument is with people who feel that our understanding of god is completed. And those are the people who make so much of our existence on this planet such a hell, because they really think that they have the right to kill other people, to hurt them, because of what they understand god's will to be. That's a very destructive thing.
So science... Science is--the who... 1 notes
notesArguing that the ability of science to admit what it doesn't know and adapt it thinking to new evidence demonstrates the greatest humility.
15 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Facts We Learn as Children Aren't Supposed to Change
People who don't know a lot about science treasure what they do know, what they learned early as children, like:
a) Eskimos have lots of words for snow. b) Wait 20 minutes after lunch before going swimming. c) There are nine planets, and the ninth one is Pluto.d) The biggest dinosaur ever was the Brontosaurus.e) Triceratops was the one with the three horns.f) T-rex was awesome.
One of the nice things about growing up is you don't have to spend time thinking about planets, digestion or awes...Folksonomies: science facts
Folksonomies: science facts
1 notes
notesWhen we learn things as children, we take those things as face value. So when science finds new evidence that changes those facts, we find it very challenging to give up the beliefs we thought were immutable.
