Since my dad is here and this was his idea, I thought I’d do it while I have his brain to help me. One of the easiest ways to identify and perpetuate a worldview is its stories. So today, I thought we could talk about some of the stories used for the science worldview and the images (icons) which surround science. Links:
Science as storytelling by Serendip
Science and narrative by Steve Denning
The discovery of penicillin by Pantaneto
Teaching the nature of science by Serc.Carlton.edu
100 scientists who shaped history by Adherents
2 comments:
Quoting by memory (and thus approximately) from a one-page article by an ASU professor in the current edition of ‘Scientific American’: “I never stop emphasizing that science is not about showing that an idea is correct, it is about showing that an idea is wrong.”
From the part of your program that I heard, I gather some scientists don’t hold to that ideal. Your father said something about a research program that he thinks did not get its funding extended because the person in charge of the purse strings was afraid his own pet idea was going to be falsified. I would love to read more details here about that situation, even if you don’t care to name names.
Also, I am wondering if you were a Young Earth Creationist even when you were going through your period of near-atheism years ago.
I fully agree with your ASU quite. That's exactly the idea of science: to be as creative as possible in breaking things taken to be true so that a more accurate picture of reality constantly gets formed. A scientific experiment is supposed to be designed to DISPROVE a hypothesis, not verify it. Bravo.
The story with my dad was from his college days and it was a program he was working on. I'm sure it's ancient history (sorry, dad) by now.
I became a YEC about a year after I became a Christian. Before that I was a devout evolutionist. I even took an independent study on Evolutionary Biology to finish my undergraduate degree, reading E.O. Wilson, Ken Wilber, and Richard Dawkins.
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