The Nature of Science

Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts

The Purpose of Education

My friends and I were talking about the purpose of education over dinner on Saturday night. This video criticizes one side of the issue; namely, the idea that the purpose of education is to prepare you for a job. It should not be the goal of education.¹

1. But it may be a collateral benefit.

[Hat Tip: Veronica at Canadian Atheist.]

What's Happened to Universities?

The latest issue of Academic Matters has a provocative article by Ken Coates on The Quiet Campus: The Anatomy of Dissent at Canadian Universities.
Here's the opening paragraphs ...

The remarkable—a word that can be read in many different ways—2012 student protests in Quebec have stirred memories of the activist campuses of yesteryear. For faculty members introduced to the academy in the era of student activism, anti-Vietnam War protests, and general social unrest, the recent quietude of the Canadian university system has been disturbing. Universities had been transformed in the 1960s from comfortable retreats into agents of intellectual foment, social change, and political action. For a time, it appeared that the imperatives of the academy had aligned with a commitment to social justice to create a system almost ideally set to lead Canada’s transformation.

Universities had long stood apart intellectually from the Canadian mainstream, but finally, in the 1960s, began to reflect society at large. The humanities and social sciences expanded rapidly. Women, minorities, immigrants and working class Canadians came to campuses in record numbers and, later, showed up at the front of the classroom. They brought new perspectives on the issues of the day, challenging the patriarchal, middle-class hegemony that had dominated Canadian universities for generations. With some exceptions, faculty members and administrators stood behind student radicals and protestors. Many faculty members used the classroom and their writing to support hitherto unpopular causes. Universities were often at the vanguard of protests against the Vietnam War and in favour of the rights of women, Aboriginals, LGBT individuals, and minorities.

I was a student in the 1960s. Universities are no longer like that. What happened?

Canadian campuses have become distressingly quiet. It is not that the universities are without dissenters from all points on political and social spectrums. Many of the country’s most radical, creative, and outspoken commentators work or study at universities and use the campus as a pulpit. This is how it should be. But the preoccupation with practicalities—work, careers, salaries, and the commercialization of research—has transformed Canadian universities into calm, largely dissent-free places, with the greatest debates often saved for battles between faculty and students and the campus administrators. There are no structural or legal impediments to greater engagement. There is nothing stopping students and faculty from speaking out, no grand tribunals determined to impose punishments on those who challenge the status quo. We have self-regulated ourselves into near silence, and our students and the country suffer from the quiet as much as university faculty. It is more than nostalgia that brings one to yearn for days of activism and protest; it is, instead, the realization that the ideas, talent, energy and resources of the academic could and should be used to change our country and our world for the better.

Nostalgia, yes that describes my feelings exactly.

Online Training of Competent, Employable, Bioinformatics Professionals

I think that undergraduate education at most universities is done very badly. There are far too many courses that consist of professors giving standard lectures to large classes with evaluations focused on "memorize and regurgitate" exams. Most courses pay no heed to student-centered learning even though there has been sound pedagogical research showing that student participation leads to better learning. Most courses and programs provide no "value-added" component that takes advantage of being physically located in an enriched scholarly environment. Most courses do not teach critical thinking.

Given the horrible status of most university courses, it's not surprising that they can be replaced by online courses where the student never needs to set foot on a university campus to get the same quality of education. This is not an endorsement of online courses, it's a comment on the poor quality of campus-based courses.

David B. Searls is an "independent consultant" who published an article in PLOS Computational Biology: An Online Bioinformatics Curriculum.

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Redshirting: Holding kids back from kindergarten

Until a few minutes ago I had never heard of "redshirting" although I was familiar with the concept. Some parents want to hold their children back from kindergarten (or have them repeat kindergarten) so they will be older and more mature than the other students in their class. A school teacher advised us to do that for one of our children but we adamantly refused. Best decision we ever made concerning the education of our children.

When I was growing up the best and brightest students were allowed to skip a grade if they were doing well. (I took grades three and four in a single year.) It was a mark of achievement to be among the youngest in your class, especially if you were doing as well, or better, than the other students. On the other hand, if you were the oldest in the class then your achievements were discounted because you had an intrinsic advantage.

When I was growing up it would have been psychologically devastating to be the oldest student in the class and not be at the top of the class academically. (That's partly because the oldest students were usually the ones who had flunked a grade.) I wonder if parents who hold their children back have ever thought about the potential negative consequences? What happens if your child is just average and redshirting doesn't work?

Here's a 60 Minutes segment on redshirting. It features two people from the University of Toronto: writer Malcolm Gladwell (B.A. 1984, Trinity College) and economist Elizabeth Dhuey a professor in the Department of Management.

Medieval Teaching Methods

John Hawks posts a reference to an article in MacLeans magazine about undergraduate teaching. John supports a style of teaching that emphasizes "hands-on" experience over learning about theory [The Problem with Stem, A reason for practical genomic education].

Like many critics of education, John thinks that traditional lectures are old-fashioned and inefficient. I tend to agree with him on this point—we can do a much better job of education in a classroom setting. However, I part company with many critics who go overboard in rejecting traditional lecture formats as a way of communicating information. For example, I note that this style is readily accepted in many other contexts. John Hawks gave a talk last week n Madison that I would love to have attended [I would so go to this if I were in Madison]. There are all kinds of other public lectures that people pay good money to attend—we filled an auditorium when PZ Myers acme to town. Traditional lectures are very common at scientific meetings because nobody has figured out a better way to hear what an expert has to say.

The death of lectures has been greatly exaggerated.

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How to Do Good Science

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) was a very smart American physicist who's words are often quoted ... for good reason.

Here's one quotation where he describes how good scientists should behave. It's a point I make in my class on scientific controversies and it's worth emphasizing because so many modern scientists ignore it.

Feynman is specifically referrring to "cargo cult science" but his advice applies to a lot of of modern biology as well.

There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in "cargo cult science." It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can — if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong — to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Richard Feynman, "Cargo Cult Science" in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Think about Feynman's words next time you read a paper on the importance of alternative splicing, the disappearance of junk DNA, or anything about evolutionary psychology.

The Death of Universities

Bill Gates thinks that universities are about to become obsolete [Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web].

"Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world," Gates said at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA today. "It will be better than any single university," he continued.

This is nonsense on many levels. First, who's going to determine whether any given lecture is the "best lecture in the world?" Second, why will it be online? (Most professors don't want to put their lectures online.) Third, who says that listening to a lecture is the only thing that a university has to offer?

One particular problem with the education system according to Gates is text books. Even in grade schools, they can be 300 pages for a book about math. "They’re giant, intimidating books," he said. "I look at them and think: what on Earth is in there?"

According to Gates, our text books are three times longer than the equivalents in Asia. And yet they’re beating us in many ways with education. The problem is that these things are built by committee, and more things are simply added on top of what’s already in there.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a textbook author. That means I have more of a stake in this debate than Bill Gates. (Of course, it also means that as a textbook author and a university professor, I'm probably more of an expert than the former chairman of a software company.(1))

When they are well done, a textbook is like the best lecture you could ever get. If you want to learn about evolution, for example, then you could hardly do better than reading EVOLUTION by Douglas Futuyma. I can't imagine any series of online lectures that could compete with a such a good textbook.

Textbooks are collaborative affairs that undergo considerable review by experts before publication. Most online lectures are the work of a single individual and they have not been reviewed for accuracy.

The most important goal of a university education is to teach student how to think and a major component of that process is critical thinking. Unfortunately, sitting in front of your monitor reading a lecture is not the best way to learn how to think and it doesn't give you any practice in critical thinking. There's a reason why students need to interact with other students and scholars in a university setting and it's very sad that people like Bill Gates don't get it.

On the other hand, if Gates is correct then it might be a really good thing for universities. The standing joke among professors is that universities would be wonderful places if only we could get rid of the students!

John Hawks seems to be quite sympathetic to the Gates stupidity [Bubbling through college].

1. How did we ever get ourselves into the situation where executives from for-profit companies are thought to be experts on education? They are not. They are just about the last people on Earth I would ask for advice on university education.

An Educational Lunch

Last week, before leaving for Halifax, I had lunch with David Schuller (a Monday's Molecule winner) and Deb Breiter. They were in town for a meeting of crystallographers.

We talked about biochemistry education (among other things) and it was fun to hear the perspective of someone who teaches introductory biochemistry at a smaller college in the mid-west. (Deb is head of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Rockford College in Illinois.)

The issues she faces are very different than those at a big school like the University of Toronto. Naturally we talked about textbooks and, after scolding her for not using my book, we debated the merits of various introductory biochemistry textbooks. (She has used several different ones and is very knowledgeable on the topic.)

Part of the debate revolves around differing approaches to teaching introductory biochemistry. There are many variations but I like to think of two main ones that I refer to as the "Evolutionary Approach" and the "Fuel Metabolism" approach.¹ Keep in mind that these are just broad categories used to illustrate some points about how to teach biochemistry.

The Evolutionary Approach to biochemistry emphasizes universal concepts that apply to most organisms. It concentrates on comparative aspects of biochemistry and on explanations of where things come from. This approach will almost always include lectures on photosynthesis and will almost always try to explain how metabolic pathways evolve.

In the Evolutionary Approach, the fundamental pathways of lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids etc. are the biosynthetic ones and not the degradation pathways. Some concepts, like the idea of essential amino acids, are relegated to footnotes. Human biochemistry is treated as a specialized version of the big picture and the fundamental concepts are taught first using simple prokaryotic examples.

The Fuel Metabolism Approach is quite different. Here the emphasis is on human biochemistry and almost everything is treated as a potential fuel before its biosynthesis is discussed. Photosynthesis isn't covered in such a course and the biochemistry of bacteria is usually not mentioned. This is the kind of course that's geared for students who are interested in their own metabolism and (it is thought) for pre-medical students.

In the Fuel Metabolism approach, students will learn that gluconeogenesis isn't very important and that there's a big difference between essential and nonessential amino acids. They will learn that the carbons in fatty acids can rarely be converted to carbohydrates. They will study transcription, translation, and DNA replication as they occur in mammals and they usually won't be exposed to the prokaryotic versions of information flow.

I think that the Evolutionary Approach to biochemistry is superior to the older Fuel Metabolism approach. In part, this is because the Evolutionary Approach encourages a "big picture" view of biochemistry where the ideas are more important than the facts. In contrast, the Fuel Metabolism approach encourages the learning of specific pathways since, by and large, it is confined to discussing mammals.

On the other hand, the Fuel Metabolism Approach may be more appealing to students because they are more concerned about themselves than about other species. Furthermore, it lends itself to discussions about diet and nutrition and these are hot topics that attract students.

I learned a lot from Deb Breiter. One of the most important things was that teachers like her get together from time to time to discuss how to teach chemistry/biochemistry. The meetings I attend are dominated by people who write textbooks and run BAMBED (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education) and we don't have much contact with many of those on the front line. (Don't get me wrong, most of us at those meetings are also teachers, it's just that we tend to forget that the vast majority of biochemistry teachers aren't even aware of some issues.)

Deb belongs to a group called the "Midwestern Association of Chemistry Teachers in Liberal Arts Colleges" (MACTLAC). The MACTLAC 2009 Annual Meeting is at Hope College in Michigan on Oct. 16-17. It would be fun to attend—I wonder if they allow interlopers?

1. Many textbook authors refer to the Fuel Metabolism Approach as "rat liver" biochemistry but I won't mention that here because it sounds like I'm taking sides.

Education and Science vs. Religion

As far as I'm concerned, the proper teaching of science involves explaining that it is a legitimate and powerful way of knowing based on evidence and rationalism. The scientific way of knowing conflicts with the vast majority of religious beliefs. In other words, the proper teaching of science is a threat to almost all religions and, in that sense, it encourages skepticism at least, and non-belief at best.

In most countries that fact isn't a problem but in the USA there's a problem. If the proper teaching of science promotes a "religious" point of view, namely atheism, then science can't be taught in public schools. It's fun to watch the contortions that many atheists have to go through in order to escape the obvious conclusion.

Andrew Brown (not an American, I might add) points out the problem [on being told by PZ ...]. I agree with him just as I agreed that Michael Ruse was making a valid point at the recent Center for Inquiry conference [Wherein Michael Ruse Avoids My Questions].

Jerry Coyne tries to get around the problem by concentrating on the teaching of evolution (just the scientific truth) and not "science" [Andrew Brown makes another dumb argument for accommodationism]. I think this is disengenuous but I do agree with Coyne that Andrew makes a silly case for accommodationism.

Coyne says,

Actually, we teach evolution because it’s a wonderful subject, explains a lot about the world, and happens to be true. And yes, it’s likely that teaching evolution probably promotes a critical examination of religious beliefs that may lead to rejecting faith. But teaching geology, physics, or astronomy does that, too.

This seems to contradict his main argument since it implies that teaching science does, indeed, lead to rejecting religious beliefs. But, wait a minute, he goes on to say that ..

In fact, education in general leads to the rejection of faith. (Statistics show that the more education one has, the less likely one is to be religious.) Should we then worry about teaching physics, astronomy, or indeed, allowing people access to higher education, because those “promote” atheism?

No, we shouldn't "worry" about that but it would be foolish to deny it. The essence of the scientific way of knowing is evidence, rationalism, and also one-mindedness and skepticism. We need to teach that to our children. To deny that this is inimical to faith-based ways of knowing is to deny the obvious.

Should we constantly be looking over our shoulders because the courts may catch onto this?

Maybe you should, if you live in America. The evolutionist side in America has put a high value on winning court cases based on rather arcane legal arguments—who, besides lawyers, cares about the Lemon test? If the bad guys decide to fight back in the courts by challenging the teaching of proper science then watch out. I've heard there are a lot of lawyers in America.

Speaking of lawyers, John Pieret has an opinion on this subject [Science, Philosophy and Law].

Teach only the science and the "problem" evaporates. Any tendency to reject faith because of the teaching of the science is what church and state scholar Kent Greenawalt has called "spillover effects," which do not render the teaching unconstitutional because they are not a "primary effect" of it.

If I understand him correctly, the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism is unconstitutional because its "primary effect" is to promote religion. The teaching of evidence based rationalism (i.e. scientific reasoning) has as its primary purpose the destruction of superstitious beliefs but the fact that this includes religion is just a "spillover effect."

Wouldn't it be ironic if American courts ruled that it is unconstitutional to teach children how to think?

Would You Get a Baccalauréat if You Were a Student in France?

French high school students must obtain the baccalauréat if they are to have any chance of getting into university. Almost all teenagers have to write the nationwide standardized tests at the same time. About half of them pass.

Everyone has to write the philosophy exam, which was held yesterday. Charles Bremner tells us what questions were on the exam [Stress test for France's young philosophers]. You have four hours to answer one of the questions. How would you do?

If you were in the economics and social science stream, the questions were ....
What is gained by exchange?
Does technological development transform mankind?
If you were one of the science students the questions were ....
Is it absurd to desire the impossible?
Are there questions which no science can answer?
If you were in the literature stream the questions were ....
Does objectivity in history suppose impartiality in the historian?
Does language betray thought?

To me the questions indicate that France expects more of its potential university students than we do in Canada. We used to have standardized province-wide exams in Ontario but they were abolished 40 years ago. As far as I know we never had a test that everyone in the entire country had to write.

I don't think such a test has ever been popular in the USA.

[Hat Tip: Uncertain Principles: Answers Matter More than Questions]