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To go off on another tangent from this thread (which all started with an
IMAX flick about volcanoes...) Jeff Courtman wrote:
====================
if, for instance, someone believes in a literal interpretation of the bible
(although i doubt it was orginally written in modern english)what good does
it do to say, 'you're wrong.'
that's why i like mac sudduth's answers: they're non-confrontational, the
implication being 'that's an interesting point of view. here's what we hold
to be true. the earth is old....'
========================
I agree with Jeff's call for civility and lament about how strident
discourse can become, but it made me wonder something:
When the heck did it become so bad to say "You're wrong"? When did those two
words become too confrontational for polite discourse? Saying "teaching
evolution turns our children into spree killers" is too strident/off the
deep end for rationale, polite discussion (though that claim HAS been made),
but "No, you're wrong and here's why..." There isn't anything I can see
that's, er... wrong with it.
Seriously, saying "that's wrong" should not imply "...and you're an idiot
for being so wrong" or "...and I spit on you, your family and all your moral
beliefs!" nor "...and thus I am completely superior to you." It just means
that on the point in question, you were incorrect. What, do some people
consider themselves perfect, beyond mistakes of any kind, ever?
More germane to our job in science centers, our audiences will be wrong in
some ideas they have, or will 'fail' in some of the experiments/tasks we
offer - and this is a chance for genuine learning. Shouldn't learning
something new be seen as personal growth? Any time we can clear up something
or show people a new way to look at things, that's a great thing. Being
wrong in itself helps us learn. If I ask children to build a structure to
support a given amount of weight and they succeed they may know WHAT
worked... but they will be better able to understand WHY if they try it in a
different way, if they fail to succeed and then compare and contrast the two
methods they used. Doesn't anyone still tell the (possibly apocryphal) story
of how Edison said he hadn't failed to invent a working lighbulb, he had
successfully discovered 10,000 ways that didn't work.
(Anyone else attend the Friendly Failure session at the ASTC conference a
couple of years ago? That session rocked!)
But nowadays, woe unto anyone who is wrong, in any way, ever! In politics,
admit you've changed your opinion in favor of a newer and better one, and
you'll be eviscerated as a 'flip-flopper'. The President of the United
States was once asked if he'd ever made any mistakes, he said he couldn't
think of any. In the age of No Child Left Behind, an endless series of tests
is administered, and being wrong gets your whole school branded a 'failure".
I just read an excellent book about forensics ("Death's Acre" by Dr. Bill
Bass - not for the squeamish!) and he relates how he once miscalculated a
body's date of death, later correcting his mistake via further
investigation, and then founding the Body Farm to gain more forensics
knowledge; but every time he ever testified in court, the opposing lawyer
brought that old mistake up. The implication was clear: we can't trust your
testimony because you were WRONG once! (Wouldn't that apply to every
witness?)
Heaven forbid a child's self esteem should be damaged by being wrong -
whatever happened to "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again"?
And I don't dig approaching evolution with a "Well, here's what scientists
believe..." That implies that the "belief" in evolution and belief in
creationism have equal merit. They don't. The former has a mountain of
evidence to support it, the latter has none.
It just kinda sucks that somehow, in some quarters, it would be seen as too
in-your-face to say "No, that's incorrect. The earth is not 6,000 years old
and here's why..." That's not in your face, dagnabit.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Jonah Cohen
Outreach & Public Programs Manager
Science Center of Connecticut
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