Science Guide

James Williams is a lecturer in science education at the University of Sussex was very alarmed about the latest statics among future science teachers...

• 76% equated a fact with 'truth' and 'proven'

• 23% defined a theory as 'unproven ideas' with less than half (47%) recognizing a theory as a well evidenced exposition of a natural phenomenon

• 34% defined a law as a rule not to be broken, and forty-one percent defined it as an idea that science fully supports.

• Definitions of 'hypothesis' were the most consistent, with 61% recognizing the predictive, testable nature of hypotheses.

Not surprisingly, "facts" are not considered as "proven" because as new discoveries are made, what was believed as fact in the past, might be disproved later on. This of course doesn't happen with all new discoveries, but you get my point. I believe that percentage will go down some more in the future among future science teachers.

What is surprising is theory and law are very much not understood by these future science teachers. Only 34 percent believe a law cannot be broken, which an astounding low percentage number. It's shocking actually. That's like saying Newton's law of universal gravitation can be broken. The lack of understanding with theory is not as surprising as law is, but still surprising nevertheless.

Future science teachers had the best understanding of an hypothesis (which is different from a theory), about 61 percent knew what it was. Not surprising considering what I mentioned before about evolutionary facts changing with new discoveries...However, 61 percent is still too low for their understanding of the concept.

I agree it's important to know your discipline when you will be in a position to teach students, but James  Williams is more interested in these future teachers trying to defend science (evolutionary science in particular) than teaching it. As he makes it clear here...

"The point is this: you must understand your discipline, know its foundations so you are able to defend it from attack by those who seek to hijack science for their own ends, such as climate change deniers, GM modification scaremongers, or creationists. A basic course in the history and philosophy of science should be a compulsory element of an undergraduate degree in any science discipline."

I also believe James Williams fails to realize, making it "compulsory" in education is not going to solve the problem. As I have seen some teachers point out, students are not in tuned with the history of science as they are with new discoveries. And there main focus is not defending certain ideals in the political realm, but to teach students science courses.