This post is also on Talking Teaching.
Over on SciblogsNZ we had a bit of a discussion around the issue of science & belief systems. How far should scientists, & those who communicate about science, go in ‘pushing’ against strongly-held beliefs? (These could include creationism, but also beliefs about ‘alternative therapies’ such as homeopathy & TCM.)
It is an area where care is needed, because if you ‘push’ so hard that people feel their ideas are threatened, they may become defensive & those ideas more entrenched. Neither’s a desirable outcome from science’s point of view. On the other hand, in teaching about science, from time you actually need to put students in an ‘uncomfortable’ place regarding their conceptions about the world, if they’re to examine those questions critically & perhaps reshape them in the light of the new knowledge they’ve acquired. (If that doesn’t happen, then that new knowledge is likely to be learned only superficially – quickly gained & just as quickly forgotten.)
I’d like to reproduce a comment from that thread, partly because it would be good to get a discussion going around the question of how far & how best to promote a science-based world view, & partly because the comment reminded me of the late, great Carl Sagan: I’m just re-reading his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. I enjoy the lyrical nature of much of Sagan’s writing, but I also like this book for it’s ‘baloney-detection tool kit’ – a set of useful questions & approaches to encourage & strengthen critical-thinking skills.
Anyway, here’s the comment:
[if we just accept a belief system], in the end we pass deeper into the land of moral equivalency (how dare you question my belief system – it’s as valid as yours!).
Here be dragons.
Dragons are best slain – no good comes from people attempting to turn them into pets, or ignoring the fact that they scorch the curtains and eat children.
What do you think about this?
Ah, the eternal question.
I liked the comment, it’s a little light on practical advice though.
I gather the best way to counter beliefs is to do the exact opposite of what skeptics tend to do, which is bring attention to the belief in order to counter or debunk it. In other words the belief should not be the focus of the effort, correct information should be. The belief, if noted at all, should be treated sparingly and mentioned only after the good information is communicated.
easy to say, much more difficult to do in practice.