How animatronic robot bird corpses revealed that birds conduct little orchestras...
Magpie-larks are one of around 200 species of birds that duet like this. Yet unlike many of these other birds, magpie-larks also produce a strange visual duet at the same time. They simultaneously raise their wings, shrug their shoulders or flick their tails up in the air. This physical element of the performance was baffling, because the magpie-larks did it even when rival birds were not within visual range.
In an attempt to unravel this, Ręk turned to robotics. He took the skins of male and female magpie-larks, which he had found dead, and stuffed them with mechanical skeletons. He was able to programme these "robo-birds" to replicate some of the movements performed by the real birds during their duets, and to coordinate them.
While the wild birds reacted aggressively to the recorded songs, they appeared less bothered by the visual performances alone. This suggests the visual displays do not send any message to rival pairs. Instead, Ręk suggests that it helps the couples coordinate their songs.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160803-the-strange-reason-magpie-larks-dance-when-nobody-is-looking
Thursday, 4 August 2016
Colonial organisms that communicate with light
This article needs to be longer.
Huge free-floating coalitions of marine invertebrates known as pyrosomes have to move together to ensure the colony can feed and move in the right direction. They lack any common nerves to communicate, so they may have a different way to move in time – light signalling.
Pyrosomes are made up of hundreds or thousands of clones called zooids. The entire brightly lit colony sprouts from a single individual, and the zooids mesh themselves together as the colony grows outwards in concentric circles from a closed tip to an ever-widening mouth. When the colony is small it looks rather like a butterfly net. As it lengthens, it becomes more like a giant worm that can reach the length of a sperm whale.
Each zooid sucks in water from outside the colony and blows it out again the other side. This not only feeds them but creates a rudimentary jet engine to give them some control over where they drift to. But because they are made up of so many small zooids, coordinating their actions isn’t easy. Unpublished research from David Bennett then at Bangor University, UK, offers tentative evidence that this is where a pyrosome’s impressive light show comes in.
When a pyrosome is brushed by an external object, it lights up like a Christmas tree – in red or white depending on the species. The signal ripples through the individuals, and they respond by cutting off their engines. Just think of a second world war U-boat film. When the red lights start flashing, it’s time to dive.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales
Huge free-floating coalitions of marine invertebrates known as pyrosomes have to move together to ensure the colony can feed and move in the right direction. They lack any common nerves to communicate, so they may have a different way to move in time – light signalling.
Pyrosomes are made up of hundreds or thousands of clones called zooids. The entire brightly lit colony sprouts from a single individual, and the zooids mesh themselves together as the colony grows outwards in concentric circles from a closed tip to an ever-widening mouth. When the colony is small it looks rather like a butterfly net. As it lengthens, it becomes more like a giant worm that can reach the length of a sperm whale.
Each zooid sucks in water from outside the colony and blows it out again the other side. This not only feeds them but creates a rudimentary jet engine to give them some control over where they drift to. But because they are made up of so many small zooids, coordinating their actions isn’t easy. Unpublished research from David Bennett then at Bangor University, UK, offers tentative evidence that this is where a pyrosome’s impressive light show comes in.
When a pyrosome is brushed by an external object, it lights up like a Christmas tree – in red or white depending on the species. The signal ripples through the individuals, and they respond by cutting off their engines. Just think of a second world war U-boat film. When the red lights start flashing, it’s time to dive.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Science communication in unexpected places
The World Music Festival, Womad, hosted a science pavilion this year. It's the latest attempt to reach non-scientific audiences by bridging the gap with the arts. But are such initiatives successful ? The pavilion's inauguration follows criticism by some, such as science writer Simon Singh, of the cost and effectiveness of some public science engagement.
From the embedded link :
During his talk, Dr Singh, author of seven books on sciences and maths, said that such a project’s value for money should be compared with the cost of a science teacher.
Mmm, possibly. The difference is that teachers are a long-term solution whereas outreach events like this are generally aimed at adults. Since the tax-paying adults aren't going to go back to school, both are needed to maintain a public interest and engagement in science.
Also from the link :
Dr Singh criticised a number of projects, including a 2005 ballet inspired by the theory of relativity that was launched to celebrate the centenary of Albert Einstein’s most seminal breakthroughs. “People hate physics, they hate ballet; all you’ve done is allowed people to hate things more efficiently,” he told the 2:AM Amsterdam conference about alternative metrics on 7 October.
I'm not a ballet fan but I can't see any reason to provoke ballet enthusiasts, it's not as if they've done anything to me. I rather like the idea of combining science and the arts, for obvious reasons.
"There are a lot of intellectually curious people here, probably not coming to learn about science, but it's a great way of talking to them," says Prof Jones. "Many of them are tax payers who fund what we do and it's important that they understand what their taxes are delivering." "What we do is help people bridge that gap themselves by stimulating them," says Mr Large. "The trick is communication. Music is about communicating emotion. Science is about discovering facts, but if you can't communicate them there is little point in discovering them."
I also think that having science in unexpected places reinforces the often-overlooked fact that the entire freakin' modern world is utterly dependent on scientific discoveries. You don't have to ram this down people's throats, but making it easy for people to go to a science outreach event who wouldn't otherwise do so (a.k.a. "nudge" theory) just sounds like a thoroughly sensible idea to me.
Perhaps the best attended event is the Q and A with Steven Moffat on the science and sc-fi of Doctor Who, with the audience overflowing onto the grass outside the pavilion. Despite this, Moffat, who is the BBC series' head writer and executive producer, says he knows nothing about science.
Ironically, the latest seasons of Doctor Who have had far more of a sci-fi leaning than previously, albeit a certain type of sci-fi. Lots of explorations of "what if ?" concepts, which is at least as essential to sci-fi as the nitty-gritty details of how the spaceships are supposed to work. If not more so : the social impact of technologies and discoveries is often what makes them interesting, not necessarily the science itself.
"Putting science alongside music is the correct and proper way to apprehend science," he tells the BBC. "It's not a separate thing. They're not for different kinds of people. They're for exactly the same kind of people."
Damn straight.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36943937
From the embedded link :
During his talk, Dr Singh, author of seven books on sciences and maths, said that such a project’s value for money should be compared with the cost of a science teacher.
Mmm, possibly. The difference is that teachers are a long-term solution whereas outreach events like this are generally aimed at adults. Since the tax-paying adults aren't going to go back to school, both are needed to maintain a public interest and engagement in science.
Also from the link :
Dr Singh criticised a number of projects, including a 2005 ballet inspired by the theory of relativity that was launched to celebrate the centenary of Albert Einstein’s most seminal breakthroughs. “People hate physics, they hate ballet; all you’ve done is allowed people to hate things more efficiently,” he told the 2:AM Amsterdam conference about alternative metrics on 7 October.
I'm not a ballet fan but I can't see any reason to provoke ballet enthusiasts, it's not as if they've done anything to me. I rather like the idea of combining science and the arts, for obvious reasons.
"There are a lot of intellectually curious people here, probably not coming to learn about science, but it's a great way of talking to them," says Prof Jones. "Many of them are tax payers who fund what we do and it's important that they understand what their taxes are delivering." "What we do is help people bridge that gap themselves by stimulating them," says Mr Large. "The trick is communication. Music is about communicating emotion. Science is about discovering facts, but if you can't communicate them there is little point in discovering them."
I also think that having science in unexpected places reinforces the often-overlooked fact that the entire freakin' modern world is utterly dependent on scientific discoveries. You don't have to ram this down people's throats, but making it easy for people to go to a science outreach event who wouldn't otherwise do so (a.k.a. "nudge" theory) just sounds like a thoroughly sensible idea to me.
Perhaps the best attended event is the Q and A with Steven Moffat on the science and sc-fi of Doctor Who, with the audience overflowing onto the grass outside the pavilion. Despite this, Moffat, who is the BBC series' head writer and executive producer, says he knows nothing about science.
Ironically, the latest seasons of Doctor Who have had far more of a sci-fi leaning than previously, albeit a certain type of sci-fi. Lots of explorations of "what if ?" concepts, which is at least as essential to sci-fi as the nitty-gritty details of how the spaceships are supposed to work. If not more so : the social impact of technologies and discoveries is often what makes them interesting, not necessarily the science itself.
"Putting science alongside music is the correct and proper way to apprehend science," he tells the BBC. "It's not a separate thing. They're not for different kinds of people. They're for exactly the same kind of people."
Damn straight.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36943937
Saving the kakapo
Being the heavyweight of the parrot world means the kakapo is flightless, and preferring its own nocturnal company makes it pretty antisocial too. One aspect the kakapo has in common with some of its airborne cousins is extreme longevity, with certain individuals known to live for 120 years. Befitting a bird that is in it for the long haul they are also notoriously picky breeders, only attempting to reproduce once every three to five years and coinciding with when their favourite food, the fruit of the rimu tree, is in plentiful supply.
With numbers dipping to fewer than 50 in 1990, the conservation klaxon was sounded and a recovery programme was quickly launched. Since then a small and dedicated team using artificial insemination, artificial incubation, and careful nest management of wild birds has slowly but surely increased their population to 123 adults, all contained within three small, predator-free islands.
Following a bumper rimu fruit crop, conservationists predicted this year to be a record-breaking breeding year for kakapo, but the numbers have exceeded all expectations with 36 chicks surviving the perilous first few months of life and delighting the team. To put this figure into context, only six chicks were raised during 2014, making the "Class of 2016" all the more significant.
A few more broods like this and the kakapo could be a major conservation success story. Anyone want to adopt one ?
http://kakaporecovery.org.nz/adopt-a-kakapo/
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160715-baby-boom-for-worlds-rarest-parrot
With numbers dipping to fewer than 50 in 1990, the conservation klaxon was sounded and a recovery programme was quickly launched. Since then a small and dedicated team using artificial insemination, artificial incubation, and careful nest management of wild birds has slowly but surely increased their population to 123 adults, all contained within three small, predator-free islands.
Following a bumper rimu fruit crop, conservationists predicted this year to be a record-breaking breeding year for kakapo, but the numbers have exceeded all expectations with 36 chicks surviving the perilous first few months of life and delighting the team. To put this figure into context, only six chicks were raised during 2014, making the "Class of 2016" all the more significant.
A few more broods like this and the kakapo could be a major conservation success story. Anyone want to adopt one ?
http://kakaporecovery.org.nz/adopt-a-kakapo/
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160715-baby-boom-for-worlds-rarest-parrot
Dead flying drone animals, because that's what the world needs
Apparently it's Bizarre Technology Day. I wish I could use the picture of the shark jet (it's exactly what it sounds like), but it won't let me.
A Dutch inventor has started work on his next project - a cow drone. Bart Jansen is best known for turning his dead cat Orville into a drone. His next flying venture aims to see humans riding on their animals in the sky. "If I'm going to fly, I want to fly in something weird. So we've been thinking about animals that are big enough to fly in. We have a cow at the moment - it's at the tannery right now. It's going to be like a bovine personnel carrier, but airborne."
Mr Jansen, who describes himself as an artist, has turned rats, sharks and ostriches into flying drones and even made a badger submarine.
"Describes himself" is tactful.
"It's not going to look like dear old Ralph or much beloved Pebbles. Orville is not the same cat he was when he was alive. He looks very different."
On account of being dead and turned into a helicopter, methinks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36954689
A Dutch inventor has started work on his next project - a cow drone. Bart Jansen is best known for turning his dead cat Orville into a drone. His next flying venture aims to see humans riding on their animals in the sky. "If I'm going to fly, I want to fly in something weird. So we've been thinking about animals that are big enough to fly in. We have a cow at the moment - it's at the tannery right now. It's going to be like a bovine personnel carrier, but airborne."
Mr Jansen, who describes himself as an artist, has turned rats, sharks and ostriches into flying drones and even made a badger submarine.
"Describes himself" is tactful.
"It's not going to look like dear old Ralph or much beloved Pebbles. Orville is not the same cat he was when he was alive. He looks very different."
On account of being dead and turned into a helicopter, methinks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36954689
Science is not about certainty, obviously
Many, many good and provocative things in this, via Adam Synergy.
There hasn’t been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades after the standard model, somehow.
That should be "breakthrough", not "success". There have been a great many successes, not least of which are the Higgs Boson and gravitational waves. But are they breakthroughs ? Yes and no. Yes because GW's will help us reveal more about the universe than we could otherwise learn, but no because we haven't yet found the breaking point of the standard model. Theories have been validated, they have success - but that's not always the same as making progress.
If Einstein had gone to school to learn what science is, if he was any one of my colleagues today who are looking for a solution of the big problem of physics today, what would he do? He would say, “OK, the empirical content is the strong part of the theory. The idea in classical mechanics that velocity is relative: forget about it. The Maxwell equations: forget about them. The theories themselves have to be changed, OK? What we keep solid is the data, and we modify the theory so that it makes sense coherently, and coherently with the data.”
To an extent. He would be aware that any new theory had to give results at least as good as the old one where applicable, and/or make predictions in new areas. He would seek something that approximated to the old theory under certain conditions. He certainly wouldn't forget about the old idea or its predictions, but he'd be happy to abandon the old conceptual basis of the model.
That’s not at all what Einstein does. Einstein does the contrary. He takes the theories very seriously. He says, “Look, classical mechanics is so successful that when it says that velocity is relative, we should take it seriously, and we should believe it. And the Maxwell equations are so successful that we should believe the Maxwell equations.” He has so much trust in the theory itself, in the qualitative content of the theory—that qualitative content that Kuhn says changes all the time, that we learned not to take too seriously—and he has so much in that that he’s ready to do what? To force coherence between the two theories by challenging something completely different, which is something that’s in our head, which is how we think about time.
Well, I'm not sure about that. Certainly he believes Maxwell's equations, because they demonstrably work. But Maxwell's underlying concept was some very strange notion about vortices (http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/DysonFreemanArticle.pdf) which I seem to recall no-one took very seriously. So I am not at all convinced there is such a strong difference between the way Einstein thought and the way modern physicists behave.
Every physicist today is immediately ready to say, “OK, all of our past knowledge about the world is wrong. Let’s randomly pick some new idea.”
No, that's the way of the pseudoscientist, not actual scientists. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone accuse mainstream scientists of being too innovative !
But it’s absurd when everybody jumps and says, “OK, Einstein was wrong,” just because a little anomaly indicates this. It never works like that in science.
Yes - but this is what the media hype is all about. It is absolutely not the case in real science. I'm amazed to hear an actual scientist suggest this is what happens, because it doesn't.
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it’s not certain. In fact, not only is it not certain, but it’s the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure but because they’re the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they’re the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody’s criticism.
The very expression “scientifically proven” is a contradiction in terms. There’s nothing that is scientifically proven.... If we’ve learned that the Earth is not flat, there will be no theory in the future in which the Earth is flat. If we have learned that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, that’s forever. We’re not going to go back on this. If you’ve learned that simultaneity is relative, with Einstein, we’re not going back to absolute simultaneity, like many people think.... I seem to be saying two things that contradict each other.
That's because you are. You cannot say, "we're not going to go back on this" and, "nothing is ever proven with certainty". The two ideas are mutually exclusive. Some things - a few, rare things - are known with what we should approximate to certainty. The Earth isn't flat - the only way that could ever be the case is if the Universe was all a simulation or run by a capricious deity. Those ideas are possible, but they aren't science. You can't do science without assuming an objective, measurable reality. But this level of certainty is a rare thing indeed, and of course that's not what science is largely about.
The question is, Why can't we live happily together and why can’t people pray to their gods and study the universe without this continual clash? This continual clash is a little unavoidable, for the opposite reason from the one often presented. It’s unavoidable not because science pretends to know the answers. It’s the other way around, because scientific thinking is a constant reminder to us that we don’t know the answers. In religious thinking, this is often unacceptable.
Only if you take the stereotype of religious thinking, and actually science does claim to know things, or at least it knows them well enough to rule out some claims. Earth created in six days ? Nope. That didn't happen, end-of. Entire Universe run be a supernatural deity ? Totally unprovable and well beyond the remit of science.
The scientists who say “I don't care about philosophy” —it’s not true that they don’t care about philosophy, because they have a philosophy. They’re using a philosophy of science. They’re applying a methodology. They have a head full of ideas about what philosophy they’re using; they’re just not aware of them and they take them for granted, as if this were obvious and clear, when it’s far from obvious and clear. They’re taking a position without knowing that there are many other possibilities around that might work much better and might be more interesting for them.
On this I completely agree.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118655/theoretical-phyisicist-explains-why-science-not-about-certainty?
There hasn’t been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades after the standard model, somehow.
That should be "breakthrough", not "success". There have been a great many successes, not least of which are the Higgs Boson and gravitational waves. But are they breakthroughs ? Yes and no. Yes because GW's will help us reveal more about the universe than we could otherwise learn, but no because we haven't yet found the breaking point of the standard model. Theories have been validated, they have success - but that's not always the same as making progress.
If Einstein had gone to school to learn what science is, if he was any one of my colleagues today who are looking for a solution of the big problem of physics today, what would he do? He would say, “OK, the empirical content is the strong part of the theory. The idea in classical mechanics that velocity is relative: forget about it. The Maxwell equations: forget about them. The theories themselves have to be changed, OK? What we keep solid is the data, and we modify the theory so that it makes sense coherently, and coherently with the data.”
To an extent. He would be aware that any new theory had to give results at least as good as the old one where applicable, and/or make predictions in new areas. He would seek something that approximated to the old theory under certain conditions. He certainly wouldn't forget about the old idea or its predictions, but he'd be happy to abandon the old conceptual basis of the model.
That’s not at all what Einstein does. Einstein does the contrary. He takes the theories very seriously. He says, “Look, classical mechanics is so successful that when it says that velocity is relative, we should take it seriously, and we should believe it. And the Maxwell equations are so successful that we should believe the Maxwell equations.” He has so much trust in the theory itself, in the qualitative content of the theory—that qualitative content that Kuhn says changes all the time, that we learned not to take too seriously—and he has so much in that that he’s ready to do what? To force coherence between the two theories by challenging something completely different, which is something that’s in our head, which is how we think about time.
Well, I'm not sure about that. Certainly he believes Maxwell's equations, because they demonstrably work. But Maxwell's underlying concept was some very strange notion about vortices (http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/DysonFreemanArticle.pdf) which I seem to recall no-one took very seriously. So I am not at all convinced there is such a strong difference between the way Einstein thought and the way modern physicists behave.
Every physicist today is immediately ready to say, “OK, all of our past knowledge about the world is wrong. Let’s randomly pick some new idea.”
No, that's the way of the pseudoscientist, not actual scientists. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone accuse mainstream scientists of being too innovative !
But it’s absurd when everybody jumps and says, “OK, Einstein was wrong,” just because a little anomaly indicates this. It never works like that in science.
Yes - but this is what the media hype is all about. It is absolutely not the case in real science. I'm amazed to hear an actual scientist suggest this is what happens, because it doesn't.
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it’s not certain. In fact, not only is it not certain, but it’s the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure but because they’re the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they’re the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody’s criticism.
The very expression “scientifically proven” is a contradiction in terms. There’s nothing that is scientifically proven.... If we’ve learned that the Earth is not flat, there will be no theory in the future in which the Earth is flat. If we have learned that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, that’s forever. We’re not going to go back on this. If you’ve learned that simultaneity is relative, with Einstein, we’re not going back to absolute simultaneity, like many people think.... I seem to be saying two things that contradict each other.
That's because you are. You cannot say, "we're not going to go back on this" and, "nothing is ever proven with certainty". The two ideas are mutually exclusive. Some things - a few, rare things - are known with what we should approximate to certainty. The Earth isn't flat - the only way that could ever be the case is if the Universe was all a simulation or run by a capricious deity. Those ideas are possible, but they aren't science. You can't do science without assuming an objective, measurable reality. But this level of certainty is a rare thing indeed, and of course that's not what science is largely about.
The question is, Why can't we live happily together and why can’t people pray to their gods and study the universe without this continual clash? This continual clash is a little unavoidable, for the opposite reason from the one often presented. It’s unavoidable not because science pretends to know the answers. It’s the other way around, because scientific thinking is a constant reminder to us that we don’t know the answers. In religious thinking, this is often unacceptable.
Only if you take the stereotype of religious thinking, and actually science does claim to know things, or at least it knows them well enough to rule out some claims. Earth created in six days ? Nope. That didn't happen, end-of. Entire Universe run be a supernatural deity ? Totally unprovable and well beyond the remit of science.
The scientists who say “I don't care about philosophy” —it’s not true that they don’t care about philosophy, because they have a philosophy. They’re using a philosophy of science. They’re applying a methodology. They have a head full of ideas about what philosophy they’re using; they’re just not aware of them and they take them for granted, as if this were obvious and clear, when it’s far from obvious and clear. They’re taking a position without knowing that there are many other possibilities around that might work much better and might be more interesting for them.
On this I completely agree.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118655/theoretical-phyisicist-explains-why-science-not-about-certainty?
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Self-driving cars are 5-10 years away at most
Self-driving cars won't truly arrive this year, or next year, but in the next five years ? Entirely possible. Ten years already looks pessimistic.
Initially, the cars will have drivers, ready to take over if the system fails but the plan is to gradually phase the human out in 2019. The small fleet of six Audi vehicles will travel along a 3.5 mile (5.6km) route in One North, a business district in the city. The pilot ends in 2020 with a view to rolling out a wider deployment after that.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36952252
Initially, the cars will have drivers, ready to take over if the system fails but the plan is to gradually phase the human out in 2019. The small fleet of six Audi vehicles will travel along a 3.5 mile (5.6km) route in One North, a business district in the city. The pilot ends in 2020 with a view to rolling out a wider deployment after that.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36952252
The Importance Of Getting Things Wrong
Basically, teach people by letting them think for themselves rather than being an authority figure.
"Students are not empty vessels," he says. "Students are full of all kinds of knowledge, and they have explanations for everything." From birth, human beings are working hard to figure out the world around us.
But we go about it more like the early Greek philosophers than modern scientists: reasoning from our limited experience. And like those early philosophers — Ptolemy comes to mind — we're often dead wrong. Sadler says that cognitive science tells us that if you don't understand the flaws in students' reasoning, you're not going to be able to dislodge their misconceptions and replace them with the correct concepts.
The first step, Sadler says, is to teach Socratically (there's the Greeks again), by asking questions and having students think out loud. This works much better than lecturing. "Teachers who find their kids' ideas fascinating are just better teachers than teachers who find the subject matter fascinating," he says.
The next step is to give students exposure to the information and experience that will enable them to reason their way to the right answer. For example, Sadler and colleagues created a high school astronomy course. In one of the lessons, students looked at pictures of the sun taken through the same telescope at each month of the year. Most predicted that the sun would appear larger in the hot months. However, once they got out the rulers, they would discover that the sun is biggest (i.e., closest) in January. (The closest point in our orbit, the "perihelion," was Jan. 2 this year.)
"That throws a monkey wrench into the logic of the elliptical orbit," says Sadler.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/01/481422876/the-importance-of-getting-things-wrong?sc=ipad&f=1001
"Students are not empty vessels," he says. "Students are full of all kinds of knowledge, and they have explanations for everything." From birth, human beings are working hard to figure out the world around us.
But we go about it more like the early Greek philosophers than modern scientists: reasoning from our limited experience. And like those early philosophers — Ptolemy comes to mind — we're often dead wrong. Sadler says that cognitive science tells us that if you don't understand the flaws in students' reasoning, you're not going to be able to dislodge their misconceptions and replace them with the correct concepts.
The first step, Sadler says, is to teach Socratically (there's the Greeks again), by asking questions and having students think out loud. This works much better than lecturing. "Teachers who find their kids' ideas fascinating are just better teachers than teachers who find the subject matter fascinating," he says.
The next step is to give students exposure to the information and experience that will enable them to reason their way to the right answer. For example, Sadler and colleagues created a high school astronomy course. In one of the lessons, students looked at pictures of the sun taken through the same telescope at each month of the year. Most predicted that the sun would appear larger in the hot months. However, once they got out the rulers, they would discover that the sun is biggest (i.e., closest) in January. (The closest point in our orbit, the "perihelion," was Jan. 2 this year.)
"That throws a monkey wrench into the logic of the elliptical orbit," says Sadler.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/01/481422876/the-importance-of-getting-things-wrong?sc=ipad&f=1001
Monday, 1 August 2016
The appeal and cause of post-truth
When the Brexit campaign announces ‘Let’s give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week’ and, on winning the referendum, the claim is shrugged off as a ‘mistake’ by one Brexit leader while another explains it as ‘an aspiration’, then it’s clear we are living in a ‘post-fact’ or ‘post-truth’ world. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not.
Possible solution : make telling lies of any sort (edit : but not necessarily under any and all circumstances because that would be extremely silly) equivalent to libel, i.e. something which carries a severe penalty. Newspapers should be forced to dedicate their front pages to admitting the lies they've printed. TV news should lead not with the headlines but with apologies for the lies. And prefacing everything with "my opinion" should not be counted as a defence, since believing the UK spends £350 million per week on the E.U. doesn't make it true - it's still a lie. That would make news networks far more careful about what they say, since even in a "post-fact" world no-one is going to watch a channel that has to start off by telling what it was lying about.
Many blame technology. Instead of ushering a new era of truth-telling, the information age allows lies to spread in what techies call ‘digital wildfires’. By the time a fact-checker has caught a lie, thousands more have been created, and the sheer volume of ‘disinformation cascades’ make unreality unstoppable. All that matters is that the lie is clickable, and what determines that is how it feeds into people’s existing prejudices.
If all the facts say you have no economic future then why would you want to hear facts? If you live in a world where a small event in China leads to livelihoods lost in Lyon, where your government seems to have no control over what is going on, then trust in the old institutions of authority – politicians, academics, the media – buckles.
http://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/
Possible solution : make telling lies of any sort (edit : but not necessarily under any and all circumstances because that would be extremely silly) equivalent to libel, i.e. something which carries a severe penalty. Newspapers should be forced to dedicate their front pages to admitting the lies they've printed. TV news should lead not with the headlines but with apologies for the lies. And prefacing everything with "my opinion" should not be counted as a defence, since believing the UK spends £350 million per week on the E.U. doesn't make it true - it's still a lie. That would make news networks far more careful about what they say, since even in a "post-fact" world no-one is going to watch a channel that has to start off by telling what it was lying about.
Many blame technology. Instead of ushering a new era of truth-telling, the information age allows lies to spread in what techies call ‘digital wildfires’. By the time a fact-checker has caught a lie, thousands more have been created, and the sheer volume of ‘disinformation cascades’ make unreality unstoppable. All that matters is that the lie is clickable, and what determines that is how it feeds into people’s existing prejudices.
If all the facts say you have no economic future then why would you want to hear facts? If you live in a world where a small event in China leads to livelihoods lost in Lyon, where your government seems to have no control over what is going on, then trust in the old institutions of authority – politicians, academics, the media – buckles.
http://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/
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