BSIE 2010: Session 5

Brain, Science, and Inquiry-Based Education K-12 Summer Institute 2010

  Session 5

Science, empirical inquiry, loops, con.

Picking up  from yesterday

It's interesting to note that we have discovered that Science cannot establish truth only observations and summarys of things to date.  Can we also say that of culture?  Can we argue that we cannot establish any truth in culture, only observations? Are there any truths in empirical thinking at all? ... cdivo39

inquiry requires you to work. How can we encourage our students to explore, learn and break bad habits? Motivating students can be an exhausting process, but I am determined to keep trying. How will this change the way my classroom ... is organized and managed? ... Ashley

"we talked about the truth in science with a lower case t. Our classrooms will be environments for learning if we open the conversation to include our students and use all their comments to construct of a summary of our observations. The facts as stated in textbooks are the more global summaries of the observations of many, but no more valid than the summaries we construct in class with our students. Together, we will compare our summaries with the global summaries to find the truth at that time.  How ironic that later today I will be tutoring a student preparing to take an standardized entrance exam for graduate school. The test is all about facts and applying facts. There is only one answer." ... Susan

I always use the word “explanation” when I discuss science concepts. I’m wary that the word “story” might be perceived as "lie". Even hearing the word “story” instead of “explanation” adversely affects me.  I realize that the word is meant to provoke a thought process but I feel that it’s harmful to use with high school students ... When I explore past “explanations” such as American Indian folklore, I notice that their account of meteorological events are a series of stories that describe a method for the community to determine what threatening weather may come their way. They are actual stories that people will remember to tell them to their children to help the community survive ... what is most important is to covey  is that science is not a finished product, there are many alternate versions that we should consider and value .... Joyce

I can understand this but have had a very different experience with middle school students. For them, it seemed to take the "scary" out of science. The use of story telling has made the approach to science more familiar to those students who do not see themselves as "science students." The term gives them a handle on how to approach learning the material that is the generally accepted summary appearing in textbooks and reviewed by the teacher. They feel less intimidated when they can approach the material as they would a novel in English class or a story in history class ... While the self proclaimed "science students" don't need the handle, it is beneficial for them as well. ... Susan

The fact that science is just as much a working story as is history, english or philosophy needs to be brought into the light at a younger age.  I honestly believe that the fact that science is 'taught' to be concrete at an early age discourages many individuals who are not confident in themselves to achieve only one answer and may instead prefer discussing many conclusions. ... Brie

if everything is filtered through human perception and transformed by our nervous system and finally translated into spoken or written communication, then I, like Joyce am a little concerned that we become too cavalier about science as storytelling.  So, I just would like some clarification.  How should we solve problems?  What should we base action upon?  What counts as an answer to a question? ... Wil

What happens to the person whose “summaries of observations” is significantly different than the majority of others? In our society that person gets a “label” (diagnosis)! ... Regina

Science/empirical knowledge as story, explanation, or ... construction?

Science (empirical knowledge of all sorts) results from summarizing past observations, creating expectations for future observations, and testing those (looping).   Hence, it is always subject to revision, is always somewhat uncertain.  All people need to recognize the uncertainty of empirical knowledge (both collective and individual), discomforting as it may be.  On the flip side, uncertainty creates the opportunity for everyone to participate in new future understandings. 

Add in the role of culture, of individual and shared creativity ...

The brain as a generator of empirical knowledge: diversity

• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
• Francis Crick, 1995: The Astonishing Hypothesis: "a person's mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells ... and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them".
• V.S.Ramachandran, 2003: " it never ceases to amaze me that all the richness of our mental life - all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love life, our religious sentiments and even what each of us regards as his own intimate private self - is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in your head, in your brain. There is nothing else"
• Paul Grobstein, contemporary: "Brain = behavior, there isn't anything else."

• Behavior can be altered by altering the nervous system
  • Traumatic brain damage
  • Surgery, drugs, and ... ?
  • Epilepsy as an instance
• Lots of aspects have behavior, even quite sophisticated ones, have "material" feel about them
• Surprising and quite sophisticated things can emerge from interactions of simple elements (of which the brain/nervous system is an example, as we'll see).
  • one example
  • another
  • and another
• It isn't that anything "disappears" as one discovers things related to the brain but rather that the Brain gets "wider"
  • Disadvantages?
    • Vulnerability?
    • Amorality?
    • Indifference to the interpersonal?
    • Using MRI's to See Politics on the Brain ???
  • Advantages:
    • we can ourselves create new understandings of the world, individually and collectively
    • would make the unobservable (the unconscious) observable?

The "real" nervous system - different if behavior different?

• Among different kinds of organisms?
  • Notice neocortex present in some, not all vertebrates
• Among different individuals? within individuals over time? - New imaging techniques
  • Notice that differences leave open the question of what causes differences (genes, experiences, activity, culture, etc)
  • Implies that "information" can alter matter; not mysterious, "info" turns out to be perturbations of matter organization in neurons, can via metabolic processes influence organization/properties of neurons
• Why the diversity?  Is there a "best" nervous system or .... ?