tailieunhanh - Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science - NAP (2004) Episode 2

Tham khảo tài liệu 'teaching about evolution and the nature of science - nap (2004) episode 2', kỹ thuật - công nghệ, cơ khí - chế tạo máy phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | http catalog 6 Teaching About_ Evolution and the Nature of Science Scientists examining the head of Chasmosaurus mariscalensis hone their understanding of nature by comparing it against observations of the world. Clockwise from upper right Prof. Paul Sereno Univ. of Chicago assistant Cathy Forster Univ. of Chicago students Hilary Tindle and Tom Evans who discovered the skull in the field in March 1991 in Big Bend National Park Texas. Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a theory not as a fact. This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation experimentation and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts laws tested hypotheses and logical inferences. In this sense evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have. Evolution and Everyday Life The concept of evolution has an importance in education that goes beyond its power as a scientific explanation. All of us live in a world where the pace of change is accelerating. Today s children will face more new experiences and different conditions than their parents or teachers have had to face in their lives. The story of evolution is one chapter perhaps the most important one in a scientific revolution that has occupied much of the past four centuries. The central feature of this revolution has been the abandonment of one notion about stability after another that the earth was the center of the universe that the world s living things are unchangeable that the continents of the earth are held rigidly in place and so on. Fluidity and change have become central to our understanding of the world around us. To accept the probability of change and to see change