Exordium
Plant Blindness: Why Scientists Who Know Nature Are Becoming an Endangered Species
With all the emphasis on science in today’s schools, who would have thought that an actual knowledge of nature would be a casualty? In a recent article for Memoria Press, I discussed what some are now calling a national crisis. According to The Wall Street Journal: … The issue has Read more…
Exordium
What the Liberal Arts Have To Do With Science
In his now out of print book Great Ideas from the Great Books, Mortimer Adler, late editor of The Encyclopedia Britannica and the The Great Books of the Western World, points out that, contrary to common opinion, the liberal arts have quite a lot to do with science and innovation. Read more…
Exordium
Are most scientific research findings false?
My recent post at Intellectual Takeout on the state of biomedical research and what it says about scientific research in general: (more…)
Exordium
More on Scientific American’s defense of the Humanities
Another discussion of Scientific American‘s defense of the liberal arts and humanities against STEM-only advocates appears at Intellectual Takeout, written by Yours Truly: (more…)
Exordium
The Science of Teaching Science
by Paul Schaeffer
My high school chemistry teacher’s favorite word was “wonder.” Nothing was done in class because some outside power required us to do it. After a while, we all knew that we learned what we did because it was worth knowing–and that’s why we wanted to learn it. The first day of class he taught us to use our sense of wonder in our observations.