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Mars & The Teachable Moment
Gallenod writes "In this article at space.com, Edna DeVore, Director of Education and Public Outreach for SETI, states that people are being continually exposed to pseudo-science from watching television and reading tabloids. Her examples include the "face" on Mars (which she discusses in detail in the article), alien autopsies, Area 51 in the Nevada desert as alien storage quarters, the "non-landings" on the Moon, UFO's, and alien kidnappings. DeVore describes the current Mars missions as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to teach factual science and astronomy in the context of sensationalistic psuedo-science and the legion of money-grubbing opportunists who make their living churning it out."
The examples given are more like pseudo-reality than pseudo-science... I was thinking more along the lines of the show 24, where they can track a suspect from their cell-phone to the exact room they are in.
We regular readers of /. are continually being exposed to pseudo-intelligence and it does us no harm. Now wheres my teddy bear, I want him to explain this 2 + 2 thing to me again
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
fark mars rover photoshop contest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... I know that they have all been following the progress of both rovers on Mars. It has been an ongoing "project" for them since the rovers were launched and it has even driven a few parents to donate various bit of hardware to the school's computer room.
Free Firefox news reader.
I have a few friends that seem otherwise rational, but are fascinated with the pseudo-science. From what I can see this stuff is a new age religion for people who think they are too educated for classical religion. It provides a framework of an intelligence beyond understanding, that has a plan for us and provides a reason for our existence. Instead if God, you have Greys. Factual science is not going to convert people away from this.
But if I said we found evidence of Martian civilization that killed themselves because of high-carb diets? I might end up on Oprah.
The problem is the American public wants exciting news so much, they'll believe anything. I mean, look at your local news. Then look at BBC. BBC would put most people to sleep in America. Our news quality is done in Europe, but there they call it "The Sun."
What science needs is more Page 3 girls.
if a lot of Sci-Fi on TV wasn't a big "public education" project.
This was covered, on a tangent, in a STNG episode. The short-version is Picard attempts to make first contact, but the political leaders decide that the populous isn't ready - and that a public education project will be started/expanded.
For example, there are the persistant rumors that Orson Welles radioplay was an experiment designed to gauge public response, and that shortly thereafter it was decided that *we* aren't ready.
Continuing rumors like that the original Star Trek didn't have enough advertising income to keep it on the air for a single season, and certainly not enough to carry it for three.
Now the government is getting publicly involved in the effort, with the 'life on Mars' possibilities that were thrown about in the last few years.
40 years ago, how would people have reacted to the government saying that there might actually be life on Mars? Today, it's no big deal - because we've been "educated".
...it was actually pseudo-science that got me interested in the real thing. Books from the elementary school library about UFOs, Bigfoot, and ghosts scared the hell out of my teachers, I'm sure, but they got me interested in peeking into life's mysteries on my own.
I'm not sure what flipped the switch from credulity to skepticism, but those early things got me interested. Maybe it was like the old myths of our ancient ancestors: wrong, but they still showed some drive towards explanation and understanding, however over-simplified.
I'm not saying we should have classes on UFOs, but I wouldn't be too alarmed to see my kid reading about them.
Unless he started growing strange mushrooms in the basement or wearing a tin-foil hat...
I think pseudoscience meshes better with many people's worldview than actual science does. It's hard for laypeople to understand the terminology and goals of real science, and the language is often couched in ambiguity and qualification (because scientists don't want to make unsupported statements). "Pseudoscientists" on the other hand, can say whatever they want, because their only concern is attracting eyeballs and therefore either religious converts (in the case of "Creation Science") or people's dollars (in many other cases). And there are a huge number of people out there who are PROFOUNDLY uneducated about science, and either distrust REAL scientists because they can't understand them, or because they've been taught that nonsense feel-good alternative theories etc. are being "suppressed" by the scientific community.
The scientific community shares some blame as well - "popularizing" science is seen as a vulgar activity by many, when in fact it should be seen as essential as long as the truth is not distorted along the way.
Freedom: "I won't!"
This is certainy not an issue limited to pseudo-science.
It seems to me that schools don't do a very good job of teaching critical thinking.
Does what I am reading/seeing make sense ?
How do I verify that what I'm someone is telling me is reasonably true and accurate ?
I think the author does a very nice job of pointing out that something like the face on mars is a great way to teach those skills with very specific examples.
It certainly should not be limited to science.
The ability to reason and think critically is also being severely hurt by the increasingly abusive marketing aimed at children, IMNSHO.
I'll even go out on a limb and say that this is in large part the cause of the political polarization in the US. Critical thinking includes taking in opposing views and trying to understand if they are valid or not.
Absolute statements are never true
Here is the key part of the article.
"Now, imagine being a science teacher with a classroom full of 15-year old students who believe the television accounts of the face on Mars, cities on the Moon, alien autopsies, etc., and you are teaching your unit on space and astronomy. A careful excursion through the characteristics of the planets and their moons interests your students; the red spot on Jupiter would hold at least 3 Earths, a cool factoid, but it doesn't grab them. The face on Mars does. And this was what I discussed with the science teacher at NSTA. "
Have you've ever thought it is the failing of teachers, not of the students or tv producers? If these shows are wrong, prove it to them. Show the students how to questions these things. You could talk about media motivation, about what other scientists points of view are. You can talk about past things which were thought that were wrong. There are a lot of things that a teacher can do. Don't blame the student for being a weak teacher.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
There really are people who believe this stuff. And forget the pseudo-science, just having a dumb story in the media, ANY media, is enough to convince a lot of people.
As much as I desperately want to believe that most people are fairly intelligent and take this stuff with a large grain of salt (like a salt block) I continually meet people who absolutely stun me with their gullability (stupidity is too mean a word, but perhaps more applicable?).
I have an Uncle who was absolutely convinced that the Mars rover had snapped a picture of a "Martian Cat" with big "martian-looking" eyes and then thought for sure the government was covering it up by removing all the copies of the "World Weekly News" from the stands before anyone else could buy a copy. The obvious fact that the store sold out is perhaps even more depressing though. Who buys that crap? Oh yeah, my Uncle.
The trouble with psuedo-science is that it sounds good to the untrained mind. But the thing I love the most is when a purveyor of psuedo science says the me something like, "You need to be more open minded to understand this". I have a relative that was trying to sell me a "Ozone Generator" and air purifier ( filter ) for my home. I had one of these units in my home as a trial ( I paid no money ). I checked out the supposed "science" behind the device and found that there was ample evidence that high concentrations of ozone are actually dangerous to people especially asthmatics. Since my wife has had asthma in the past, I became very concerned. I called my relative and told him I would be returning the device and that he should think twice about making outrageous unsubstatiated claims of scientific evidence where none existed. He had the gall to tell me I would understand the "science" if I were more "open minded".
It is muddy headed thinking like that that results in most of the worlds troubles.
But it's not what people think. NASA did actually get to the moon; the problem was that it was deemed too controversial to allow footage of what was actually found there to be released to the public. Thus, faked landing footage was created.
Silly rabbit.
There's a great book by Carl Sagan that talks about his perspective on Pseudo-Science and how it's affecting Science, as well as the dangers. It's a wonderful read. The book is called The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
Life today. Uncertainty tomorrow.
Part of the problem is that "regular" press reports much of the shadier stuff because many debunkers are not very good, and have lost credibility with journalists. Most debunkers try to paint everybody and everything as superstitious idiots. They focus more on personality patterns than the evidence itself. This triggers reporters to dig into the personality of the debunkers as well (to be even-handed), and being human, they sometimes do stupid things or jump to bad conclusions also. It thus becomes a personality shoot-out instead of an evidence shootout. If the debunkers don't have a good answer for something, they should just say so rather than point to some past "believer" transgressions.
For example, some UFO debunkers have created some rather elaborate psychology theories to explain the alleged hallucinations of airline pilots and cops with regard to some rather detailed and unusual UFO reports. (Surprisingly, most UFO debunkers don't think outright fibs are the biggest cause.) If you don't have a decent counter-explanation, just say so. Just say something like, "Just because it is odd does not necessarily mean it is from outer space". Instead they will point out a case were a train driver mistook Venus for an oncoming train in the fog and imply that all sightings are the same kind of thing. Sometimes you just plain don't have an answer. Leave it at that. If you force explanations, you start to resemble the "believers".
Table-ized A.I.
DeVore describes the current Mars missions as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to teach factual science and astronomy in the context of sensationalistic psuedo-science and the legion of money-grubbing opportunists who make their living churning it out.
I think it's a great idea, but probably doomed to fail for a couple of reasons.
First off, pseudo-science is usually described as sensationalistic because it is fairly sensational. Light on reality, but very sensational. It's much more entertaining to see faces on Mars than trace water. If you doubt this, examine the headlines on the tabloid rack the next time you're checking out in the grocery store. Style usually beats substance.
Also, given the huge volume of crap that people believe about space, any useful information will probably be lost. My last attempt to fix this problem was a discussion with a family member who is a conspiracy theorist. This person does not believe we landed on the moon. And had loads of total crap pseudo-science to back him up. As I calmly talked him through the problems with his "facts", he became more and more agitated. I was ruining his world view.
After a while I gave up. He wanted his belief, and anything I said was because "they" had gotten to me, and I couldn't open up my mind to other possibilities. Facts be damned.
I think really the only people who want the truth about what's out there are the scientific types in the first place. We don't need to see faces on Mars to get excited. Trace water is exciting enough, because we know what it implies. If the Teachable Moment finds a few of these people, that's great. Just don't expect many converts.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
My friend says, "The moon landings were faked, and I found a website with lots of evidence."
:)
I respond, "I am familiar with it, and have found equivalent websites that debunk their "evidence" as pseudoscience, with their own, solid, evidence."
He responds, "Oh no dude, you just GOTTA read it again, it was totally faked."
Though one example is not a representative sample, his actions seem consistent with those of the masses....people simply will not bother to consider true evidence objectively, nor to educate themselves to the point at which they can even discern good evidence from crap. They respond better to a good story, and good rhetoric, and that is just the way it is.
Oh well, its just one more way in which geeks are better than other people.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking
since the advent of the movement of enlightenment, science has more and more become a replacement for religion. but instead of making every one of us enlightened, rational persons this process has led to a situation in which we no longer question our "scientific" believes. instead we just assume that somebody else will have proven it, and that things couldn't be different from our expectation and our world view.
in fact, we are little better off today than the population before the enlightenment, who had serious problems with superstition, general fear of the unknown, etc. superstition is still a non-negligible factor in the lives of many today, even if outwardly sniggered at.
but most of all we tend to cling to a set of believes without ever questioning them! as my prime example I often use the phases of the moon, which nicely demonstrated my own "illusion of knowledge" which I had acquired during my childhood and never questioned.
ask yourself how the shadow on the moon is produced while it goes through one "monthly" cycle and how the sun and the earth are involved.
I will bet that more than half of you will actually have a wrong model of what is going on!
this in itself is not such a bad thing because the shadows on the moon are of such relevance for our daily lives, but it vividly demonstrates how little rationally we tend to be on topics which are not related to our "special field" of interest!
even more disturbingly it showed me with what fervor people will give blatantly wrong answers when asked about such problems. and this surely is a major problem of our para-scientific society today: applying scientific certainty and zeal to scientifically wrong statements!
jethr0
Fortunately, the article is really about teaching students critical-thinking skills, not deriding a "legion of money-grubbing opportunists," so the submitter of this article has [perhaps inadvertently] provided an example for this lesson.
--
"Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is: No."
- Leonard Nimoy {The Simpsons, "The Springfield Files"}
This article assumes teachers know the truth and ought to correct students misconceptions, but sadly back in 7th grade I had a social studies teacher who filled our naive young minds with such gems of truth as:
* Atari video games were funded and developed by the department of defense in order to improve our reflexes to prepare us for 21st century automated combat... the company name "Atari" was just an acronym for special black ops project.
* The United States could easily bring the Soviet Union to its knees at any moment simply by flying the space shuttle at supersonic speed back and forth high above Soviet cities, the barrage of sonic booms would cause mass confusion and panic that would cause the Soviet republic a catastrophic collapse... therefore we do not need nuclear weapons, we have the space shuttle.
There were many other examples of his wit but those two stood out in my mind. This teacher was highly regarded by students for many years because his insights, and also he would buy Chinese food for the entire class on Fridays, so we all listened to him intently... it wasn't until some years later that most of us figured out how far off base he was. I wonder how many of his students still to this day accept everything he said as fact.
There aren't any canals. The "belief" that there were canals on Mars, carrying water was an artifact of the relatively poor resolving power of the telescopes of the day, and the human mind's desire to find patterns. It's virtually the same process behind the claims of the "Mars face".
Current science says that it would be extremely unlikely that you would find liquid water, on the surface of Mars given it's current conditions (temperature, pressure).
Evidence found by the Rovers indicates that at some point in Mars past, there was likely a standing body of water, probably a highly saline "ocean".
These statements are not contradicting each other.
I think the trend with pseudoscience is a reaction to the fact that mass media has basically given the populace attention-deficit-disorder.
Instead of teaching people about robotics we now have "robot war death matches". Instead of Paleontology we have the story of the lonely Velociraptor fighting for his life in an epic miniseries. Instead of archeology we have shows teasing the viewer over whether or not aliens from Mars built the Mayan temples. No more "scientific-themed" shows about weather, geography, or geology unless they involve tragic sinkings of famous ships, cars being blown through the air, the search for amazing lost treasure, or cities overrun by lava with frantic cameramen running for their lives.
Your average person nowadays, can't seem to stomach "pure science", unless something involved isn't bleeding, exploding, covered with gold and diamonds, or posessed by a supernatural/alien presence.
The problem is that our educational system doesn't teach basic critical thinking skills - those aren't developed until college (if then). The problem is that our educational system is a garbage-in, garbage-out system with a watered-down politically correct curriculum that warps context and is rife with inaccuracies and some outright lies. They're designed to increase "self-esteem" for some, at the expense of actually being able to be a productive and informed citizen.
There is an excellent article that was online a while back called Sesame Street, Epistemology, and Freedom that gives a good background into some of the problems, causes, and solutions in terms of our educational system's woeful lack of critical thinking skill-building. Thankfully the Internet Archive still has a copy since I've not been able to find it online. A sample:
If we can't teach children to think abstractly and learning how to quantify and qualify the streams of information that blast them every day, we can't expect to maintain an informed and reasonable democracy. Unfortunately we have an education system build by people like Horace Mann that were designed for the Industrial Age and are wholly inadequate for the intellectual demands of the Information Age.
It's possible - all you have to do is show that the existance of extraterrestrial travel is a self-contradicting notion. If you cannot, then you have just shown that some planet X -is- being visited by extrasolar aliens from planet Y, and that Earth is just as valid an X as any other planet.
That's not how proof works at all. If I claim that there is an invisible gorilla in my kitchen and you aren't able to disprove the gorilla's existence, that doesn't prove that the gorilla is there. Similarly, if no one disproves the possibility of interstellar travel, that doesn't mean that interstellar travel is actually occurring. (And btw, there are very strong reasons to believe that interstellar travel is impossible, or at least impossible in practice, not the least of which is the special theory of relativity.)
Have you ever seen a phone conversation in a movie devolve into a fifteen minute discussion on a coworker's hair? Or seen a lead in a movie take a ten minute dump? Movies don't include the mundane details because they are boring and don't move the plot along.
Waiting for a PC to boot up, or seeing the real quality of video conferencing, or even watching people use the relatively user-unfriendly interfaces of real software would be boring.
is due to the polarizing atmosphere in the US.
On the one hand, you have liberal relativists, for whom no fact is concrete, and who cheerfully will advance kids through schools whether they can read/write or not, simply to make sure their "self-esteem" is intact.
On the other, you have conservative absolutists who will not only excoriate dissent, but both deny obvious facts and assert such ridiculousities as truth (or, more likely, Truth) that all actual facts become valueless.
Yeah, THAT's an atmosphere that's really going to bring out the intellectual cream of a civilization.
Now, tell me that's not flamebait!
-Styopa
Or perhaps They have always been using tin foil hats to program you...
My wife loves this old movie (starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn). She loves to watch it whenever it comes onto AMC.
I for one hate the movie because of the butchering they do to the IBM computers back then. To some extent, it's a byproduct of our education and experience, we can recognise the major inaccuracies in a movie or TV show, and want to fix it.
On the other hand, when a show comes on that utilizes speech pathology or audiology (what my wife has a masters degree in) she cringes and tries to explain what they've done wrong.
In short, it depends on your level of knowledge about the props or plotpoints in the movie.
Yeah. I can't believe I spent all that money on my "Face on Mars" mug and Alien Autopsy Med-Kit.
If you are writing a script for a spy thriller, hacking into a computer system becomes identical to a safe-cracking: A specialist does arcane tech stuff while the hero brandishes a gun and stands guard. This should never take more than a minute or so, unless you have a "B" story to cut away to, in which case it can take hours.
Crucial data must exist on only one copy of portable media, which can't be duplicated (more than maybe once), erased, or even remain on the computer it came from. Otherwise, the file in question fails to work as a "McGuffin", and lazy writers can't make use of it.
People who understand computers are like good mechanics. If a grease monkey can make a working airplane out of two broken ones of completely different designs, then a good hacker can log onto the alien computer systems with his Powerbook.
Film directors tend to be old guys who don't really understand how computers work, so they frame them in contexts which they grok. This is also why sci-fi directors almost never get deep-space physics right. Ships on Star Trek move like naval vessels because directors know how to do that. When there's no "up," no gravity, no friction to slow your inertia, and no objects close enough for your movement to be observed by the naked eye, the typical director is utterly lost. Hense, when Kirk outwits Khan's "two-dimensional" thinking patterns, he does so by moving the Enterprise "down" while retaining the same Y axis. It's essentially a submarine attack, rather than a battle between free-moving objects with no fixed reference apart from the nebula they are drifting through. Film directors get submarines. They don't get the void of space.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The suckiness of movie physics is directly proportional to the audience's knowledge of physics. If NORMAL people understood more physics, the bad-physics movie would suck more.
You don't see many flying pigs in movies, and when you do, the filmmakers will usually go out of their way to explain how the pigs are able to fly. This is because most NORMAL people understand that pigs, on average, don't normally fly. An unexplained flying pig in a movie would increase the suckiness of the movie.
If most people understood the correct physics of space travel, they would be less likely to accept the bad physics and the filmmakers would make sure it was correct.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
I doubt it. They still wouldn't give a fuck. I KNOW the REAL physics, and sometimes it just doesn't matter. Reality isn't fun. It isn't interesting. I live here, it's fucking boring. I don't want to watch movies filled with people acting like everyone I know doing the usual things I do. I want to see something INTERESTING.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can complain about physics in a movie, but be able to completely buy into the fact that they're in OUTER FUCKING SPACE surrounded by MIDGET BEARS and massive turd-shaped monsters. It's called "Suspension of Disbelief". At some point you have to give up your pedantic whiny-assing and just say "Fuck it. It's cool."
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.