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The Case For Teaching Ignorance
HughPickens.com writes: In the mid-1980s, a University of Arizona surgery professor, Marlys H. Witte, proposed teaching a class entitled "Introduction to Medical and Other Ignorance." Far too often, she believed, teachers fail to emphasize how much about a given topic is unknown. "Textbooks spend 8 to 10 pages on pancreatic cancer," said Witte, "without ever telling the student that we just don't know very much about it." Now Jamie Holmes writes in the NY Times that many scientific facts simply aren't solid and immutable, but are instead destined to be vigorously challenged and revised by successive generations. According to Homes, presenting ignorance as less extensive than it is, knowledge as more solid and more stable, and discovery as neater also leads students to misunderstand the interplay between answers and questions.
In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist named Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. "This crucial element in science was being left out for the students," says Firestein."The undone part of science that gets us into the lab early and keeps us there late, the thing that "turns your crank," the very driving force of science, the exhilaration of the unknown, all this is missing from our classrooms. In short, we are failing to teach the ignorance, the most critical part of the whole operation." The time has come to "view ignorance as 'regular' rather than deviant," argue sociologists Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey. Our students will be more curious — and more intelligently so — if, in addition to facts, they were equipped with theories of ignorance as well as theories of knowledge.
In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist named Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. "This crucial element in science was being left out for the students," says Firestein."The undone part of science that gets us into the lab early and keeps us there late, the thing that "turns your crank," the very driving force of science, the exhilaration of the unknown, all this is missing from our classrooms. In short, we are failing to teach the ignorance, the most critical part of the whole operation." The time has come to "view ignorance as 'regular' rather than deviant," argue sociologists Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey. Our students will be more curious — and more intelligently so — if, in addition to facts, they were equipped with theories of ignorance as well as theories of knowledge.
Finally a subject I can get a PhD in!
Finally a topic where I don't need to read the summary!
I've been prepared my whole life for this!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Too many people will simply be turned off by the name. I fully agree that we are ignorant, but most people refuse to admit their own. We don't teach people to check facts or even show them how. We teach them to "Google" which returns the popular answer and that may not be correct (and probably is not).
I could spend hours discussing "Classical" versus Industrial education. I could spend days explaining why teaching a rounded education is necessary and teaching only specialties runs counter to education. Liberal Arts (PHI) is essential, but most kids get a couple semesters of history instead.. and we wonder why people can't think critically, defend their own position, and perceive that disagreements with their opinions are personal attacks.
Yeah, I got a college age kid so I see what's been happening.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It's a very large problem. We teach the students to memorize problem set recipes (aka exemplars), and the paradigm over time extends the exemplars to new observations regardless of how good the fit is. People then go online to criticize competing ideas, oftentimes without any awareness of the details of the debate. It's very rare to observe people running claims back-and-forth between the theorists and their critics -- and that's even though many theorists who disagree with the textbook theories make themselves available by email for rebuttals.
We should teach scientific controversies, and we should be teaching them very differently than the other domains which might not significantly change for another hundred years. Currently, academia simply pretends that many longstanding controversies simply do not exist, and these controversies can predictably act as an innovation bottleneck over time. If all we did was show students that there are competing arguments which oftentimes differ at the point of the initial hypothesis, students would become far better at asking good research questions. And this single change to the way that we teach science could secure our technological lead for another century.
Thank you for posting this article. It's honestly very rare to see here on Slashdot, and yet also very important.
When I was in high school, I found anatomy and biology boring, because it seemed like memorizing a finalized taxonomy of living creatures' details. If I'd had an appreciation for both how insanely awesome living creatures' designs are and that there are lots of mysteries still to be solved, I'd have been far more likely to get into the field. Ditto for chemistry and physics.
Oh wait, its a HughPickens post. Nevermind, I understand now, carry on.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I think if you have to teach that we are ignorant, you are acknowledging that your students are simply not very curious or are regurgitating data to pass the exam, get good GPA, enter workforce to earn money. Which is, in fact, the reality the majority of the time, and that's just fine.
I see no reason to teach people what we don't know, because to quote Rumsfeld about something entirely different: "...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know..."
How can you teach about ignorance from a stance of known unknowns? You have to rely on the student, at some point, to look critically at something and say "that's bullshit". Science is built on a fairly solid foundation, but it isn't granite. Students should be challenging not only the new stuff, but also the stuff we think we already know, not simply sitting in their seats listening to the Pastor give his Sermon on Physics.
Ignorance is no sin.
Willful ignorance is unforgivable.
Science isn't blindingly obvious- if it was someone would have discovered it ages ago. It's piecing together tiny bits of evidence until something coherent starts to become visible, and even then most of the time someone else comes and kicks apart your jigsaw puzzle with new data
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
The original title was This Professor Suggests Teaching Ignorance : What Happens Next... I Can't Even.
Dark Reflection
We don't teach how to fail in any segment of our schooling, which is somewhat necessary in addressing ignorance. Failure is taught to be avoided at all costs. Failure is mocked, ridiculed as a personal flaw instead of something that everyone experiences. We don't teach that failure is something that happens even when we've put our best effort into the work. That failure happens when you've done everything right and according to the rules. And in neither of those cases is failure something bad. It's just something that happens in life.
Being ignorant is not the same as being wrong.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
That boggles the mind. Even something as fundamental to our daily experience as gravity, and we don't know what it is. We describe its effects, and we have a few theories about its cause, but when an apple falls out of a tree, we don't know why it falls to the ground.
The fact of this ignorance should be taught in the first lesson.
When I was in elementary and high school, I learned the incompleteness of science well enough; it was not omitted, at least not for those who were actually interested enough to PAY ATTENTION. No, it wasn't described explicitly in big neon flashing letters, but honestly should it be? As I said, someone paying attention would have extrapolated this message. Don't we want scientists who are actually interested enough in the subject to pay attention to the messages not presented in neon?
.
The constant updating of our knowledge as we learn new things?
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Teaching ignorance directly would require an honest assessment of things like religion, central banking, chiropractors, mathematical ability and pharmaceuticals. This would require strong tenure protection for an individual teacher, or it would likely devolve into trivialities and historical anecdotes that would lead students to assume that important questions are generally irrelevant or settled in modern times. One idea is that education exists to convey the certainty by which things are known, and to prepare students for critical thinking that will improve their estimates of factual certainty with time. Another idea is that education should firstly prepare students to be productive citizens. While these ideas are not always in conflict, knowledge and critical thinking will not be tolerated when money, ideology or power can be gained or preserved through ignorance.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
I also think that the more your know, i.e. the less ignorant you are, the more you realize how much more there is to know. And it become more and more clear that you will never know everything. I think it kind of goes hand in hand. If someone is mostly ignorant they they are also likely to have no idea how ignorant they actually are.
When the instructor effectively places the material they are presenting in a larger framework including unknowns, it is often quite inspiring. Textbooks in mathematics and physics are the worst in this regard. They try to paint their presentation as the complete story on the subject and that leaves students bored. Even just a little bit of explaining the complex problems that are being sidestepped by the way the course material was chosen can greatly enliven a course. Even better, the students come out with an understanding of where the methods they learned will work and where they will not.
Because if they're undergrad classes then the goal of the classes is to fill in the already missing information that students don't know. If they're graduate classes then the goal of the classes should be to assist with finding new information so there's less missing information out there. What point would this class have in undergrad where the student is supposed to assume they don't know everything about the subject? What point would this class have in grad school where the student is expected to help reduce ignorance on the subject they are studying?
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." - Donald Rumsfeld I could just imagine the course beginning with this quote.
Teaching ignorance would be a tricky balancing act. Too far on one side and you're right back into the "here's the set science - nothing new to discover and no arguments exist" camp. Too far on the other side and you're in the "Evolution clearly isn't 'set science' because we don't know all of these things*" camp. The key is to teach kids "this is our best understanding given the evidence we have today but science is constantly learning more every day." This way you give kids a foundation in established science (avoiding the "scientists don't know nothing" group) while not having them think that everything is set in stone.
* We actually do know 90% of the things that the creationists bring up and have a pretty good idea about the remaining 10%.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Frankly, this is something that I recognize as wisdom.
As I've grown older, it's become more and more apparent to me that "experts" may be especially well TRAINED, but that doesn't mean they're particularly smart, or even good at what they do (per the observation that half of all the doctors you meet are below-average).
I've found that basic common sense, reason, and a willingness to ask questions whenever something doesn't make sense - and to recognize a line of bullshit when it's being delivered - are far, far more useful intellectual tools than those degrees someone might have.
-Styopa
I've summarized all known and unknown information accurately, and published it. You can buy any papers you need, and stop worrying about this topic now. Why not take the extra time I've made for you to adopt a new vegetative state? Finally, you've arrived! Congratulations, GRADUATES!!!
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
This article made me take a step back and ponder my own kid's current education, as well as how mine went throughout my growing up years. I think they hit the nail on the head about something I had never thought too much about. Personally, I think I'm going to make a point of bringing just how many questions are still out there about various topics I talk about with my kids. It seems so obvious how important that is - and yet information over my entire life has always been presented in a confident and certain manner, in which what we don't know is left out of the discussion.
[...] Un auteur ne nuit jamais tant à ses lecteurs que quand il dissimule une difficulté.
([...] An author never does more damage to his readers than when he hides a difficulty.)
Évariste Galois (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois)
It seems to me that many (in some fields possibly most) scientific papers have always pointed out that further work needs to be done. Calling it "ignorance" isn't profound nor does it help when applying for additional grant money.
Well, I think it's more complicated than that. People are not just ignorant of the limitations of knowledge, they're ignorant of the limitations of ignorance.
In fact, I'd say faulty appeals to ignorance are much more common here than faulty appeals to knowledge. People will say "How can we know X when we don't know Y?" when in fact it's quite possible to know X without Y, and in any case we actually know a lot more about Y than the poster thinks.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I like your choice of wording there, because obsession is a good description. Simply saying "I disagree with that" is now a micro-aggression with racist and/or misogynistic intent.
That said, I don't believe that "science-as-religion" is new. We seem to run through cycles of this in history. Balance always shifts back and forth.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. Alfred North Whitehead
My doctor positively recommends a medication siting clinical tails and studies. I look at him and think "he really believes that will suit me" - strange for an intelligent person.. While I, working in electronics, know I can be sure that our measurements (when interpreted correctly) can lead to truly accurate conclusions.
Dear Jesus, I hope you don't teach your kid that the only thing they ever need to know is right and wrong. If you do, that's a damn shame and failure. I had taught my kid what an appeal to emotion was before he was 6, but that does not mean he ran into every instance where someone would use that appeal to sway his opinion. He knew what an appeal to authority was not long after that, but even those simple fallacies are not all that's required for critical thinking.
Amazingly, there is very little "true/false" or "right/wrong" in the world. Almost everything is an educated opinion, and sometimes that opinion runs counter to what you would think for numerous reasons.
In simple terms Critical thinking is a mixture of "a great bullshit detector", "universal dissection kit", "crystal ball", and "education". Critical thinking is not one of those, it's all of them working in harmony (or as well as possible together).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It seems to me like the path to knowledge goes as follows:
1. Beginner - you know you have a lot to learn and don't know anything about the subject
2. Amateur - you think you know everything you need to know
3. Expert - you know what you know, but realize there a many things you don't know
If someone says the know everything about something, then, in general, they don't. Amateurs tend to over estimate their ability and experts tend to under estimate their ability. Knowing that there are things you don't know (and attempting to fill in the gaps when required) is the main way to become an expert in a field.
Can we stop with the fucking buzz-words. What you are trying to do is teach C-U-R-I-O-S-I-T-Y not ignorance. You want to inspire people to ask questions. That's not teaching ignorance. It's the fucking opposite of ignorance!
We're fucked when university professors don't understand that simple fact. Perhaps they should acquaint themselves with one Richard Feynman.
1 what do we NOT Know about X
2 what evidence do you have for what we Know about X
then you can start working on X
and don't forget to backcheck things like when you are looking for a Black Cat make sure you can handle finding its a Panthera pardus melas and not a domestic cat.
Ignorance is perceived as "deviant" rather than normal?
That is the most absurd concept I've come across in a long time, but it explains a *LOT*.
Look, knowing what you don't know is pretty fscking precious.
I love my ignorance. It's how I learn something! I'm at my boss's house fixing his network because I missed something when setting it up.
Before I left to go here he told me 'Well, you'll learn something when you're done'.
And I did and it works now!
Now you tell me that the "norm" (and the Cliff, too apparently) is to deny your own ignorance? How do you learn anything? How else do you try to integrate all the things you know and throw out the stuff that's obviously wrong?
Apparently critical thought is dead except for those that actually have to get things done!
Go in a factory where parts need to come off of the line and be correct and saleable--and if you screw something up people can lose fingers, eyes, or lives. Managers can BS people, but debating against reality is pretty ineffective! Trades & Techs--the ones that have stuck around for a while, at least--are pretty damned happy when they know they don't know something--there's not much other way to find where to look in order to get the machines running and running safely!
I guess Lovecraft was right all along:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
In mathematics & computer science, we tend to more charitably call these ``open problems''.
For example, German mathematician David Hilbert made a quite inspiring list of 23 of them in 1900, many of which are now famously only partially resolved (e.g., Hilbert's 2nd is only partially resolved due to Gödel's second incompleteness theorem) while others have only recently been resolved to great fanfare (e.g., Hilbert's 10th involves Gödel's first incompleteness theorem and relates to Fermat's Last Theorem), and a few others stubbornly defy proof or disproof still to this day (e.g., The Riemann Hypothesis is Hilbert's 8th).
Beyond Hilbert, the open problem to determine whether P = NP still intrigues, inspires and stymies many computer scientists to this day.
But perhaps a more fitting term for the field of medicine, though, might be ``remaining mysteries in medicine'' or some such, since they may view unresolved questions in treatment, diagnosis, and underlying mechanisms more as mysteries than as problems per se?
Error: NSE - No Signature Error
I heard a podcast of a lecture given by a professor of epistemology and it was truly fascinating. My take away was really how little we know and how many things we THINK we know are built on foundations of things we don't actually know.
Even simple statements like "the book is on the table" which would seem to be clear-cut statements of fact depend heavily on our understanding of what is a table, a book and what it means to be on something, and how we are able to state that we know what those things mean.
I think the idea is to actually teach students where we have gaps in our ability to explain things.
There are many things that are taken to be scientific facts which are anything but proven, and you'd know that if you asked certain experts in the fields.
The problem is that many of us assume that we collectively know more than we actually do, and it gives students the incorrect idea that there is nothing more to be learned, or that they will be doing relatively trivial research. In that sense, we need to explain where the frontiers are, and some of them are hiding in places we didn't expect them to be.
It's not really a course on being ignorant, it is a course to help students to learn where to start looking to find unsolved mysteries.
Such a course would be hugely important because it allows us to discover more questions to answer as well as giving some motivation to those who might otherwise be bored or disheartened by the lack of a frontier.
Basic sciences generally tend be taught wrong--it's too much learning by rote exercise, almost no exploratory learning. It turns out real science isn't that hard, and you could have kids doing real experiements pretty much from the time they start learning. The way they teach it makes it much less interesting and fun.
One of my favorite books address exactly this topic, "The Encyclopedia of Ignorance": http://www.amazon.com/Encyclop...
The data should always be king--not the math--inconsistencies should point the finger at the math and theories, not the other way around.
Except when the data are "bad". The most recent example of this was the Opera experiment's claim to have observed faster that light neutrinos. That's what their data said...at least until someone found that their GPS cable was loose.
Experimental science is never that cut and dried. The data may always be right given the experiment performed but, as the Opera case shows, that may not be the experiment which you think you had performed. The result is that there is always a tension when theory and data contradict: is it because the theory is wrong or is it because of an invalid assumption when interpreting the data?
No, new theories do not have to look mathematically connected to the math of old theories--this is the root problem--assuming that the old theories are *proven* and *correct*.
Here you have taken a position which contradicts your earlier one. We believe old theories *because* they are consistent with the data we have so far. Hence, by logical extension, any new theory must also be consistent with that same data otherwise we would point to that data and say "see it disagrees with data and so it must be wrong!". Within the precision of existing data any new theory *must* have identical predictions, i.e. an identical mathematical form, to the previous theory under the conditions where the old theory has already been tested and confirmed. It can only vary under situations where the old theory has not yet been tested.
Introduction to a subject you want to present the basic known facts. When you revisit the topic in a future course then you can rework the pedogogy to explain the history of the ideas, the personalites, and the unknownns. maybe only a grad student would have time to revisit a topic.
I have a Ph.D. in New Testament studies, and from time to time I teach basic Biblical Greek to seminary students. Every time, I rattle off the following spiel:
"Why study Biblical Greek? It's a lot of work, and if you spend your entire life studying you might, just maybe be as proficient as a dock-side worker in Athens around 100AD. Some of you may think "it's a requirement", but that just leaves us wondering why it's required. Some of you are enthusiasts, and have heard pastors say "but the Greek really says" too many times. You probably think that learning Greek will solve all your exegetical and theological problems. But ... well, I hate to break it to you, but it won't.
The best reason to study Biblical Greek is very different. The best reason is that it teaches you to open your Bible with fear and trembling. This is precisely because, much of the time, the Greek doesn't really say. Greek, like English, is sometimes vague and often contradictory. Sometimes, we know exactly what is meant by a word or phrase or sentence or passage. More often, there are still significant questions.
Take "faith in Jesus." Many of you regard that as the center of our faith. But even that might be questioned to someone who really knows Biblical Greek. Does "pistevou tou Christou" mean "faith in Christ" or the "faithfulness of Christ"? The reality is that we don't really know, and it might even mean BOTH.
So, why study Biblical Greek? To learn that you are ignorant on a great many things, and will remain so. It is, as Paul often says, a mystery."
(From memory and past my bedtime, so pardon that I didn't dig up my notes.) We then fall into class discussion. I usually lose about 1/4th of the class the first day.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
The exhibits in the radio observatory visitor center routinely talk about what remains unknown.
I've always wondered how many University disciplines seem to be very much teaching rote, not science. It seems to be most prevalent in the areas with a lot of prestige and a very clear career path. Medicine, Law, MBA, that kind of thing.
If we want Universities to be mainly about creating scientists, several of these have little to no reason to be academic studies.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
No offense, but I'm not going to limit to my writing to avoid offending your faith-based beliefs.
You mean, they don't already?
If you want a scientific subject where general ignorance and hubris reach towards 100% then look to general relativity in the FTL universe.
You were told that General Relativity is one of the most complete and accurate theories in science? well at speeds slower than light it is.
At FTL speeds there is more empirical proof for Astrology or Geocentric solar mechanics than there is for general relativity. The sun doesn't orbit the Earth and in the FTL region General Relativity is complete rubbish..
- The basic geometry of space and time predicts a universe where essentially the whole of reality only exists as an FTL region.
- At FTL speeds the universe is dominated by an absolute frame creating a stable and long lived 'old' universe. The real 'Aether' is the speed of light itself.
- In the FTL universe there is an FTL Simultaneity which defines the space time geometry as three Spatial Dimensions with time squeezed into a Zero Dimensional point. Time is simultaneous and synchronous throughout the universe.
- The classical model black hole with a central singularity sets a minimum speed on gravity which approaches FTL instantaneous.
- In the most basic convergent model of speed light impinges on the FTL space. (STL-V = C = FTL-V) This allows us to observe the FTL universe directly - in general it is flat predictable and dull.
- Without an absolute frame general relativity predicts an FTL universe that is completely unstable.. This predicts a young universe with a fake historical light cone.
- If gravity is restricted to the speed of light then black holes should not exist at all because the gravity well should collapse inwards at the event horizon.
- Also if gravity was restricted to the speed of light then physical objects like planets should be able to partly block gravity - this is not observed..
- If general relativity is correct and light does impinge on the FTL then light should not go in straight lines.
- The final killer is a simple one. Actually proving the FTL region of general relativity was correct would break the theories logic proving it was incorrect..
K.I.S.S. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
The more you know the less you know, outside of the box, any concept of history, critical thinking. Question everything, but at the same time you also have to, for the most part, accept what we have. Question whatever you want, just have the proof to back it up. Most people should understand the imperfection of our concept of reality. Are eggs good or bad for you? Are humans causing global warming? If you jump off a bridge will you survive? I am sure there are levels of the "what we think we know and do not know". Has much in the way to basic math or chemistry changed? We still go by 1+1 is 2, protons and electrons, is this a Zoloft commercial?