• Question: My older brother always says that science in schools is lying to children, for example when i was younger teachers told us there was only three states; liquid, solid or gas. Now I know that is a lie, like many other facts that we've been taught throught the years, only to reach a certain point when the teacher says 'All that before; lies. This is the truth...'. Then, of course, it turns out that was a lie too. At what point in education do the lies stop?

    Asked by nancyc to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 18 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      They are not lies – just easing into more and more complex ideas. I would personally love to see quantum mechanics taught from the off as the younger people are the more likely they are to just accept that that is the way the Universe is at the very smallest scale.

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      Yeah, the problem is that science is too complicated just to learn all in one go. So it has to be broken down into easier to understand pieces. To do this breaking down teachers need to make a few simplifications.

      I wouldn’t really call them lies though, because they’re still very useful ways to think about things, it just that there are more advanced theories that are better.

      Example: at school you get taught that the atom is like a little ball. Like a solar system of protons and electrons. At university you learn that it’s actually more complicated, but to be honest, most of the times when I think about atoms I still think of the little solar-system ball. I only break out the advanced theory when it’s needed.

    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      Hi nancyc

      I can totally understand your frustration here. I think it is best to think of science not as truth vs lies, but as a set of theories or models that we build up and test and refine to try to better understand how stuff works. All through history there have been theories which have stood for a while, but then some new information has come to light which has shown the old model to be not quite good enough. That’s kind of the process your teachers are going through – teaching you about models which get more sophisticated as you go along.

      All scientists we have to be prepared for this to happen at any time in our careers – for example, if they really do manage to establish that the neutrino can travel faster than the speed of light, that pretty much blows out everything we’ve been taught. It’s what make it so interesting, you keep asking questions and finding answers which themselves raise more questions.

      But yes, I know how annoying it is and please don’t let it put you off. (Also, if any scientist tells you something is an absolute truth, you should look at them with great suspicion!).

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      they’re just increasingly accurate descriptions of a problem. so in a sense never, but in another sense they never started

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      I cant add to much to this, the main thing is understanding that complex models are not always required, and are often not useful. For example when dealing with most things Newtons Laws are a perfectly good description of how it all works, and there is no point in using something more complicated, it makes no difference. However when you start putting satellites in orbit, or need to measure time down to a really accurate precision considering more advanced models (in this case relativity) is required to make sure we get the right answers.

Comments