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Science has a bad reputation because answers have become the dominant
commodity. Students expect to memorize answers. But that isn't
reasoning or scientific. In this course, we emphasize questions, and
what to do about them. How can we pursue answers? We analyze the
process of finding answers, and divide all processes into two categories:
opinion and measurement. Science is about measurement. But measurement
has a bad reputation because most students think they don't want to do
it. Certainly no one wants to be told what measurements to make. But we
don't do that. Instead we encourage students to observe preschoolers and
to remember their own early childhood experiences. Unlike language,
history, religion, and mathematics, natural science is natural. We do it
by instinct. Just as geese and caribou must know how to migrate without
instruction, humans know how to explore. This is what is most obvious
upon watching preschoolers. No one teaches them to investigate. Yet
they do it perfectly. Their measurements are often crude and imprecise,
but they make them because measuring is fun. That's what we call
reasoning in science.
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