Fantasy Core Curriculum

30th August 2016

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Fantasy Core Curriculum

Some people indulge in “fantasy football,” in which they serve as, “general managers of virtual professional football teams” (according to Wikipedia); I, on the other hand, indulge in “fantasy curriculum studies.” One of my favorite thought experiments is how I would formulate the curriculum of an educational institution if I were single-handedly responsible for its content. In other words, I cast myself in the role of Dean of a virtual educational institution.

I previously touched on this in Rational Reconstructions of Time, in which I suggested the first two items below. I have now elaborated a bit on these two previously sketchy suggestions, with an entire fantasy “core curriculum,” as follows:

How to Read a Scientific Paper

The scientific research paper is the basic unit of knowledge in scientific civilization. Reading a scientific paper is not like reading a book, but every citizen needs to be able to read a scientific paper, so as not to rely exclusively on popularizations from journalists in order to understand recent scientific research. A scientific civilization cannot survive as such unless its citizens are scientifically literate. Science communication is often discussed today, on the assumption that scientists need to improve their communication with the general public so that fraudsters and cranks don’t get a foothold in the public sphere. While better scientific communication is important, better scientific literacy among the public is crucial.

Understanding Scales of Time

Physics, cosmology, geology, biology, and all the special sciences incorporate distinctive units for the measurement of time that are specific to the subject matter of the discipline. An organized and systematic attempt to give a unified exposition of the historical sciences and the time scales each entails would, I think, contribute significantly to making the various special sciences mutually intelligible and to encourage rigorous interdisciplinary research. The understanding of scales of time should not be left to chance, on the hopes that students will eventually “get it,” but rather the interrelationships of various scales of time should be made explicit and a systematic scientific context should be given to these various measures.

History of Science and the Development of the Scientific Method

Scientific civilization is existentially dependent upon the scientific method, and the scientific method is an accomplishment of a long development. Moreover, it is not a finished, static, and complete method in our time, but it is subject to further future revision as the scales of the sciences grow ever-larger and new emergent anomalies make us aware of previously unrealized problems for the scientific method. Thus the scientific method must be studied in its historical context, but also as an ongoing project of scientific civilization.

Cognitive Biases and Logical Fallacies

The most important event in logic since advent of mathematical logic a century ago has been the emergence of cognitive biases as a distinct area of study. We have rapidly come to see how cognitive biases deleteriously affect our reasoning from the simplest daily tasks to the most complex tasks of science. In retrospect, we can see that the scientific method has been constructed and revised in order to neutralize cognitive biases, so that the study of cognitive biases casts considerable light on the scientific method, and suggests further revisions to scientific method. A systematic study of cognitive biases and logical fallacies would be better than a generic course on “critical thinking” and would point students in the direction of the “less wrong” cognitive ethos.

Statistical Reasoning

There are already many educational institutions that have a core curriculum requirement in statistics, and this is a necessary condition for understanding scientific reasoning. The least mathematicized of the sciences – the social sciences – are the most heavily dependent upon statistical methods such as opinion surveys, which can range from enlightening to a form of studied obscurantism for those who cannot face the unvarnished truth of things. In any case, our self-understanding as a society, and the very meaning of society in a scientific civilization, will be mediated by statistical reasoning subject to systematic manipulation. To guard against this, statistical reasoning skills need to be an essential part of any core curriculum.

Any consideration of a fantasy core curriculum suggests the possibility of a fantasy “hidden curriculum,” a fantasy “excluded curriculum,” and so on. Perhaps the most famous example of a fantasy excluded curriculum is the exclusion of poets from Plato’s ideal republic. A scientific civilization needs to find a way to exclude pseudoscience without becoming unduly narrow and authoritarian in the teaching of science. How do we define the difference between science and pseudoscience? This is, on the one hand, an important philosophical question, but it is also a highly political question, and we must examine the question in both its philosophical and political context.

A fantasy core curriculum also leads to other interesting questions. If one were to formulate a core curriculum with the aim being to educate students for participation in a scientific civilization, what aspects of university life, other than core curriculum, ought to be revised in the light of this goal? What kind of sports program should a University of the Future have? Traditional collegiate team sports, in order to participate in existing inter-collegiate institutions, or should one attempt to create new sporting institutions? What would be the role of ROTC on campus? Should a University of the Future cultivate a strong relationship with the armed forces, or should it shun such connections? Should a University of the Future seek strong partnerships with private industry both for the funding and relevance of research projects, or should it sedulously maintain its scholarly independence?

One way to address these questions would be the “teach the controversy” approach, which would come with the obvious problems associated with giving marginal pseudoscience a voice in the curriculum, but which, if handled competently, could make students think critically about their own education. A project for students could be the design of their own fantasy curriculum, and if good suggestions come out of this exercise, they could be used as the basis for the revision of the existing curriculum. Thus an educational institution with a strong excluded curriculum need not be anti-democratic or authoritarian, as its curriculum could be continually held open to revision, like the scientific method itself, but always on the basis of scientific principles.

Note added 19 November 2016: I just noticed this article from Science magazine, How to (seriously) read a scientific paper by Elisabeth Pain