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KILLING THE INNOVATIVE SPIRIT: THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF TEACHING PSEUDOSCIENCE, AND HOW TO COMBAT THEM

Abstract

The misconception that plants use the carbon of carbon dioxide to make sugars and release its oxygen, which has obvious intuitive appeal, was taught as a fact by the great physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate, Richard Feynman (Said, 2024). It was then, with the best intention, further spread by the trusted philanthropist, Bill Gates, who purchased the BBC videos of seven Feynman's lectures and made them available online for free (Resag, 2018). More seriously, the misconception went unrecognized and was adopted as a 9-12 "benchmark" in the "Project 2061", published by AAAS in collaboration with NSTA (Said and Martin-Hansen, 2019). The "benchmark" describes the content of the flow of matter and energy in ecosystems that students need to learn and how best to teach it. The National Science Standards that require accountability at every level of the education, from kindergarten to high school, are based on the "Project 2061" and are adopted by most of the States. As the K-12 educational standards rolled out across the country, the science misconception proliferated, became robust, deeply rooted, and almost immune to correction. This paper suggests that the potential implications of teaching the misconception are confounding; not only hindering students' understanding of the flow of energy and matter in ecosystems but also killing the spirit of innovation by misdirecting the research that makes use of the sustainable solar and hydrogen energies that can significantly alter the global economy. The paper presents correct and scientifically sound benchmarks for teaching the concepts of flow of energy and matter at the K-16 levels. Finally, the paper extends a call to the AAAS, the NSTA, and to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to use their weights to help uncover and combat the misconception which, by their best intention, helped its proliferation.

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