Feynman: Science "Proves" Nothing, Discovers Everything

(This blog entry is part two of a half-dozen reflections that steal teaching ideas from Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate physicist, atomic bomb developer, colorful personality, and pretty darn good teacher.)

Some think the strength of science is that "it" speaks in authoritative absolutes. Or that "it" PROVES things. It is not uncommon to hear science conjured in almost anthropomorphic, if not completely deified tones:"Science has proven that...!" As if science has a sentient agency.

Feynman looks at science in a remarkably different way, but a way which, if given proper reflection, does not diminish the power of science - but highlights its strengths. He makes a few distinctions in his view that may help us "laymen" have a greater appreciation for science and scientists.

• First, he acknowledges that SCIENCE doesn't really DO anything - but rather, science is a description of the actions of SCIENTISTS.
• Second, he points out that one of the main jobs of scientists is GUESSING. 
• Third, he finds epistemological authority to rest in the RESULTS, not the scientist.
• Fourth, he admits that the scientist doesn't PROVE things - and indeed, doesn't set out to prove anything. Rather, the scientist seeks to DISPROVE his own hypothesis. (Which is a primary strength of the scientific method!)

Note these comments in Feynman's lecture below:

"Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it."

This humble approach is far from the booming voice of authoritarian edicts often associated with scientific statements. But it is more productive. It invites knowledge and opens minds rather than shutting down conversations. It is also more realistic; it acknowledges our remaining ignorance, but frames it as a frontier for discovery. It sets us on a path of exploring the wondrous unknown. The "know-it-all" attitude has a chilling effect on gaining knowledge, but the "Feynman attitude" is a useful approach in all disciplines.

"We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes 'the world' is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules." (Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics)

*Recommended companion readings: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn; Against Method, Paul Feyerabend;  The Order of Things, Michel Foucault.

Real Geniuses Keep It (as) Simple (as possible)

(This blog entry is part one of a half-dozen reflections that steal teaching ideas from Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate physicist, atomic bomb developer, colorful personality, and pretty darn good teacher.)

Prof. Feynman during Special Lecture on Motion of Planets
(Energy.gov - public domain)

It would be easy for an accomplished professor to overwhelm students (particularly undergraduates) with a barrage of brilliant, baffling bombast. But good (in both the skilled AND ethical senses) teachers are interested less in inflating their own esteem, and more in helping move students along in their academic journeys. This idea was refreshed in my mind during my summer reading of Richard Feynman's undergraduate lectures on Physics.

Feynman was once asked by a Caltech faculty member to explain why spin one-half particles obey Fermi Dirac statistics. Rising to the challenge, he said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But a few days later he told the faculty member, "You know, I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we really don't understand it." (Intro to Richard Feynman, Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher.)

Make no mistake about it: Feynman could never be accused of wielding Occam's Razor to the point of reductio ad absurdum. He understood that complex intellectual issues couldn't be reduced to a simple summary, but that there should be a process that facilitates the learner to approach these issues by steps:

"Not satisfied to learn physics in four years, you want to learn it in four minutes? We cannot do it in this way…. one needs a considerable amount of preparatory training even to learn what the words mean. No, it is not possible to do it that way. We can only do it piece by piece." (Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics.)

One collection of his lectures on physics is titled "Six Easy Pieces," which, in some sense seems like a cruel joke, (He thinks this is EASY?) - but on the other hand, it makes sense. To someone devoted to learning Physics, these steps are the easiest way to approach the most complex topics in subjects like Quantum Mechanics.

As teachers, we should not assume we are successful if we are so "challenging" that students leave class feeling lost. Rather we must provide some scaffolding steps to take students up levels so they can engage the more complex issues of our field. But the steps must require some climbing - and must lead up to the objectives of the field of study. And, yes, we can tell them these are the "Easy Steps." And, even if they don't buy it as they climb the steps, when they reach the top, they will look back and see that this precept-upon-precept plan was the best way.

ThingLink: Connecting Internet Materials Visually!

Below is a photo of me.
Not a particularly flattering photo.
Not a particularly interesting photo.
Not a particularly useful photo.

But... with a little application called ThingLink, it can become a gateway to a plethora of resources! For example - look at the photo and see the difference an app can make. Notice how clicking on the 35mm camera takes you to a world of legal-use, free photography you can utilize in your classes? See how clicking on the video camera links you to digital video clips you can incorporate in your video editing projects? Observe how clicking on the headphones leads you to lots of usable audio, including music, sound effects, etc.? (Even clicking on the goofy-looking guy will reveal his website.) And clicking the bulletin board will take you to the program that makes this visual connectivity possible: ThingLink!




Try out this free app to spice up your blog or enhance your web site with a fresh new way to link students to web materials visually. You can find it at https://www.thinglink.com/

Grammar Police Reinforcements!

If you teach English or Writing, (or any subject that requires students to communicate in any way that should be comprehended by other human beings,) you can use this video.

After you've written helpful comments, after you've referred students to the Writing Center for LOC help, after you've diagrammed sentences, after you've shown students how to bookmark the dictionary in their browsers, after you've gone on a tirade and preached from "The Elements of Style" for an entire class... (OK, that last one might be just me,) you can use something like this to reinforce your efforts and give you a moment to regroup.

Enjoy your summer, knowing this video is now in your arsenal for next term!

Now.. if we can just find a similar video on APA or MLA formatting...

Buddy the Elf, Internet Free Candy, and Plagiarism

If saw "Elf" over the holidays, then you will remember this scene - Buddy the Elf is preparing to go to New York City to find his father when Santa offers him some advice, including the following:

"Well, there are some things you should know.

First off, you see gum on The street,

Leave it there. It's not free candy."

Of course, when Buddy arrives in NYC, he can't resist the "free candy" on the streets, the handrails, etc...Funny!

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If you've taught a class that involves research, you will remember this scene - Students are preparing to complete a class to earn their degrees, and we offer them advice, including the following:

"To do good research, you should know some things.

First off, just because you can cut and paste something,

that doesn't mean it is good information.

Find reputable sources and cite them."

Of course, when your students actually get to writing the paper, they sometimes find random "free candy" on the internet to be irresistible. Not so funny.

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I ran across an informative, if less-than-encouraging, article titled "The Top 10 Internet Sources College Students Us May Discourage You."  Oh, yeah, it does discourage us - especially after we've introduced them to the wealth of scholarly online resources that are available through our college or university libraries. I mean - millions of dollars worth of resources at their finger tips, peer-reviewed articles from the most erudite experts in every subject, ground-breaking studies in every field, and they "Google" for info on "steroids?"

(Thankfully, there are no sharp objects nearby as I write this. Anyway - take deep breaths and remain calm, Randy...)

So, I remind myself - and if it helps, you can remind yourself, too - our students are sort of like Buddy - this is their first trip to the big academic city. I will try to help them understand research and intellectual integrity from a broad view that deals with credibility, critical thinking, ethos, and what it means to be a "collegial" member of their new academic community. I will use a variety of approaches ranging from our official plagiarism statements to the story of Buddy the Elf. And I will keep telling myself that it's a process, and that it is my job to help my students (and colleagues) to develop an integrated approach to 21st-century digital literacy.

And I may or may not pass along this tidbit shared with me on Facebook recently:

ESPN, Culture and Speaking "English" Slang

At some point in the term, when teaching rhetorics, critical thinking, cultural literacies, speech, composition, or other topics - I find it important to discuss how language is a culturally/socially constructed semiotic system. (I usually work from a broader intro that looks at how ontology, epistemology and semiology treat a "thing," but that's another story.)

I am planning to incorporate these ESPN commercials to help students think about how language (in this case, English) is a living, growing set of signifiers and signifieds. Maybe some of my colleagues in related fields would be able to make creative instructional use of these artifacts as well...

Video one is the commercial I saw first - and though I had no idea what these guys were "saying" - I got the idea: the speakers seem to be exactly alike from a first-blush broad-brush categorizing of the individuals as being from the UK - but each views the other as a polar opposite.

A Second video (now disappeared from the web) slows the action down and adds definitions to the "slang" English from across the pond.

So, don't be a right divvy - spice up your sessions with these discussion starters/illustrations. And remember which video is which, or you'll look like a proper digital plonker.

...

Proposing Work as Exemplars for Emerging Areas - According to Gee

The following comments are a review-ish application of the concepts in James Paul Gee's 2010 New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and "Worked Examples" as One Way Forward.  I downloaded the e-book version for free for my Kindle here, and you can also find a free copy of the Google book here.  My reading, commentary, and application are admittedly influenced by my academic connections to rhetorics (as in the RCID community at Clemson University,) and by my duties as a teacher of communications and digital literacies at Limestone College, but it seems that Gee's work encourages such interdisciplinary engagement.  These comments will be part of the introduction for the presentation of the "Smartphone Museum as Exemplar" for teachers and scholars in venues such as the 2013 Popular Culture Association-American Culture Association Conference in Washington, D.C. 

“How can we proceed in building this new area into something more integrated and coherent, especially in building collaboration?” Gee suggests that using prototypical cases as exemplars is “one way forward” in the emerging area(s) of digital literacies and new media studies.

Gee references the “old sense” of exemplars, and remediates those “worked examples” toward a new application in digital literacies. As for the old sense of worked examples, Gee says “In a worked example, and ‘expert’ takes a well-formed problem and publically displays for learners how that problem is approached, thought about, worked over and solved.” Indeed, this is how most learners and scholars are “brought into” disciplines, ranging from maths to sciences to rhetorics.

(Though Gee references Kuhn, he is not explicit in pointing out that, in this description, we see how disciplines establish an accepted “right way” to think – as Kuhn might say, a “ruling paradigm” of “normal science” is established and reified through what Feyerabend might label a “consistency condition.” And while such an establishment might be seen as problematic with regards to limiting exploration to whatever approaches the establishment approves, it does provide the set of heuristics that allow new contributors to join a conversation within an emerging area of study.)

Using the idea of exemplars as worked examples (in the old sense,) Gee proposes that in emerging areas, such as digital literacies, those involved in the field should put forth exemplars, even if “play exemplars,” for the engagement of scholar-students in the field. In this new sense of worked examples, scholars in the emerging field would “display publically their thinking about how and why they did what they did, and why it may serve as a guide for future work.” This suggested approach (worked examples in the new sense) is more democratic, and markedly so, than worked examples as used in established disciplines.  In fact, Gee proposes that “we pretend to be experts in an area that, as of yet, has none.”

Gee’s remediation of the idea of worked examples does away with the idea of defending our exemplars and “winning” an academic argument. This remediated approach encourages the scholar to “lose” such academic arguments and “to see your proposed exemplar so worked over by the community that it would become fodder for collaboration.”

Though the composer-curators of the Smartphone Museum at Limestone are not part of Gee’s DML community centered at UC-Irvine, we do adopt with appreciation the democratizing approach of worked examples as a new way forward to opening discussion in areas of digital literacies, electronic pedagogies, and connected learning – and so we present our experimental installation as an exemplar for other scholar-teachers to discuss, critique, repurpose, remediate and use for their own work in the still emerging area(s) of digital literacies.