Getting Students to Define a ‘Fact’

Over the years, I've found this idea to be much more slippery than I would have ever expected prior to teaching. As a biology teacher, these distinctions are incredibly important - along with the constant reminder that even 'facts' are slippery, changing things.

Katie Schellenberg, JD, MA offers ways to establish rules for discussion in her recent Edutopia article. Her article approaches this problem broadly by establishing a number of steps. Here, I focus on just two:

Require Evidence

Explore the Difference Between Fact, Feeling, and Argument

One major difference I see between our views is the 'provability' and implied 'immutability' of facts. As I said above, I see 'facts' as conclusion about evidence as we see it today. I think she has a more absolute view of facts than this.

What I Mean by This:

Prior to Edwin Hubble's examination of the Andromeda Nebula, no galaxies outside of the Milky Way were known. So, in the early 20th century, one could state as a fact that the Milky Way was the extent of the (at least matter-filled) universe. Today, we see this 'fact' as dated and supplanted by more recent evidence.

However, Our Solution is the Same: Require Evidence

I'm thinking specifically about discussions that emanated either from our reading of Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" or just the way that I commonly discuss molecular biology, which adheres pretty closely to Theodosius Dobzhansky's central thesis from, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The American Biology Teacher, March 1973:

Honestly, I could have gone on all semester with this discussion if I had the time for it. This student introduced such a cornucopia of ideas to run with:

• What is a reliable source?
• What is good science?
• What is evidence?
• How do we interpret evidence?
• How do we compare or decide between competing interpretations of the same data?

My head almost exploded in excitement about getting down to brass tacks. Fortunately or unfortunately, these ideas have been discussed ad nauseam over the years. On the one hand, a wealth of data was easily found to support or refute any number of claims, on the other, it was impossible for this discussion to ever find new ground.

In the end, we discussed evolution and creation for longer than I think is strictly appropriate in a science classroom, but I felt the conversation was justified in the sense that my students could benefit more from learning about how science is done than they could from knowing details of Kreb's Cycle (but don't worry, I taught that too).

To all the teachers out there: have you had these conversations before (not necessarily about evolution, but just about separating opinions from theories, and how to form valid and true arguments, etc.)? If so, please let me know in the comments section what you discussed and how it went. I'd love to hear others' experiences.

The post can also be seen on my blog: downhousesoftware.wordpress.com.