Improving Science Education — and Education in General

In “Biomedical science education needs a new philosophy, Johns Hopkins researchers say” (Johns Hopkins’ the Hub, 3 Jan 2018), Barbara Benham writes:

Today’s graduate biomedical science education system is in need of comprehensive reform, two researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health argue in a new paper.

…

For their part, Casadevall and Bosch write that science education reform should result in scientists who are:

-Broadly interested, creative and self-directed, as were some scientists in the era of Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and Linus Pauling

-Versed in epistemology, sound research conduct and error analysis, according to the “3R” norms of good scientific practice—rigor, responsibility and reproducibility

-Skilled in reasoning using mathematical, statistical and programming methods and able to tackle logical fallacies

-Committed to high ethical standards, mentorship and teamwork

-Effective leaders, teachers and communicators on the expert level, as well as with the public

-Able to think innovatively and across disciplinary boundaries

-Aware of the diversity of societal tasks that need to be mastered by science practitioners today

But what needs comprehensive reform is science education in general.

We need to grasp that science is not some deductive enterprise a la Plato or some deductive, social fantasy a la Kant or Kuhn. Science is the inductive, integrated understanding of the nature of things and their causal relationships.