Re: Fault finding in JP

From
Date
Reply-To
Bret Bennington wrote:

>I would point out that
>there are differences between professional paleontologists nitpicking
>Jurassic Park and asking Jr. High School students to question the
>scientific content of the movie.  In the latter case, the objective is not
>to train kids to be cynical consumers of cinema, rather the goal is to
>teach them something about science (in this case dinosaurs and DNA) and
>then get them to apply what they have learned and think critically.

You're perfectly right, Bret, and I didn't mean to question your pedagogic
approach, which seems excellent, just to steer away from the impression
that science is only pedantery and nit-picking. It certainly is, to some
measure, and has to be, because science progresses by merciless
fault-finding. But what really keeps it going is the excitement of
discovery.

It would be great if at the end of the day you could give us a short
account of what your class came up with.

Stefan Bengtson                      _/        _/ _/_/_/    _/        _/
Department of Palaeozoology         _/_/      _/ _/    _/  _/_/    _/_/
Swedish Museum of Natural History  _/  _/    _/ _/    _/  _/  _/ _/ _/
Box 50007                         _/    _/  _/ _/_/_/    _/    _/  _/
S-104 05 Stockholm               _/      _/_/ _/   _/   _/        _/
Sweden                          _/        _/ _/     _/ _/        _/

tel. +46-8 666 42 20
     +46-18 54 99 06 (home)
fax  +46-8 666 41 84
e-mail Stefan.Bengtson@nrm.se