Commentary: Argument in Life Science Education

摘要

As a biologist, it is sometimes distressing to hear the lay press misuse the term "theory" in reference to Evolution, as though somehow that word weakens its universal acceptance among the scientific community. It is just as unnerving to hear the misuse of "argument" between scientists as reason to doubt the basic value or premise of major areas of scientific agreement. Nonetheless, we need to look carefully at education in science in general and the life sciences in particular as to why we don't incorporate "argument" as a basic component of how we teach the molecular life sciences. After all, argument, debate, critique, disagreements, and rebuttal are all essential components of how we proceed in science. But their role in the classroom have been limited and confined to subsets of graduate education.