Skeptical Books for Children - Part One

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At least twice a year, some well-meaning person announces on a message board, forum board, email discussion or just during a conversation at a conference that they’re planning on putting together a book for kids that will tout the skeptical message. I’ve been involved with the initial stages of one myself; it’s a bold adventure, a thrilling idea and something that gets immediate acclaim.

No wonder. We’re aware that students will come to the classroom with preconceptions and misconceptions about how the world works - if they’re not initially engaged, they are more likely to miss new information and concepts or just cram for a test rather than challenge preconceptions. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, the learner needs:

- a deep foundation of factual knowledge

- understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework and

- organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and information (Pellegrino, Chudowsky & Glaser, 2001; Donovan and Bransford, 2005)

Learning is a personal process that is contextualized and takes time (Rennie and Johnston, 2004). So how do we use the time we’re given in the younger years to help build this foundation and framework?

We all know what we wish for young people when it comes to learning about frauds, scams, weird claims and potential medical disasters. There’s all sorts of interesting topics - ranging from the absurd to the dangerous - that we all agree should be presented in a skeptical way to kids. It’s the source of many science shows, podcasts, TV shows, Mythbusters DVDs and discussions we’ve had with the younger years. It’s a useful way of teaching how to think critically, as demonstrated in the Philosophy and Ethics secondary school program being run this year.

Best of all, there’s a great deal of cool information that we’re certain could be applied in fun and exciting ways… and let’s face it, if a publishing company can produce lots of those nice big hardcover investigations on superstitions without emphasizing the ‘let’s actually look at the facts‘ aspect - then there must be a gap in the market that should be filled. Isn’t there?

I shouldn’t really need to touch upon the necessity of making sure science is respected as a discipline without the tampering of ideological and religious bias in a text - but that will always be something we have to be wary of in general. More recently I had the discovery that a openly pro-creationist revision guide for science concepts is on the booklists for pretty much every secondary school in three states in Australia - Creelman ’s TEE Revision.

Their text for Discrete Mathematics, a course that prepares students for tertiary entrance, features the following on the inside flap about the Fibonacci ratio: ‘… this ratio occurs repeatedly in the natural world. The same Designer works in the animal world and the physical world (??), leaving us his signature on his work of art.’

On a full back page of the same text, a lengthy quote from ‘Fascinating Fibonaccis‘ by Trudi Hammel Garland, including:

Many equiangular spirals can be found in the animal kingdom; examples include the horns of wild sheep, spider webs… and the path of an insect approaching light. It seems to be further evidence of design in the creation of species.

More worryingly, their book on Physics Revision for the TEE features (along with three other books in the series) full page quotes from ‘21 Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible‘ by Ann Lamont - including this on Werner Von Braun:

- On teaching Creation in Schools: ‘The reason for the amazing string of successses we had with our Apollo flights to the moon… was that we never tried to overlook anything. It is in that same sense of scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the Science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.’

When the following is placed in the Science section of a bookstore: ‘Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God‘ by Dr Samanta Laughton:

The realms of mysticism and esoteric wisdom, including psychic abilities, distant healing, channeling, ND experiences and angelic encounters are becoming commonplace in our public culture. The public interest in such subjects is growing. If this were mere fashion or fad, this growth would not be sustained. This genuine interest comes from the fact that many have had actual life experiences of the above. This has resulted in a personal understanding of the reality of such phenomena. However, the establishment tends to ignore such experiences and fails to explain them.

… Well, by now you’d know that you have a big job ahead of you when it comes to preparing young people to be critical readers. What grounding have we got? What resources should we start with in our search?

Firstly, it concerns me as to whether people are making an effort to check out what already exists in the world of ‘books with a skeptical attitude’ - how many amateur enthusiasts really research and get access to reviews in order to find out whether there really is a demand for the book they’re hoping to write or if it’s running the risk of being knocked back because there’s already a ‘Skeptics Guide to the Paranormal’ (Kelly), ‘Sasquatches From Outer Space‘ (Yule and Baxter), ‘The Skeptic’s Dictionary‘ (Carroll) or ‘Real Life X-Files‘ (Nickell)?

Worse - what if there’s a book that’s beautifully presented, recently published and has in the table of contents every topic you think should be covered in terms of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims… but doesn’t do it well? What chance has a new book got when a publisher might say ‘don’t bother, we’ve already got one on the shelves’?

In a search of three different bookstores in my area (Borders, a educational supply store - and an independent store in the inner-city) I found … well, probably what you expected to find: some books which were excellent in terms of how they promoted well-researched general science topics… and the occasional beautifully presented book which says things like the Shroud of Turin is real and that Rupert Sheldrake has proved certain claims about the paranormal - yes, avoid ‘Do Not Open: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Best Kept Secrets’ by John Farndon.

Worse, I came across an excellent-looking text… which presented information that in some parts didn’t fit the foreword written by one of our premier ’skeptical figures’ of our time, James Randi.

The book is called “Amazing… But False! Hundreds of ‘Facts’ that You Thought Were True but Aren’t” by David Diefendorf, published in 2007 - last year! I should have been warned by the additional foreword by the author himself:

“On the subject of sources, the reader should know that I used anything and everything available: books, periodicals, scholars, librarians, and the wealth of information available via search engines and multiple Internet links. The material for each topic was confirmed by numerous sources and represents what I believe to be a fair and reasonable consensus regarding what is true, what is false, and what lies somewhere in between. Since this is a pop reference tome, I didn’t want to scare readers away with lots of footnotes and a lengthy bibliography.”

Sorry, it’s often that ‘lengthy bibliography’ that helps figure out just how reasonable the claims are. As soon as I read the entry on Crop Circles:

‘…there’s a convincing list of features distinguishing artificial crop circles from the genuine articles… is there yet any reasonable explanation for this fascinating worldwide phenomenon? Nope.’

… I immediately contacted a friend of James Randi to ask ‘uh, does he know that this is in a book that he’s written the foreword for??’

The search goes on. Thankfully, the media and the internet can be our friend as well as our foe when it comes to checking out what is on offer - just yesterday my state’s mainstream newspaper featured a blog entry by a popular journalist who points out that Scientology isn’t any more wackier than any other religion, something that wasn’t likely to be printed in any mainstream newspaper when I was the age of my students.

With such examples we can become more and more determined to speak out on what we want in terms of learning experiences for the next generation. To draw from and be inspired by good resources in order to deal with the issue of starting off a science education for a child well.

My own approach is as follows, upon which I’ll expand in blog posts to come: we have to stop trying so hard to fill a niche and fill a general need first.

Continue onto Part Two.

References:

Donovan, S. & Bransford J.(2005). Designing educative curriculum materials to promote teacher learning. Educational Researcher, 34(3): 3-14.

Pellegrino, J., Chudowsky, N. & Glasser, R. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Rennie, L.J., & Johnston, D.J. (2004). The nature of learning and its implications for research on learning from museums. Science Education 88 (Suppl. 1), S4-S16.

skepticism for kids

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