NavList:

A good follow-up question: if the seasons change because the distance from the earth to the sun changes, why is it that the northern hemisphere has winter when then southern has summer and v.v.?   I am sure that these same students are aware of that phenomenon.  Why don't they put things they know together?  It is as if many students have started seeing the world as a collection of disjoint facts, like a big jar of pennies or something, and nothing connects.   It is not so much the lack of specific science education.  I would be surprised if biology majors did not give a similar answer to the seasons question.  There has been too much teaching that has left them passive before the facts.  Information is everywhere.  The ability to make an inference is rarer.  The curiosity and the habit of doing so rarer still.

Oh, oh.  My curmudgeon is coming out.  I'll stop now.

Best,
Patrick




--
Dr. Patrick Goold
Department of Philosophy
Virginia Wesleyan College
Norfolk, VA 23502
757 455 3357