From PowerBalance to Gove: skeptical thinking and the "academically rigorous" curriculum

During a recent session with Year 7 students (the ‘Tomorrow’s World’ project I’ve described elsewhere on the blog), students were utilising the data visualisation website at GapMinder World to look at changes to the wealth and health of nations over the last 200 years. As I moved around the room, discussing ideas with students, one pupil asked a simple question:

“How do we know that the information in these graphs is accurate?”

Student questions can be such powerful indicators of learning! The student’s question revealed an undervalued trait in our education system - skepticism. The pupil didn’t simply accept the information presented to him as ‘fact’, and interpret it on that basis. He asked a key question - before we analyse this data, how do we know that the data is worthy of analysis? Through discussion, we extended his thoughts into further questions:

1. Why was the data collected?
2. Who collected it?
3. What were their motivations and biases?

As it turns out, Gapminder World is very clear about the sources for its data. We thus have a starting point for digging deeper, investigating questions about the reliability of the data that lies behind the pretty charts.

• Information on data sources on GapMinder World

PowerBalance bands

Let's turn the student's skeptical question to another recent news story. PowerBalance is a silicone band containing a hologram which purports to increase the strength and flexibility of its wearer. Andrew Strauss, and other members of England’s victorious Ashes cricket team, have been seen to wear them:

Here's a quote from the PowerBalance UK website:

Power Balance® is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram is designed to respond to the natural energy field of the body.

Let’s turn the student question in the direction of PowerBalance: “How do we know that the information on your website is accurate?”. The answer, of course, is that we don’t. There are no references for the extraordinary assertions on the website, or links to publications in scientific journals. Anyone who knows anything about science should recognise the nonsense baked into the statements on the PowerBand website. Pseudoscience of all sorts - from homeopathy to astrology to crystal healing - is infested with misuses of scientific terms such as "energy field".

I had heard about these bands through one of my favourite podcasts, The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Here is Richard Saunders of the Australian Skeptics Society looking at the tricks used to sell the bands:

And here is Saunders again, demonstrating, through a straightforward double-blind test, that the bands do absolutely nothing unless the “demonstrator” knows you’re wearing one:

PowerBalance bands are a wonderful example of the placebo effect. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission board agrees - PowerBalance have been instructed to dramatically tone down their claims for the product. The only effect these bands will have on your balance is on your bank balance. (I note from the BBC story, incidentally, that Paul Collingwood is a wearer too. He had a lousy Ashes series).

Being a skeptic

I am a skeptic (Wikipedia article). This is not synonymous with ‘cynic’. For me, skepticism is a powerful, positive mindset to apply to a key question in life: ‘What should I believe?’. It’s a mindset that holds belief to high standards of evidence. There are an essentially infinite number of things I could believe. The question is, which of them is it reasonable to believe? For example, do the facts that 1) Andrew Strauss wears a rubber band on his arm and that 2) England won the Ashes, mean that the rubber band helped England to win The Ashes? Clearly not. This kind of reasoning is an example of a logical fallacy; confusing correlation/coincidence with causation. (See this page for a list of some other logical fallacies).

I’m not going to wax lyrical here about what skepticism means in practice, beyond this:

Skepticism is not having unexamined beliefs.

If I’m going to believe that the position of the Sun, moon and constellations at the instant of my birth is in any way relevant to my character, I’d better have damn good evidence for that belief. If I’m going to believe that diluting an ingredient repeatedly in water (to the point where it theoretically no longer exists) while banging it repeatedly against a special board, gives it magical healing powers (without any side effects) then the evidence had better be fantastic.

I can't resist dropping this clip in here:

It's been pleasing in recent years to see skeptical thinkers rise to prominence in our media: the likes of Mitchell and Webb, Stephen Fry, Dara O'Briain, Ricky Gervais, and Derren Brown, for example. (I note, however, that they are all middle-aged white blokes. We must do something about that). Books written from this skeptical perspective have performed well too: if you haven't read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, do so.

"Academically Rigorous"

Last week, Michael Gove announced that he intends to move towards a more academic curriculum for state schools in England. He wants to reintroduce “facts” back into the curriculum; insisting, for example, that Winston Churchill features in the History curriculum. (There is a misconception here, of course. Any teacher teaching World War II has always discussed Churchill. Churchill just wasn't specifically listed in the National Curriculum. Mr. Gove doesn't just want more facts. He wants to specify which facts). In Mr. Gove’s educational mindset, a curriculum full of facts is considered to be more “academically rigorous”.

I believe that the teaching of facts (i.e. what to think), is secondary to teaching young people how to think. We live in a digital world of almost limitless information, where anyone can publish anything via the wonders of the Internet. I firmly believe that the mental toolkits of skeptical thought and the scientific method should be a key part of our education of young people in helping them to navigate this new world. An individual fact is, essentially, static. Ideas, models, theories and hypotheses are not. They are tested and changed. They are provisional. We, as teachers, should not be afraid of this. We are not the gatekeepers to facts. We are guides to the integration of ideas, themes, and yes, facts, into students' deeper understanding of the world we live in. Facts hang on the scaffolding of our understanding of the world, reinforcing (or undermining) our ideas, and, sometimes, helping to modify them for the better.

If Mr. Gove had said “We want to teach children to be creative, critical thinkers” he would have had me onside. That would be the kind of “academically rigorous” curriculum I’d like to see. I suspect, instead, that he wants our education system, once again, to focus around assessing our children not on the quality of their thinking, but on how many of his treasured "facts" they can remember.

Update on Jan 23, 2011 by Richard Anderson

To add to my commentary, here's a History teacher's views on Michael Gove's "facts" crusade:

• http://madphil.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/a-little-bit-of-history-repeating