Science as Story Telling

“Knowledge is an island in a sea of mystery.”
from "Skeptics and True Believers" (1998) by Chet Raymo

This week I was reminded of Chet Raymo’s description of scientific knowledge as an island that we “dike and fill.” But occasionally that island is overwhelmed by a tidal wave of a new paradigm, and then we begin rebuilding.

As a student of history, I appreciate the changes and evolution that many of our mental models and scientific models have gone through. Changing mental models is what some of my astronomy students do in a lab called “The Checkerboard Universe.”

Students begin by writing a paragraph about their understanding of how scientists develop hypotheses, test them and come up with theories. Then they take turns determining specific rules about different patterns of the checkers on the board. After using their checkerboards, students reread their first paragraphs and then write another about their new or confirmed perspective of the role of the scientists.

Here are a couple of student comments from just this week:
• “I learned that you may not even have a question when you begin an experiment, but then you may stumble upon a question once an experiment has begun.”
• “When scientists fail they actually come closer to the answer.”

Our changing view of the universe is one reason I enjoy reading science writers such as Raymo, Sagan and Ferris. I think they give us science arguments in exciting, wondrous story forms.

Barbara, a professor of logic and philosophy, teaches that an argument is a group of propositions one of which is allegedly proven true by the others. I think this is what interesting science writers, these storytellers do. They describe the technological developments and the paradigm shifts. They describe our changing view of the universe around us. Maybe we should all think about becoming better “story tellers” of science.

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