It's Time To Bring Pseudoscience Into the Science Classroom?

[NobleSavage]

From Slashdot:

Roughly one in three American adults believes in telepathy, ghosts, and extrasensory perception," wrote a trio of scientists in a 2012 issue of the Astronomy Education Review. "Roughly one in five believes in witches, astrology, clairvoyance, and communication with the dead (PDF). Three quarters hold at least one of these beliefs, and a third has four distinct pseudoscientific beliefs." Now Steven Ross Pomeroy writes in Forbes Magazine that it's time to bring pseudoscience into public schools and universities. "By incorporating examples of pseudoscience into lectures, instructors can provide students with the tools needed to understand the difference between scientific and pseudoscientific or paranormal claims," say Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld."

I never knew that many people had a general belief in pseudoscience.

 

[Elixir]

Great idea, but wait until you get the hue and cry from such groups as young earth creationists, who won't like their idiocy being lumped in with witches and astrology.

 

[Underseer]

Great idea, but wait until you get the hue and cry from such groups as young earth creationists, who won't like their idiocy being lumped in with witches and astrology.

Hey, this would get their beliefs into classrooms, wouldn't it? Technically, we're giving them what they've been asking for: we're "teaching the controversy" as it were.

 

[Elixir]

Hey, this would get their beliefs into classrooms, wouldn't it? Technically, we're giving them what they've been asking for: we're "teaching the controversy" as it were.

Ostensibly "what they've been asking for", but creos are not noted for thinking through the consequences of their own demands...
What they REALLY want is to turn science class into Sunday School, with an optional mention of the fact (as an afterthought) that "some scientists think evolution is real".

 

[rousseau]

Yep, psychic expos are definitely a thing that really happens. I like the idea of incorporating pseudoscience into science class, but I think it'd work better if the emphasis was on 'evidence based thinking', with pseudoscience being among a variety of examples.