[VadeRetro]

How do we enhance student learning by lying to them?

We could make a game of it. Call it "Spot the Bullsh*t," a game in which students evaluate different presenters on scientific validity of presentation.

The first thoughts on a cheat sheet for such a test:

• If he's telling you you'll go to hell for disbelieving, it isn't science.
• If he's appealing to the world-wide conspiracy to suppress the truth, it isn't science.
• If the evidence is just sort of everywhere around you but not in any specific series of studies or experiments, it isn't science.
• If it's a drive-by shooting of one unsupported statement after another after another, it probably isn't science. (Or, if it is, it's too poorly presented to tell.)
• If the presenter can't seem to understand your questions or objections, that's a bad sign.
• If the presentation is "all arithmetic and no model," that's a bad sign.

[Dimensio]

If it's simultaneously completely compatable and also totally at odds with existing well-established science, then it isn't science.