What political economic and historical conditions galvanized research into effectiveness of lecture-based science instruction?
How did the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCTS) become defunct? And how did they partner with NSTA to host their teaching resources?
How has skepticism informed science pedagogy? (cue Carl Sagan, mythbusters, Richard Dawkins etc). Under what historical and political conditions did skepticism emerge and was considered valuable? What were and are its exclusions?
The editors cite Matt Ridley's horrible 2010 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the superiority of homo sapiens vs neanderthals. Ridley is a conservative British politician, a hereditary peer, and a well-established climate change skeptic. See his exposure by Desmog: https://www.desmog.com/matt-ridley/. Elsewhere, the case studies written by editors point to the public concern over dioxin exposure as a "cultural paradigm", and evaluate EPA's decision to relocate homes as less than a careful decision.
In their evaluation of science as self-correcting, the editors evoke mildly eugenicist framing, e.g. using Darwinian evolutionism to protray science as self-correcting ("robust ideas have long-term survival), and this very concerning phrase, "public health officials have brought sanitation, vaccines, and medicines to the world, only to see the world’s population explode and, with it, increased famine." Elsewhere, trade and urbanization are stated as more valuable than governments, money, or genius, for innovation.
Editors' concept of the relationship between science as ethics is also concerning. On one hand, scientists are framed as just any kind of human, only with a special skill set. On the other, science is held as constantly pushing the ethical frontiers of science, be it with good or bad effects.
