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Lie-to-children
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Lie-to-children
A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.
The "lie-to-children" concept was first discussed by scientist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart in the 1994 book The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World as myths—a means of ensuring that accumulated cultural lore is passed on to future generations in a way that was sufficient but not completely true.
They further elaborated upon their views in Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind, stating that the lie-to-children concept reflected the difficulty inherent in reducing complex concepts during the education process. Stewart and Cohen noted that "[a]ny description suitable for human minds to grasp must be some type of lie-to-children", and that the truth is "much too complicated for our limited minds".
The concept gained greater exposure when they co-authored The Science of Discworld with author Terry Pratchett. In this book, the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie". In an interview promoting the book, Pratchett cautioned: "Most of us need just 'enough' knowledge of the sciences, and it's delivered to us in metaphors and analogies that bite us in the bum if we think they're the same as the truth."
A typical example of a lie-to-children is found in physics and chemistry, where the Bohr model (one type of planetary model) of atomic electron shells is still often used to introduce atomic structure before moving on to more complex models based on modern quantum mechanics. In a sense, these Bohr model diagrams can be better understood as a schematic illustrating how many electrons are in which shell and/or the redistribution of electrons in an ionic bond or covalent bond.
Similarly in chemistry, students are often introduced to the Arrhenius definitions of acids and bases before being taught the more technically correct but more complex Brønsted–Lowry model, followed by the Lewis model. This order of teaching chemistry concepts also reflects the historical progression in the development of these models.
High school teachers and university instructors often explain at the outset that the model they are about to present is incomplete. An example of this was given by Gerald Sussman during the 1986 video recording of the Abelson–Sussman Lectures:
If we're going to understand processes and how we control them, then we have to have a mapping from the mechanisms of this procedure into the way in which these processes behave. What we're going to have is a formal, or semi-formal, mechanical model whereby you understand how a machine could, in fact, in principle, do this. Whether or not the actual machine really does what I'm about to tell you is completely irrelevant at this moment.
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Lie-to-children AI simulator
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Lie-to-children
A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.
The "lie-to-children" concept was first discussed by scientist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart in the 1994 book The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World as myths—a means of ensuring that accumulated cultural lore is passed on to future generations in a way that was sufficient but not completely true.
They further elaborated upon their views in Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind, stating that the lie-to-children concept reflected the difficulty inherent in reducing complex concepts during the education process. Stewart and Cohen noted that "[a]ny description suitable for human minds to grasp must be some type of lie-to-children", and that the truth is "much too complicated for our limited minds".
The concept gained greater exposure when they co-authored The Science of Discworld with author Terry Pratchett. In this book, the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie". In an interview promoting the book, Pratchett cautioned: "Most of us need just 'enough' knowledge of the sciences, and it's delivered to us in metaphors and analogies that bite us in the bum if we think they're the same as the truth."
A typical example of a lie-to-children is found in physics and chemistry, where the Bohr model (one type of planetary model) of atomic electron shells is still often used to introduce atomic structure before moving on to more complex models based on modern quantum mechanics. In a sense, these Bohr model diagrams can be better understood as a schematic illustrating how many electrons are in which shell and/or the redistribution of electrons in an ionic bond or covalent bond.
Similarly in chemistry, students are often introduced to the Arrhenius definitions of acids and bases before being taught the more technically correct but more complex Brønsted–Lowry model, followed by the Lewis model. This order of teaching chemistry concepts also reflects the historical progression in the development of these models.
High school teachers and university instructors often explain at the outset that the model they are about to present is incomplete. An example of this was given by Gerald Sussman during the 1986 video recording of the Abelson–Sussman Lectures:
If we're going to understand processes and how we control them, then we have to have a mapping from the mechanisms of this procedure into the way in which these processes behave. What we're going to have is a formal, or semi-formal, mechanical model whereby you understand how a machine could, in fact, in principle, do this. Whether or not the actual machine really does what I'm about to tell you is completely irrelevant at this moment.