what is the goal of "learning"?

Recently on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart reported on "controversy" surrounding the TLC show American Muslim, highlighting an unfortunate American attitude about education:

The crux of the Florida Family Association's complaint is that the show is:

"harmful, education-wise, to the belief structures and memories of millions of Americans who will look at this and say, well, 'all Muslims are like that', when it's not accurate."

This prompts Stewart to ask:

"Is that not the purpose of education vis-a-vis belief structures? To replace your belief structures with...facts?"

This controversy surrounds cultural stereotypes, but applies to all kinds of education, including science. I think Stewart's take on belief structures versus facts reflects the view of many science supporters, but I also think (hope?) that most educators and scientists, at least in psychology, view learning as the replacement of belief structures with other belief structures.

Does this mean all beliefs are valid, and should be taken equally seriously? Of course not; why bother learning/teaching anything if that were the case? We just hope that the new belief structures are more useful and reality-based than the old ones. Often though, some belief structures, especially those linked to religion, are held to be "out-of-bounds" by the public for re-education. This leads to clashes over scientific and political issues, such as global warming and the teaching of evolution, where some players hold that their belief systems are to be held equally or more valid than the prevailing scientific evidence.

I think that part of the cause for this lies with how scientists and scientist-educators have communicated about science. While rightfully abandoning arguments from authority and emphasizing the processes of the scientific method, we have fallen short and left a large segment of the population with the impression that all scientific knowledge is equally tentative. This has been further compounded by academic critiques of science (i.e., the Science Wars), whose unintended consequences led Bruno Latour to remark that

"dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives".

Science isn't perfect (and scientists certainly aren't), and is built on the assumption that we should continually refine our theories and methods; but this doesn't mean that the whole of science is a house of cards. Absolute truths are hard to come by, but the fundamental goal of science is to use reasoning and technology to create knowledge (or belief systems, if you will) that is more closely aligned with what is "true".

How do we do this? Richard Dawkins has stated that he wouldn't indoctrinate children in atheism any more than he would indoctrinate them in any religion. He would simply teach them about religion (and science, and everything else), and let them decide on their own worldview. E.O. Wilson proposed a good rule of thumb:

"To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong."

In this way, I think science is on the right track, but needs to work on its messaging. To the extent that opponents of science misappropriate the notion of rigorous inquiry position to attack science, their beliefs need to be held to the same standard, and scientists need to point out when these positions are not even wrong.

While I'm always discouraged to see poor understanding of science by the public and news media, I have a positive outlook. Public thought about science seems to me to be mirroring the process a child goes through in learning, which is often a U-shaped curve. Right now, we are at a developmental stage in which we have moved from an understanding of science as a set of facts to one where science is a process of inquiry, and the widespread doubts about scientific theories actually reflects the early stages of a more advanced understanding. By continuing to educate students and the public about the process and philosophy of science, I hope that we can advance our understanding up the other side of the curve.