Today's guest calls himself the Bad Astronomer.  Phil Plait is an astronomer, an author, and a well-known blogger at www.badastronomy.com.  Phil talks to us about myths and skepticism in the science classroom.

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Preview from the show:

Plait: I
am in fact a skeptic.  In the public mind - if you ask somebody "what's
a skeptic" - most people think it's a cynic or a denier, somebody who
just doesn't believe in anything.  And that's not strictly true.  All a skeptic is, is someone who demands evidence for a claim.  If you come
up to me and say the sky is pink, I'm going to say "what is your
evidence for this?".  Or I'll say, "that's an interesting claim, but
here's the evidence against it."  It's someone who applies critical
thinking, logic, evidence, observation, the scientific method to any
sort of claim.

Science is all about skepticism.  They are
hardly different - I mean skepticism is a tool of science.  Richard
Feynman (the physicist) said "science is a way of not fooling
ourselves. It's a way of figuring what's out what's really going on".  
And skepticism is just a way of looking at things.  It's making sure
that if you're thinking about something, if there's a claim that's
being made - whether it's by a person or even yourself, there's a way
of examining it so that you can test its reality or not. And the
problem is, it's not something we teach our kids.  In fact, we teach
them exactly the opposite.  We teach them to believe in Santa Claus and
the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.  We go to movies where the skeptic
is always a jerk, and the end is always the supenatural cause or trust
in humanity or whatever."


Plait:
Scooby Doo was a great cartoon because
in the end, it really wasn't a ghost or whatever, it was always old man
Marley wearing a mask, who didn't want the developers to come in and
destroy his farm or whatever."


Plait:
When you're teaching kids to the
test, and you're saying "here's how you do the math" without explaining
why, "here's what you're supposed to get in the results in the lab"
without explaining why, we're not teaching our kids science.  We're
teaching them nothing, we're teaching them belief, faith - and that's
not what science is about.  Science is not about belief, science is
about evidence.



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Posts from badastronomy.com discussed on the show:

Standing an Egg on End on the Spring EquinoxAre Apollo Moon Photos Fake?Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"


Books:


Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"read NSTA's recommendation of the book

Death From the Skies (pre-order from Amazon.com)



Skepticism on the Internet:

The Skeptics DictionaryJames Randi Educational FoundationPZ Myers: Pharyngula BlogPoint of Inquiry PodcastSkeptical Inquirer MagazineSkeptoid PodcastSkepticalitySkeptic's Guide to the Universe