Games to Improve Science & Education

Has science taken a wrong turn? If so, what corrections are needed? Chronicles of scientific misbehavior. The role of heretic-pioneers and forbidden questions in the sciences. Is peer review working? The perverse "consensus of leading scientists." Good public relations versus good science.

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Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Games to Improve Science & Education

Unread post by Lloyd » Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:53 am

The thread on How to change public opinion was interesting. Glad to see some enthusiasm. I hope participants in that thread may have interest in this one too.

I've been working with CNPS at http://forums.naturalphilosophy.org/ where they're trying to improve scientific discussion and publish alternative science in a Wiki etc.

For several years I've also had ideas about making some games educational. One simple way would be to require passwords to enter each new room in games where players go from room to room, like in Dungeons and Dragons. The passwords would be correct answers to questions.

A couple days ago it occurred to me that science discussion could occur in a similar game form too. I helped develop a process at CNPS for publishing Wiki papers via teamwork. And I think each step of the process could be simulated as a room in the game. In order to enter the next room the team must accomplish a task. There are ten to twenty tasks in all, so there would be that many rooms to go through before the team can finish the game.

The list of tasks we came up with are: Pick a science topic; name 5 good theories that deal with it; rate each theory; list 5 major claims about the same 5 features for each theory; ask 5 important questions about each claim; find the best answer (data) to each question; rate how well each answer explains the data. The winner is whoever was most correct in initially rating theories and in writing the best questions etc.

If anyone would like to try out this sort of game with me here, part of your reward could be knowing that you're helping improve science etc. You can help make the rules of the game, which might improve your odds of "winning". So I guess I'll post what I'm working on and explain where we're at in the first game.

Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Games to Improve Science & Education

Unread post by Lloyd » Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:04 pm

Room 1
(I'm in the middle of the first game already. Or I can use it as an example of how the game could be played.)
Let's say in order to get to this Room, we had to pick a science topic, and we picked Geology.

So the task to complete to enter Room 2 is Name 8 good theories on Geology, their leading proponents and their sources.

We chose:
1. ET: Expansion Tectonics __ James Maxlow __ http://www.expansiontectonics.com
2. PT: Plate Tectonics __ Wikipedia __ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
3. ST: Surge Tectonics __ Dong Choi __ http://ncgt.org __ https://cnps.createaforum.com/1-3/1-19
4. VC: Velikovskian Catastrophism __ (Immanuel Velikovsky, deceased), John Ackerman, Gary Gilligan __ http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/Ve , http://www.firmament-chaos.com , http://www.godkingscenario.com/
5. EU: Electrodynamic Universe __ (Ralph Juergens, deceased), Wal Thornhill, Don Scott __ http://holoscience.com, http://thunderbolts.info
6. ESU: Electrostatic Universe __ Charles Chandler __ http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=6031
7. SD: Shock Dynamics __ Mike Fischer __ http://NewGeology.us , (LK1-4) http://funday.createaforum.com/index.php
8. CR: Creationism __ Michael Oard, John Baumgardner __ http://creation.com/michael-j-oard , http://www.socalsem.edu/2015/08/09/noah ... th-history

The dotted line below is the wall & door to Room 2
----------------------------------------------------_____________________-----------------------------------------------------
Room 2
We listed the 8 theories in Room 1, so we were able to enter Room 2.
To enter Room 3 list 5 main features & claims of each theory.

5 Features:
F: (Formation) Origin & Dating of Earth & Solar System
C: Origin, Arrangement & Composition of Continental & Oceanic Crust
S: Origin & Dating of Sedimentary Rock Strata & Fossils
O: Cause of Orogenesis
GL: Cause of Glaciation

ET:
_F: PT Nebular Hypothesis. Then Earth (and other celestial bodies with magnetic fields) expanded significantly over millions of years.
_C: Earth oceans are where most expansion has occurred at Earth's surface. Earth's mass increase comes from the solar wind, which causes expansion at the core-mantle boundary inside the Earth.
_S: (See JM Manu.)
_O: Mountain ranges occur near continental edges due to reduction in the Earth's radius of curvature that occurs with expansion at the surface.
_GL: (See JM Manu.)

PT:
_F: Stars & planets form by gravitational accretion of cosmic dust as per the Nebular Hypothesis
_C: Islands formed and mantle convection caused them to slowly form a supercontinent. Mantle convection caused the supercontinent to slowly split apart into continents.
_S: Sedimentary rock strata were deposited in shallow seas on the continents over millions of years.
_O: Mountain ranges formed slowly from continental collisions and magma plumes etc.
_GL: Glaciation was caused by cooling.

ST:
_F: PT Nebular Hypothesis.
_C: Earth shrank significantly over millions of years, due to cooling.
_The lithosphere contains a worldwide network of deformable magma surge channels in which partial magma melt is in motion, due to Earth contraction and rotation.
_The Earth contains several concentric shells, which are explicable only if the Earth differentiated efficiently and at a much higher temperature than today.
_The antipodal positions of the continents and ocean basins (unlikely a matter of chance) mean that Earth passed through a molten phase. Heated spheres cool by rupture along great circles and remnants of two such great circles are active today: the Circum-Pacific and Tethys-Mediterranean fold systems.
_Flood basalt covering most of the seafloor and parts of continents originated from surge channel ruptures.
_Oceanization is the tendency of continental land to sink and become seafloor.
_Earth and planetary (particularly solar) interaction affects global tectonics
_S:
_O: Mountain ranges are formed by vertical uplift from below.
_There is Earth's core, mantle and crust interaction, in which thermal energy from the core is the fundamental energy source of global tectonic activities including earthquakes, volcanoes, rise and sink of the Earth surface, and global climate as well
_GL:

VC:
_F: Earth was formerly a moon of Saturn, but Saturn as a small star had a flareup which led to Earth escaping from Saturn.
_C:
_S:
_O:
_GL:

EU:
_F: Stars and planets form from galactic electric currents, which continue to power stars after formation.
_C:
_S:
_O: Mountain ranges were formed from electric discharges from the Sun or a large planet that heated a large discharge channel, which expanded, uplifting mountains.
_GL:

ESU:
_F: Stars and planets form by implosions of galactic electrostatic filaments, which produce current-free electric double layers within the bodies, which produce radiation, earthquakes, volcanism etc.
_C: Stars decay, eventually becoming gas giant planets, which lose atmosphere and become rocky planets.
_S:
_O: Mountain ranges were formed by rapid continental drift due to a large asteroid impact.
_GL:

SD:
_F:
_C: Then a giant meteorite impact north of what is now Madagascar divided the protocontinent into the continents and islands via Shock Dynamics.
_S: During this Flood orbiting asteroid-caused tsunamis deposited sediment from the continental shelf onto the protocontinent.
- As atmospheric pressure fell, much calcium carbonate precipitated from the sea water, forming thick sedimentary rock with fossils.
_O: The movement of plates raised nearly all of the mountain chains via horizontal compression, and initiated global volcanism.
_GL: Movement of continents toward the poles along with atmospheric moisture and volcanic and impact dust led to glaciation.

CR:
_F: The solar system was created.
_C: The Earth was created.
_S: Tsunamis deposited sediment from the continental shelf onto the protocontinent, forming thick sedimentary rock with fossils.
_O: Rapid continental drift due to mantle convection formed mountain ranges.
_GL: Asteroid impacts led to glaciation.

.....

CAN ANYONE HELP GET THIS INFO? IF NOT, I'LL HAVE TO DO THE WORK MYSELF & TAKE LONGER.
To get to Room 3 we still need claims from these theories about these features:
for ST: _S: _GL:
for VC: _F: (maybe more) _C: _S: _O: _GL:
for SD: _F:
for EU: _C: _S: _GL:
for ESU: _S: _GL:
Here again is the list of features that the abbreviations mean after each of those 5 remaining theories:
F: (Formation) Origin & Dating of Earth & Solar System
C: Origin, Arrangement & Composition of Continental & Oceanic Crust
S: Origin & Dating of Sedimentary Rock Strata & Fossils
O: Cause of Orogenesis
GL: Cause of Glaciation

Besides looking up info on those last few claims, let's think about how points should be earned along the way.


----------------------------------------------------_____________________-----------------------------------------------------
Room 3

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