Regional teacher training shows promise . A program to train teachers in the Northwest appears to be off to a promising start, according to _ School District 88 superintendent Frank Hamilton. . Hamilton informed the district board of trustees Oct. 9 that the program now has 42 people _enroled, 18 of them from School ’ District 88. _: The program was conceived by a consortium of six school districts in the Northwest to address the problem of recruiting new teachers for the region. With an outreach program from Simon Fraser Uni- versity faculty of education, the _ program was set up to offer teach- ing degree training to people living in the region who already held - bachelors degrees in other discip- lines. The consortium believes that training residents of the area for teaching will provide a pool of qualified teachers for recruitment who are likely to remain here. The program is being delivered by three full-time coordinators from SFU. : "It looks pretty good," Hamilton told the board, "Some of these ‘people are coming along very well" =” Teachers new to district Inducted Contributed by Robert Brown Fifty-five new teachers were formally inducted into the local Terrace and District Teachers’ Association and the British Col- -umbia Teachers’ Federation on Friday, Oct..5, in a ceremony held at the Terrace Inn. Teachers who have come from ~ as far away as Newfoundland to work in School District 88 were awarded membership certifi- cates and pins, and welcomed by their local colleagues. T.D.T.A. president Robert .Brown addressed both new and ‘established teachers and echoed ‘a message from B.C.T.F. presi- dent Ken Novakowski that “« preparing young people for the future is challenging, ex- hausting, exhilarating, and rewarding,’’ and that the ‘teaching profession is made up -of.-‘‘...dedicated, courageous people, committed to providing ‘quality: education. for ‘all stu- _ dents.” “ “The ceremony was followed by a social event in which new teachers made acquaintance with their colleagues from other - schools. - Sire. B6 Terrace Review — Wednesday, October 17, 1990 . Just the facts, please Facts are safe. They are real. They are true. ‘But so much of what we under- stand of reality is based on — not facts, but guesses. "Our understand- ing of the uni- verse,” wrote Gerrit Verschuur, "is largely deter- mined by the theories we develop to explain observation." That is a fact. ‘But at the same time,”’ the astronomer continued, ‘‘it’s im- portant to remember that theory may include so many variables that a sufficiently clever person could explain virtually anything — even things that don’t, in the end, actually exist.” Things that don’t exist? Interesting observation, Is it true? Twinkle, twinkle little star Remember the supernova that exploded into view.a few winters ago? Popularly called Shelton’s star (named after Canadian astronomer Ian Shelton, its discoverer), the star’s death throes were monitored, studied, analyzed and matched against popular theories of how a star dies. Although not visible from the north- ern hemisphere, it periodically made the news and.has developed an interesting obituary. The most fascinating report occurred in January 1989, The well-accepted theory of star evolution states _ that the expected outcome of a supernova explosion is a pulsar (a rapidly spinning, very dense star that emits pulses of radiation — much like a lighthouse does with its ‘‘pulses’’ of light). ‘““Natural- ly,”? wrote Verschuur in a recent issue of Astronomy magazine, ‘‘many astronomers wanted to be the first to ‘spot the pulsar ~ glimmering fitfully in the wreckage of the exploded star.”’ What did observers discover? In due course, the story goes, a team of astronomers did indeed observe a star they believed to be Shelton’s star. It seemed to fit the picture of what was expected in theory. However, measurements indicated the pulsar was spin- ning ‘‘unprecendentedly fast’’. So fast, in fact, that the thing should have spun apart. It seemed that a new physics was needed to explain the observed phenomenon. But that’s not all — “‘when the observers returned to make more measurements, they found no evidence of the pulsar at all,’’ Verschuur related. How does a star vanish? Why? ‘‘Despite some questions about the reliability of the observations, theorists promptly offered many highly plausible explanations for the disappearance of the pulsar.” And why it was pulsing so rapidly... “Yet this theoriz- ing was pointless because recently the pulses were found to originate not in the supernova’s stellar remnant.’’ Instead, the - pulses were emanating from here on earth — from a faulty guide camera on the telescope used in observing the star. What was observed was error and consequently so were the proposed theories. 7 What can we learn from this? An honest mistake? . “The question running through my mind,” asked Verschuur, ‘is if theoreticians can account for virtually anything, how can we trust them...? ‘Theories stand or fall by the observational data they explain. Therefore, why do so many astronomers place so much emphasis on theory over data?”’ _ Adefeating scenario . What if a group of astronomers had their wildest dream real- ized: a message from outer space. Verschuur described what might happen this way: ‘‘Even if we were to detect a radio signal from an extraterrestrial civilization, we might never realize it because theoreticians would ‘soon provide.elegant natural explana- tions for it! In fact, how long. would we persist in refining theories before we gave up and considered the possibility that the radio signal in fact originated from an intelligent source... ‘‘An uncomfortable feeling remains,”’ concluded Verschuur, “that we often get so carried away by our theories that we forget that even the best of them may have little to do with reality.”’ One more bone to pick To believe in theories requires a certain amount of faith, Adn trust — In another science magazine, Discover, one of the top science stories from 1989 touched on the concern of trust in the scientific community. The subject: fossil fraud. _ Described as “perhaps the biggest geologic hoax of all time,” _ the story involved a prominent, and previously respected Indian scientist named Vishwa: Jit Gupta. Charged with “deliberately falsifying a body of work that spans 25 years and more than 350 ‘scientific papers,’ Gupta has been accused of distorting the whole geologic picture of the area in which he claims to have found fossils. ‘‘Researchers who relied on Gupta’s dates, or on the fossils themselves, will have to rethink their work,”’ the arti- cle said. The paleontologist published a five-volumn set of work between 1973 and 1977 that used the ages of his fossils to date the surrounding rock in which they were reported to have been found, thereby affecting the results of all research in that area, Can't help wondering How many other scientists throughout history have misrep- resented the facts, either intentionally or in ignorance? I can’t help wondering... Evolution is a theory, A belief, Yet it is so widely embraced and accepted, as if it were fact — as if already proven to be ‘true... Sir Fred Hoyle, cosmologist and astrophysicist, wrote critically in The Intelligent Universe: ‘‘How has the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection managed, for upwards of a.cen- tury, to fasten itself like a superstition on so-called enlightened , opinion? Why is the theory still defended so vigorously? Per- sonally, I have little doubt that scientific historians of the future will find it mysterious that a theory which could be seen to be unworkable came to be so widely believed...”’ , Wow? What William R. Fix found astonishing was ‘‘the unflagging - scientific respectability’? of the theory of evolution. In his book The Bone Peddlers he wrote: ‘‘The idea that the human body evolved from something like an ape would probably have been laughed off stage by the general public long ago, and new ideas and different concepts would have been demanded....Given the extent to which this notion is intellectually fashionable, one would have thought that the history of this field was an un- broken string of triumphant verifications; instead it is mostly a catalogue of fiascoes.” A catalogue of fiascoes??? Who to believe... It’s all very confusing. And a little disturbing. Who do you believe? What do you believe? . Expressed Gerrit Verschuur, ‘‘Is it really too much to expect us (referring to the scientific community) to transcend dlever and beautiful theories or beliefs if they stand in the way.of seeing the universe more clearly?”’ ae Just the facts, please A fact is something true, real, and actual; something known to have happened. Theory, however, is synonymous with guess. A well-educated and informed guess, undoubtedly, but nevertheless dependent upon as-yet to be proved or tested scientific, evidence. " Verschuur warned of being ‘prisoners of the way we habitually think.’” - Pertiaps the danger, then, is in believing guesses and accepting theory as fact, thus closing our minds to truth when it becomes apparent. . OCTOBER 1 - OCTOBER 31 SPECIALS “BAVARIAN BAUERN | SCHMAUS” Grilled sausages, smoked pork loin, Bavarian meatloaf, sauerkraut and dumpling. MUENCHENER SCHWEINSHAX’N Pork Hocks with friéd potatoes and warm cabbage salad $12.95 $14.95 POTPOURRI OF SAUSAGES SCHWEINE BRATEN Veal bratwurst, pork bratwurst, Porkroast with sauerkraut Bavarlan smokle, red cabbage, and dumpling sauerkraut and home $13.95 fried potatoes $12.95 “OKTOBERFEST” is Wunderbar! I Oktoberfest Luncheon Specials also Available! OKTOBERFEST DANCE Saturday, October 27 Reserve Now! 2 ai eae, Pe “iA ; : c Ask about our Banquet Facilities! 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