Mendel, Mendeleev and Me: Teaching's Impact upon Research

Abstract

Nearly every biology teacher is exhorted at some time in his or her career to keep up with research in order to enthuse students about scientific enterprise or contribute something to that body of knowledge. I believe that typical researcher's disdain for teachers is very ill-founded. Especially irritating is their old slogan: Those that can, do; those that can't, teach. This epithet epitomizes a fundamental misconception about teaching. Unfortunately, even recent debates on connection between teaching and research which report that it is a false dichotomy, have predominantly relied upon polarized definitions of two (Hilton 1978). I assert that teaching has been, and continues to be, source for many excellent ideas in science. I will support this position with documentation from research of two eminent teacher-scholars: Mendel and Mendeleev, from colleagues, and my personal experiences. I apologize for latter, but I have not found a good way to generalize from that personal data. In general, I believe that, even if we could not point to such eminent individuals as Mendel and Mendeleev, we could make an extremely strong case for contributions that teachers make to scientific research. First, although obvious but often ignored, our instruction accounts for almost all past, present and future researcher's initial education and encouragement to enter science as a profession. Second, many of us have guided students through their first attempts at scientific investigation, usually through some kind of independent project. Third, I believe that, every time a scientific theory, law, hypothesis, or argument is presented to a class or a single student, there occurs a somewhat independent test of evidentiary warrant for belief in reasonability and empirical substantiation of concept. Since science education is rapidly spreading to many countries and cultures across globe, we will have numerous opportunities for even more rigorous tests of almost every major scientific hypothesis that is currently held. While each of these classroom tests is not an independent analysis, surely major incompatibilities would have an excellent chance of being uncovered just as an innocent child might have temerity to suggest that emperor's new clothes were nonexistent. Furthermore, if we acknowledge that material usually taught in classrooms deals primarily with foundations of science, then such tests are exceedingly important to health of science. Finally, besides students' tests of these concepts, my primary thesis is that teachers (and some students) are asked, or forced, more frequently than pure researchers, to integrate, synthesize and evaluate scientific knowledge. One British chemist, Brian Pethica, has said that he gets about three research ideas out of every class, either in preparation of lectures or from student questions. Thus, to counter old adage employed above, many of us know contradictory statement that you don't know a subject until you've taught it. It is this integrative, synthetic aspect of scientific research which I believe best characterizes work of Mendel, Mendeleev and me. Mendel's ability as a teacher is well known. Nonetheless historians of science do not seem to consider that to any large degree when they try to discern origins of his scientific thinking. Some historians, however, do note that amongst his teachers were eminent scholars, Christian Doppler, physicist who described analytically what is now known as Doppler effect, and Franz Unger, a plant breeder who strongly believed in evolution. Also included are two other physicists: Franz and Ettinghausen, a zoologist: Kner, a paleontologist: Zeckeli, and a chemist: Redtenbacher. Monaghan and Corcos (1983) propose that it was impact of latter and simultaneous transition of continuous to particulate theories in several fields (phlogiston theory of combustion to oxygen theory; caloric theory of heat to kinetic-molecular theory; theories of electricity to particulate theories) which led Mendel to seek whole number ratios and to supplant the various seminal-fluid theories of reproduction by particulate sperm-egg theory and not least, replacement of blending-fluid theories of inheritance by Mendel's unit factor or gene theory. Some have even wondered whether Mendel primarily performed his experiments in order to vindi-