A GERM THEORY OF EDUCATION                         (c)1997 William Beaty

   Like the disease infections which travel between hosts, information
   travels between textbooks.  It does so when students are taught from
   one book, and later they grow up, become authors, and write new
   textbooks.  This sort of information-spreading can happen faster when
   an author uses earlier textbooks as references when writing a new
   textbook.  In this way, one text or reference book can "infect" many
   others with its own information.

   As in epidemics, a particular piece of information can spread 
   exponentially: the more textbooks it occupies, the more likely it is 
   that other textbooks will acquire it.  The spread of a particular
   fact can often be more than exponential:   the more textbooks it
   occupies, the higher we perceive its credibility to be.  If many
   textbooks assert the same thing, authors will include that fact in
   their newly-written texts.  They might not check the fact for accuracy
   on the assumption that so many other textbooks cannot possibly be
   wrong.   Or so we might believe.

   Textbooks and humans act as independent populations which can 
   infect each other with information.  Textbooks are "disease vectors"
   which spread information (Or if you want to get Dawkinsesque, humans
   are the disease vectors, and a human author is simply an efficient
   method which the "Information" has developed in order to spread itself
   around to other books!)

  :)

   There is a "Typhoid Mary" phenomena.  If a piece of information
   manages to worm its way into an authoritative reference book, it
   spreads like wildfire.

   Unfortunately, all of the above information-spreading methods will
   operate regardless of whether a piece of information is true or false.
   The bad information can be spread almost as easily as the good.  If
   most reference books contain a particular error, then all new books
   will probably aquire that error too.  Useful knowledge can spread among
   texts and references, but this makes them vulnerable to a "disease" of
   misleading facts, incorrect facts, and common misconceptions.

   Some authors are more prone to the infection than others.  A non-expert
   author who relies more on reference books than on direct personal 
   knowledge of a subject will be more likely to pass along misinformation.
   And if some authors adopt the philosophy that "this many other
   textbooks can't be wrong", then those authors will easily spread common
   misconceptions, and will spread them faster than exponentially.

   There are competing "infections" of information.  Incorrect information
   competes with correct information for the same "environmental niche"
   within the books: it's much the same way that cowpox competes with
   smallpox.  Certain people can develop immunity: if you *know* the
   correct information, then the misconception cannot infect you.  Yet
   this works both ways: if you have been taught the misconception early
   on, then your later encounters with the correct information will
   fall on deaf ears.

   Evolutionary forces are important in textbook diseases.  As it travels
   from book to book, an error can start out as an inadvertent mistake,
   and over time it can be honed and polished into a ravening plague which
   invariably forces the correct information out of new textbooks.

   Incorrect yet simple "facts" can push out the more complicated truths.

   There is an uninfected population of books and humans as well as an
   infected population.  There is also a population which became immune
   via "innoculation."  Authors, students, and educators who are 
   intentionally made aware of the error can no longer become infected.

   Perhaps even an active "immune system" exists: those who are made aware
   of the "germ theory" of Information-transfer can begin developing a
   strong intellectual immune system" which deals with all sorts of
   "killer diseases."  People who are hyper-sensitive to misconceptions
   and errors in textbooks will tend to avoid infection.

   Here's the best route to conquering the disease: search out information
   about misconceptions.  Don't just try to aquire knowledge.  Also build
   up your defenses by learning about your "enemy": the bad information
   which wants to infect your brain.

   Everybody please form a line and roll up your sleeves!  (grin!)


http://amasci.com/miscon/germ.txt