What would happen if they opened Pandora’s Box?

The NYTimes today has an interesting article titled Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel. It opens with the following paragraphs:

"Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out.

Coaches and personal trainers tell athletes and exercisers that they have to learn to work out at just below their "lactic threshold," that point of diminishing returns when lactic acid starts to accumulate. Some athletes even have blood tests to find their personal lactic thresholds.

But that, it turns out, is all wrong. Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

"It's one of the classic mistakes in the history of science," Dr. Brooks said.

* * *

That's certainly what I believed growing up. Oops.

I am posting this article because it reminded me again that I dearly wish high school students would be introduced to the philosophy of science, perhaps through articles such as this one. (and that the only thing I have to say about the Intelligent Design debate)

I think it is a very valuable thing to know that what is taught in textbooks are largely theories that are constructed by "experts," some of which are wrong. It is a radical concept for to think that our notions of how the world works could be best categorized on a continuum of usefulness instead of correct or incorrect.

The lesson from the article is not that one scientist got it really wrong, but that much of what we learn in school is theory and that theories, about how electricity or gravity or cooking work, are constructed by people who are trying to understand something. If the theory fits the data (say the sun revolving around the earth) and allows us to predict what we need (seasons, eclipses, etc.) then theory is largely unquestioned unless mounting contradictory evidence challenge it. I think it is fascinating that we are regularly learning and espousing ideas that are completely mistaken, as my whole life when I’ve complained about lactic acid making me sore. It’s a nice call for humility eh? I still count reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as one of the best books I've read for introducing that idea to me.

I wonder if studying how textbooks might be wrong might not appeal to the anti-authoritarian streak present in many teenagers, which might therefore engage them in learning. Perhaps it is that since studying the philosophy of science encourages anti-authoritarian thinking teachers and school boards don't include it in the curriculum. Unpacking the Pandora's box of questioning scientific (or historical) knowledge makes you ask how the knowledge in the textbooks was created, whether we can or should trust it and how to do better if we could. That's a lot of thinking for both students and teachers.