Thanks for pointing this out. I think the OP might have gotten their conclusion from this paragraph:
(Note that, in the web page that the OP links to, this very paragraph is quoted, but for some reason “energy” is substituted for “center-of-mass”. Not sure what’s going on there.)
In any case, this paragraph makes it sound like participants who inherited a wrong theory did do worse on tests of understanding (even though participants who inherited some theory did the same on average of those who inherited only data, which I guess implies that those who inherited a right theory did better). I’m slightly off-put by the fact that this nuance isn’t present in the OP’s post, and that they haven’t responded to your comment, but not nearly as much as I had been when I’d read only your comment, before I went to read (the first 200 lines of) the paper for myself.
The command to spread observations rather than theories is a valuable one. I often find it to result in far less confusion.
That said, I’m not sure it follows from a paper. You say it implies
This wasn’t found. Here are the two relevant screenshots (the opening line is key, and then the graph also shows no real difference).
Passing along theories didn’t make things worse, the two groups (data vs data+theory) were equally good.
Thanks for pointing this out. I think the OP might have gotten their conclusion from this paragraph:
(Note that, in the web page that the OP links to, this very paragraph is quoted, but for some reason “energy” is substituted for “center-of-mass”. Not sure what’s going on there.)
In any case, this paragraph makes it sound like participants who inherited a wrong theory did do worse on tests of understanding (even though participants who inherited some theory did the same on average of those who inherited only data, which I guess implies that those who inherited a right theory did better). I’m slightly off-put by the fact that this nuance isn’t present in the OP’s post, and that they haven’t responded to your comment, but not nearly as much as I had been when I’d read only your comment, before I went to read (the first 200 lines of) the paper for myself.