Alternative conceptions and history of science in physics teacher education

[Excerpt] Introduction: One of the objectives of science teaching in secondary schools is to enable students to master some scientific concepts and principles which are thought to be useful to every individual living in modern society. The process of concept formation includes a stage which consists of differentiating one concept from other concepts that are, or seem to be, related to it. By means of progressive differentiation, the relevant attributes are assigned to the concept, leading to a distinction between its examples and nonexamples. However, differentiating concepts is seldom an easy task, as the irrelevant attributes often seem to be more appealing than the relevant attributes, and therefore the former have a higher probabiiity of being stored in unaware minds than the latter. On the other hand. our senses frequently need to be ampiified in order to have access to some fundamentai relevant attributes. The power of amplification of our senses has been increasing through the centuries, enabling present scientists to do things otherwise unthinkabie. However, only an almost insignificant percentage of individuals become real scientists. [...]