So I just finished reading The Lost City of Z.
And I’m going to spoil it for you if you a) haven’t read it or b) haven’t read any major archeological journals in the last 8 years or so.
The book ends with the recent discovery of the ruins of what is thought to have been a major metropolis in the deepest jungles of the Amazon. El Dorado. Z. The city of legend.
The author of the book then goes on to explain in great detail how the discovery of these ruins calls into question essentially everything we ‘knew’ about the settling of Homo Sapiens in the Americas.
So once again, we find information we didn’t have. And based on that information the ‘facts’ changed. Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. Corvis weren’t the earliest settlers.
Now, none of this would I mind if we hadn’t been taught WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY for years that these theories and suppositions were actual, provable fact.
Now, I don’t intend to get into the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate here–although one certainly could. There are just too many places in the sciences, origin theory being merely the most infamous, where people have repeated theories for so long that students begin to believe those theories are actually proven facts. When they aren’t.
Me, I like to learn things. And I like to ponder things…suppose things…imagine things. So I have no qualms about being taught suppositions, theories, hypotheses, etc. I just like for people to plainly state that these things they’re teaching are, in fact, not facts.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Most things we theorize about are taught as theories (including the theory of evolution and the theory of gravity).
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that educators think students aren’t comfortable without certainty. They do them a disservice when they teach a “fact” that is later refuted. It makes them suspect (rightly) that those in charge may either be lazy (most likely), or have some reason to not tell them that what they are learning is just a theory.
I preface things with the disclaimer “and here’s what know so far, based on x and y evidence.” I think that in the case of human migration to the Americas, for example, it would be hard to teach the Bering land route as just a theory — it is, indeed, how a bunch of people wound up in North America and we’ve got the fossil records to prove that. However, it’s increasingly evident that land wasn’t the only way. So, when I tell students about multiple migration streams among the paleo-Indians and their ancestors, I present the evidence for each stream (which is the interesting bit of where history meets science, which non-majors love). I also point out that we’ll probably find out other things directly.
Thanks, good information. Yes good idea.