PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND PRACTICES - COLUMN 196
call out the misinformation to the author and publisher. This should occur whenever such misinformation is used regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the proposed policy.
In summary, AI can provide useful tools
to do a wide range of tasks. Users of current versions of Microsoft Word (in Microsoft 365) will have noticed that AI-driven gram- mar checks are now part of a program most of us use. But grammar checkers demonstrate that we must evaluate the AI-generated help. Sometimes it is correct and sometimes it is incorrect. The user must make choices. More complex AI programs provide greater challenges but no less need for the user, not AI, to be in charge.
Using the net and AI to develop a test of student thinking
A colleague who teaches Rocks 1 told me about an exercise she used to test her students’ ability to review, critique, and
think about different articles on the same topic, some generated by AI, some not. The question asked was what parts of what articles are correct, what parts are incorrect, and why?
As another exercise example, in 1842 Charles Darwin published a monograph, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836. Darwin’s theory, although missing some important under- pinning, has been supported by modern findings including the observation that part of atoll formation involves crustal sinking as the site of formation moves away from a spreading center. An early and a very worthwhile reading paper (even today) is, History of Ocean Basins, by H.H. Hess (1962) in Petrologic studies, a volume in honor of A.E. Buddington, Geological Society of America, addresses this issue. Hess began with these words: “The birth of the oceans is a matter of conjecture, the subsequent his-
2. Basin and Range is the first of McPhee’s books compiled into Annals of a Former World, 2000.
tory is obscure, and the present structure is just beginning to be understood. Fascinating speculation on these subjects has been plentiful, but not much of it predating the last decade holds water.” John McPhee has observed that these two sentences may be among the funniest comments ever made in a serious scientific paper. Ask students to read and comment on both papers. What is right, what is wrong, and what additional information is required by both papers? Among other things, reading these two papers illustrates that fact that older papers can provide important and useful informa- tion that supports our current understand- ing of a topic.
Another topic for students to explore is
in Basin and Range, 1982,2 John McPhee sums up his exploration of sea floor spread- ing (plate tectonics) with the following sentence: “The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” Why is this an apt sum- mary? How did the survey of India lead to the hypothesis of isostacy? What are the problems with this hypothesis?
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