Dartmouth College professor Kevin Peterson says something he realized early in his career about attitudes toward what science is and what isn’t shaped how he approaches teaching in his classroom.

Peterson will explain the difference between science and nonscience and how to teach science to nonscientists at a free talk at Carroll College Thursday afternoon.

“Science is about trying to show that a particular idea is wrong,” Peterson, a Helena native who teaches molecular paleontology at Dartmouth, said in a phone interview Monday.

Peterson’s talk, sponsored by the Helena Education Foundation, is from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Avila DeSmet room at the Carroll College commons. The event is free and open to the public. He will address how standardized testing is the wrong way to teach.

“It’s always about getting the right answer with standardized testing,” Peterson said. “In science you don’t get right answers, you only know when something is wrong.”

He’ll also talk about creation and evolution and whether they should be taught in schools.

“It has nothing to do with religion or science,” Peterson said. “I can’t prove that life evolved, just that evidence is consistent with the ideas. But a student could come in tomorrow and do an experiment and show that everything we’ve thought about evolution is wrong — that doesn’t mean God didn’t create life.”

Peterson grew up in Helena, graduating from Capital High School in 1985. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Carroll College in 1989, and then a doctorate in paleontology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He became interested in finding a new way to instruct students because of his first experiences teaching at Dartmouth.

Peterson said he was struck by how little students knew about science and what makes it different from other human

endeavors.

He used an example of teaching a class of nonscience majors about dinosaurs. To operate in daily life, Peterson said, students don’t need to know anything about specific bones or what individual dinosaurs look like.

What students should be focusing on is what a scientific argument is.

Peterson said he will also address that issue in Thursday’s lecture.

Peterson is in town for the Helena Education Foundation’s Great Conversations event Thursday at the Great Northern Hotel. He will host a table discussing the topic of science and nonscience.

Reporter Alana Listoe: 447-4081 or alana.listoe@helenair.com