[dTal]

It's no more a "comforting lie" than your driving instructor telling you to check your blind spot. Not everyone does it, and bad things happen as a result, but all the more important to teach it.

I'm actually surprised to hear of high school teaching good scientific practice. I don't remember ever being taught that. Widely may it spread.

[SilasX]

Hold on -- there's a category confusion here: "check your blindspots" isn't a comforting lie; it's a command. Converting it to "checking your blindspots will avoid collisions with careless drivers" would make it no longer a lie.

[dTal]

I was pointing out the category confusion. Science teachers don't purport to tell you what scientists actually do (history or sociology teachers might, I suppose, but they don't usually "make such a big deal" out of the scientific method). They purport to teach science.

As you say - it's not a comforting lie, it's a command.

[SilasX]

The "comforting lie" I was referring to was "this is how scientists actually do it and why you can trust the results".

[dTal]

Erm, yes. We established that. And I assert that this is not what science teachers teach.