¿Qué aprendemos de las semejanzas entre las ideas históricas y el razonamiento espontáneo de los estudiantes?

Resumen

Many studies are now available concerning the intuitive ideas of children and students in Science, and a large number of these also refer to difficulties encountered in the historical development of theories. This is especially the case in mechanics, which gave rise to parallels between students' misconceptions and Aristotle's or preclassical theories. It is very common to qualify, even with no special justification, such and such intuitive response «Aristotelian». The questions discussed in this paper are the following: —to what extent are such parallels justified? Fot instance, is there a stage in the historical development of mechanics theories which fits the spontaneous reasoning of our students?
—At a second level, what are the implications of such a parallel and what do we learn from this? Does it really help us interpret students' responses and to what extent does it guide our teaching strategies?