The scientific literacy level of the whole population has long been focusing the researchers’ attention because of its direct impact on many aspects of our lives. As a matter of fact, studies in cognition have both been inspired by educational issues as well as by misconceptions of scientific ideas often based on irrational beliefs, old theories, unscientific reasoning, or unassimilated conceptual instruction. As a result, individual conceptions are now accurately described in many scientific fields, which has led to improvements in science teaching and learning. However, the community (scientists, academics, high school and primary school teachers, and educators) has not yet succeeded in solving all the issues, so some pre-existing misconceptions still persist in the population. In this paper, we argue that cognition studies must now focus on the origin of individuals’ conceptions and on their modes of acquisition and propagation. The goal is to provide educational tools for acting upstream, during early scientific instruction, before the very acquisition of scientific conceptions.

长期以来，整个人口的科学素养水平一直引起研究人员的关注，因为它直接影响到我们生活的许多方面。事实上，认知研究既受到教育问题的启发，也受到对科学思想的误解的启发，这些误解通常是基于非理性的信念，古老的理论，不科学的推理或未经同化的概念指导。结果，现在在许多科学领域中可以准确地描述各个概念，这导致了科学教学方面的进步。但是，社区（科学家，学者，高中和小学教师以及教育工作者）尚未成功解决所有问题，因此，人们中仍然存在一些先前存在的误解。在本文中，我们认为，认知研究现在必须关注个人观念的起源以及他们的习得和传播方式。目的是提供教育工具，以便在科学概念获得之前，在早期的科学指导过程中采取上游行动。